Mamaw's Yard pt. 2

Mamaw never knew what she had bought us for Christmas. After opening gifts on Christmas morning she’d often say, “Let me see what I got you.” She’d give mom the money for us and trust that mom would get us what we needed. This particular year she’d bought me a pair of American Eagle khaki pants and I was pleased as punch.

Another of our family talents is our penchant to make Christmas last as long as possible. Growing up I always enjoyed this tradition of making the holidays last longer. First of all it gave me more opportunities to wear my new Christmas clothes over the holiday break (hello new khakis!)  But also I loved holding my relatives hostage in Pound at Mamaw’s house, once they all left I’d still be there and I appreciated the company. Therefore, Osborne Christmas dinner is not held until December 26 each year.  

No one gets to sit around waiting on dinner, everyone’s given a job. In the last years of Mamaw’s life she’d encourage me to hone my domesticity around the holidays. For example, the year I got married when she pronounced this would be the year she would let me make the chocolate pies. But in my middle school days the tasks entrusted to me were much simpler though still never anything I looked forward to.

On the third day of Christmas and no doubt thanks to the confidence I possessed in my new pants I was sent to the dairy on the hill to fetch two jars of something I couldn’t be bothered to remember the name of. Chow chow? Kraut? Whatever it was I knew it would not make its way onto my plate.

The back yard is a hillside with 5 little rinky-dink steps on the steepest part. I carefully took the steps up and opened the creepy door to the dairy, ducked my head to enter and pulled the chain so the single light bulb could illuminate the spider webs and mystery jars. I retrieved my treasure swiftly and with jars in both hands headed toward home.  

Although disgusted by their contents I knew that much like pimpin’, cannin’ ain’t easy. So when I missed one of those pathetic little skinny steps and began to fall my priority was securing the jars! Unfortunately, this made a casualty of the Christmas khakis.

The only thing injured was my pride, Christmas dinner was served (complete with the mystery canned goods from 1980) and Mamaw patched the knee of my pants with a stiff piece of fabric that never gave the way the knees of pants should. A sobering reminder of my clumsiness each time I wore them and attempted to sit down.

Even now, grown and with a garden of my own, I’m still a disappointment to her (she is a mountain mamaw after all).  I haven’t learned to use the sewing machine she left me so that I can patch my own clothes. I’ve never mastered pie-making and my canning recipes come from Pinterest. But each time I use my water-bath canner, gather eggs from the chickens or slice a cucumber I’d like to think she notices and is proud. 

Holiday in Pictures

As one dear cousin put it "we made it through the holidays kids." It may not seem like much but with each passing year I am more and more impressed with mine and Drew's ability to simply survive the holidays. We were home for almost a week and we were booked up non-stop till today. But plenty of fun was had by most:

 

 

The highlights: Christmas jammies, Drew was Santa, made some ornaments, babies, friends. There were other notable occurrences that do not have a picture but just know it was a lovely holiday, we enjoyed it and we are happy to be back home. Hope your holiday was merry and bright!

Thankfulness Recently

Lately, I'm grateful for:

Friends who can enjoy some trivia after a successful semester.

A good book that I can read for pleasure and still learn from.

A (discounted) membership at the YMCA to whip this butt into shape after the holidays (and hopefully help my cyber Monday jeans to fit a little better).

4 hour long car ride conversations with my husband.

Memories of past holidays with my mamaw and the ability to cling to them this year.

A snuggly puppy to be lazy with on my days off.

Time to reflect on the Christmas season before rushing all around during the holiday.

A Packer's comeback victory over the Cowboys.

Getting Christmas cards in the mail every day.

Pictures of this cutie patootie in her new hat.

And I'm thankful for a family who will still gather without our matriarch to honor and remember her this Christmas.

Hope you all are enjoying this holiday season and not feeling overwhelmed or rushed. Take a moment to breathe in the winter air and listen to this song, it will help remind you why this season is important.

 

Hipster found the wiffy

This marks day 3 without Internet in our loft. Which would be no big deal if I weren't counting on these days to get all of my work done before we travel for Thanksgiving. But not to worry I've found some free "wiffy" as Nick would say on New Girl.

It is snowing, I found a coffee shop with free wiffy within a very short walking distance. Even the fact that my bag carrying my laptop broke and landed hard on the sidewalk can't bring me down today. If I'm being honest this is just how I pictured life here. Always with snow.

We've settled in. Minus our bedroom. Our luggage is still full of my shoes which I don't know what to do with, I suppose a shoe rack is in order.

My Christmas cards are addressed ready to be mailed!

 

Drew's commute is now 15 minutes as opposed to an hour and I haven't driven anywhere since I drove here Friday. Going green baby.

Ike is still adjusting. He hasn't been able to get all of his energy out but he makes a friend every time we step outside of our building. He is popular on Kirk Ave. to say the least.

I am going to need some practical wardrobe additions living here:
1. Rain coat
2. Snow boots
3. Sturdy backpack
Guess those will be my Christmas presents.

Also, I kicked ass in fantasy football this week. That doesn't happen often so I'm gonna brag.

And lastly, I'm a hipster in the city. It helps keep my ears warm.

Clearly, I can no longer string together cohesive thoughts. Sorry friends. This is my end of the semester brain. I'm an expert on reading strategies at the moment, not blogging.

Tomorrow we are heading home for turkey, family, friends and plenty of things to be thankful for. Hope you all have an awesome holiday.

A Christmas Conundrum

We did Christmas differently this year. Something akin to a John Grisham novel I read years ago. We still put up the tree, had holiday parties and ate enough to carry us into the new year. But we ditched the gifts.

