Christmas Carnage

I hope everyone had a wonderful, food-filled day with lots of friends and family?

Here at the old Warblerneck household, a good time was had by all. Due in part to the invention of a delicious new beverage which will surely become a holiday tradition from now on.

We usually have mimosas with Christmas breakfast: a mixture of Champagne and orange juice. This year, Mom brought Australian sparkling shiraz which was full of purpley, fizzy goodness. We've dubbed it "Kathy's Cold Brook Christmas Cherry Cordial," on account of it's having maraschino cherries in the bottom. And no, we aren't sharing with anyone - it's all gone.

Gift-y highlights:

My friend Ethel made me this awesome little poinsettia bear. Ain't he cute? I just love him!

Lulla's Mom made me cry with this gorgeous Song Sparrow ornament. I have a soft spot for Song Sparrows because there was a pair who lived in my backyard in Baltimore and came back to nest every spring. I named them "Song Sparrow Boy" and "His Wife" and I really, really miss hearing him sing his little heart out on my azalea bushes.

AND - looky looky!! I GOT SNOW SHOES!!!! Yay!!! I'm so unbelievably excited. WHERE is all the snow? There is no damn snow here! What gives?

Check out the bottom of these things - spikes for walking on the icy bits. Neat-o huh? Except there aren't icy bits to walk on either. LET IT SNOW!!!!! (Only at night and on weekends so that the roads are clear and dry when I have to drive on them. Is that too much to ask?)

You may wonder where the "carnage" comes in? Well, I was going to show you the presents Santa brought for Miss Mango. Here they are:

--sigh--
I've got to go now. I've really eaten a lot of food. And then after that, I ate more food. And then I was thirsty...And....BLURK. I shouldn't need to eat again for at least another 15 minutes. Mmmmm....candy.....

Merry Merry!!!

Ah yes. It's the ultimate luxury car. Who needs a fancy-schmancy hood ornament when you can have a machine with one of THESE babies on it? NEW for 2006, it's the Toyota Camry Christmas Edition. Note the smooth curves, the road-salt paint job, and the New York State Christmas Tree accessory package. Now THIS is living.

Let's bring the tree inside and set it up!

Looks nice all by itself, yes? Almost doesn't need any ornaments...But what the hell. Let's add some lights.

Ooh. The lights look great. Maybe we don't need any decorations this year. We could leave it like this.....
Weeeeeellllll. We should probably put a few on....

Very nice. But...needs some more....

Now THAT'S better!

Would you like to see some more?
Here's a close-up of the tree topper. Long ago I used to make teddy bears and I made this angel bear. She looks sad because she was originally part of a set I made for September 11th - it's a long story. But a few years later I needed a tree topper. Her dress is made from doilies that were Lula's Mom's grandmother's. (That's a lot of apostrophes for one little tree topper.)

This little tree has all my painted bird ornaments and also ornaments from my maternal grandmother. The tree topper and toys underneath belonged to my paternal grandmother. (This family stuff gets confusing. But it makes for nice Christmas ornaments.)

These little bears are on top of my book case helping to decorate another tree. The birds are supervising, but they've all still managed to get tangled up anyway.


My fireplace....This year's home for the fish tree, which belongs in the bathroom, but I don't have a space for it yet. That's a tree with fish ornaments on it, not a tree made out of fish, which would be disgusting and un-Christmassey to say the least. (Are you keeping up with all this? The Christmas stuff is very complicated around here.) Ooh - and presents! I wonder what those are??

Now, with all these ornaments, I wonder if you can guess which one is my very favorite?

It's the little skiing man! Ain't he cute? We always had him on our tree when I was little and years ago I had the bright idea that he needed snow to ski on. And THAT, my friends, is why they put those big wads of cotton in pill bottles. It's so we can use it with our Christmas decorations!


Uh-oh. It's getting late. I'd better get to bed before Santa gets here...
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! I love and miss you all and I hope you have a peaceful, happy Christmas!!
MUAH! KISSES!

A Nice Story

I noticed flashing red lights tonight and looked out my window to see several fire and emergency vehicles outside and at the bottom of my hill. "Oh no," I thought. "Someone slid down the hill and had a terrible accident. And it's only the beginning of the winter. What have I done? I've moved to a frozen wasteland of icy roads and terrifying car wrecks. What am I going to do?!" As I stood at the window watching, the firetrucks began to move slowly up the hill. No wait - an ambulance in front, then a truck pulling a trailer, then a firetruck in back. What's going on?

My street dead-ends on an unplowed dirt road and the trucks had to drive past my house to turn around, then come back down past me again. As the caravan went by on the way up I realized - they weren't carting away broken, bloody bodies at all. IT WAS SANTA CLAUS ON THE FIRETRUCK!!! SANTA!!! SANTA!!!

I ran for my coat, then out onto the back porch to wait for them to head back. Then I waved like an idiot and yelled "Merry Christmas!" as they drove by.

Yippeeee!

....Only one beer. Why do you ask?

Wendy's Handy Household Hints

So I bet you're wondering why a nice girl like me has a bottle of olive oil in the tub? Well let me just tell you. See this cat?

Yeah, this one. With the shifty eyes and the matted fur? This morning, Jessica got stuck on a sticky trap - yes - with a dead mouse. I suspect the mouse wasn't dead when she first got stuck, but she ain't talking. I found her walking around the house with the trap stuck to her front paw. This was after I got out of the shower (of course) and before I'd gotten dressed (also of course). As I frantically tried to find the tie to my bathrobe I asked Zeke why he didn't tell me the cat was in trouble. I think he actually rolled his eyes at me.

Since she'd been stomping around on the trap for God knows how long, it was firmly stuck to her foot and I had to use olive oil to get it off her paw. This involved locking her in the bathroom, running to the kitchen for the bottle and then having to shove the cat away from the door so I could get inside. As she had crammed herself right up against it, mouse and trap briefly popped under the door like a puppet show from hell.

Putting olive oil on a cat's paw isn't as neat and tidy a job as you might think, even when you put the cat in the bathtub to do it. She was pretty much covered in it when I was done. And I had to leave the bottle on the edge of the tub as a reminder to clean up the mess, so I don't kill myself slipping in olive oil tomorrow morning. What an embarassing way to die. They would wonder what the hell I was doing in there.

Erm...

So my dilemma is this: I need to update the blog. But all the stuff going on in my life right now seems to involve preparations for Christmas and it would spoil the surprise. I'm working on....I just found....I sent away for.....and I'm really excited about it because I'm going to.....

See? So what's a girl to do? Go back to watching re-runs of Miami Vice I suppose, and keep working on that....thing.