I remember being little and my mom always saying she did not like to receive gifts and as a child I found that very strange. But now I totally get it. It's a lot of pressure to open up a gift in front of the buyer, especially when you have a terrible poker face like me. I was never very dramatic as a child and often came across ungrateful in the gift reaction department.

And even the lack of gift giving wasn't a wholehearted effort. We still bought Chinese Christmas gifts for 3 different parties. But buy and in large we didn't buy gifts. This isn't a completely new thing for us. Drew and I have never done gifts for one another. So we just took it to the next level. No gifts from us and no gifts to us.

The response from our families was varied. From silence, to the rolling of eyes to all out unwillingness to accept the fact that Meg and Drew were scrooges this year. Part of it was money. We didn't really have extra money for tons of gifts this year.

But bigger than that was the realization of how little the two of us need. Christmas is my favorite time of year and not having gifts was not going to affect how excited I am to go home and drink punch until my teeth are red and eat my weight in sausage balls.

The realization was not only about us and how much crap we already have but also the realization of who is really in need. I did find myself trying to rationalize buying my 13 year old brother something, because "he's still a kid." But let's face it, homeboy didn't need anything. The money we put aside each month as giving money we used to give to others this holiday season.

I'm not writing to pat ourselves on the back or condemn those of you who got some awesome new gifts, (I know there are some of you out there who are 26 years old and with child who just love to unwrap gifts and I get it) but I'm writing to inspire. To inform you that it's okay to speak up and say we want to do things differently. You can inspire others, I know many of my family members who came to me and said they were so grateful to be able to give to others this year. And frankly, it's okay to feel guilty. Because for the last few Christmases as I sat in a room full of adults (mostly) opening gifts I couldn't help but think the whole thing was ridiculous. I wonder how my heart will feel when we have little ones but my hope is that it's something similar to this: A Holy Experience

That particular blog post changed my view on so much and I'm so grateful that it's become a part of us.

And in the interest of full disclosure I did receive a beautiful handmade scarf. Along with the most anxiety-ridden gift ever: a sewing machine. (which I asked my grandmother if I could return to her if I can't figure it out).

To which she replied: "well if you take it up there thinking you can't do nothin' with it then I guess you won't." Prayers appreciated as I attempt to make her not embarrassed of me proud.

I realize I use this picture a lot but it just sums so much up. And that cute little bird is just a sangin'

Christmas in pictures



 

 

 

 

These are all pretty self-explanatory, right?

Another whirlwind holiday with lots of food, family and good times. Hope you all had a blessed holiday. More details to come about how we do Christmas a little differently.

Holiday Hoop-la

Here I am in probably the most hectic week of my entire semester and what am I doing? Oh, that's right I'm blogging. Help me Jesus.

Drew and I very much enjoyed our holiday festivities. We traveled to North Carolina to see some of his extended family for a quick trip. It was a great visit and we don't get to see that family nearly as much as we would like. But it was good to get to sit down and talk with them.

We left from there and headed to the Pound where there was no shortage of events. We watched my brother play 2 basketball games. Had our Christmas card pics done. Two Thanksgiving dinners on Thursday. Drinks with old friends on Friday. Two trees to help put up and we couldn't pass up some baby time with Jackson. Oh and Drew spent most everyday in the woods. It certainly didn't feel like a week off but it was a good hectic. We saw a lot of people and got to do some of the things we love about home.

But after all of the going it's nice to be back home. I get to enjoy my Christmas tree again and spend some time with our friends here for the holidays. We are having our small group Christmas party here next week and I'm very excited for that. Side note: What do you all call a gift exchange you do for a large group of people where you can take gifts from each other? My friend Nicole asked if we wanted to do "white elephant" at the Christmas party. Which I assumed was a drug reference and naturally said "of course!" I'm only partially kidding. My family has always called that "Chinese Christmas" which I'm now not sure is PC. Others have said yankee swap, but I'm not a yankee so I don't care for that. Or dirty Santa which sounds worse than white elephant to me. So I'm on the hunt for an appropriate name and taking suggestions....

In even more exciting news, I'm going to be an auntie to a sweet baby girl in April. Between my Shelby girl, sweet little Jackson and little one to come I could just squeal. I'm in no rush to have one but thank goodness for friends and family members who share their little ones with me. One of my favorite memories from the Thanksgiving holiday was Shelby (who is 2 years old mind you) saying "I've got everybody I need." Oh I could just eat her up. Not to mention getting to see some of Drew's cousins we don't get to see often. They were some of the sweetest most loving little ones. I'll just tell you, holidays are no fun without kiddos.

There was also, however, a sad realization while I was at home. My sister and I volunteered to put up my granny's Christmas tree. On our way to her house it dawned on us that neither of us know how to put lights on a tree. So we just hoped it was pre-lit.

It was not.

So after a couple of failed attempts and a pitiful phone call to my daddy, he saved the day. We still put the ornaments on it but I mean come on, Ike could have done that. The main thing is, the job was done. Nevermind that the two people who volunteered did not do it.

I blame my mother, she never allowed us to decorate the tree. And now I blame Wal-Mart & Target because the 2 trees I have bought have both been pre-lit. So the sad realization is: I'm useless. Plus those branches are prickly.

Be on the lookout for our Christmas card. And if you aren't on our mailing list here is a highlight. Feel free to print it off because honestly, who doesn't want a picture of a damn cute dog and two awkward adults on their fridge? Thanks to Drew's cousin Kacey for making us look halfway presentable, she is a magician I tell ya!