It's Amy Anderson. Cool.

17
Dec, 2009

FELIZ NAVIDAD!

Aubrey gets into the holiday spirit with her new santa hat, watching Charlie Brown Christmas, in front of the Christmas tree.

Yesterday, I walked out into the living room to discover Aubrey put one of her maracas into the Christmas tree! Very festive, indeed! Feliz Navidad everyone!

I’m off to the store to buy ingredients to make chili. It may be 80 degrees here in the Valley today, but it’s still wintertime. Hey, it DOES get cold at night, so it’s time for comfort foods. I’m also going to make homemade gingerbread and cookies for friends as gifts. Not sure what kind of cookies yet though. What are your favorite Christmas cookies? I’m partial to snickerdoodles and sugar cookies, myself. I also like to make toffee bars and spritz. I really like to bake!

Hope you have a great day everyone!

The Tree is UP! Whoopee!

Happy season’s greetings to all! This is the first year I decided to put up a tree and it’s pretty cute. It does cheer the house up. I’d leave it up all year, just for fun, if it wasn’t another thing to dust.

I’m a bit of a scrooge during this time of the year because, well, for many reasons:

1) I’m not religious at all, so Christmas or Hanukkah aren’t super meaningful to me. In fact, since I’m not religious, Christmas and Hanukkah just seem more and more to me about commercialism and the having of STUFF. I don’t like stuff.

2) This is the slowest time of the year for my work which means I’m usually pretty lean in the pockets and frustrated because I’m not working as much as I want to be

3) I am the single mom of a child who spends part of her time at her dad’s. Last year and this year, she is going to her other house for Christmas, which means I will be completely ALONE! (Boyfriend is going out East to visit family and I have opted not to spend $900 on a plane ticket to visit people I’ve never met before)

4) I’m just not a sentimental person. I try sometimes, but it’s not really me.

I do enjoy the spirit of the holidays and the ideas of giving and togetherness, but this year, as last year, I will be going to a bunch of movies with a couple of friends. Aubrey and I will open gifts from grandparents either before she leaves for her dad’s around the 23rd, or after she gets back after Christmas.

I do wonder if my daughter will be bummed out that we don’t have hard core Christmas traditions? I’d rather have other traditions I guess – like something for her birthday.

But back to the tree. I did buy a tree and we have enjoyed having it here. There are a few ornaments in particular, that Aubrey loves to play with and is determined to break. She already broke the oldest one I have and honestly, it was ok with me. It’s just a thing.

On Christmas day, the Wal Mart tree will be sitting in my living room, all by itself, in the dark, with the lights off. Lame, huh? Let me know when January is here!

Number Nine. Slow. Friends. Random.

Let me introduce you to my friends: Apple & Pumpkin

I’ve said it before, but I’d just like to re-state that Daniel Day-Lewis is totally my make-believe boyfriend. He’s yummy and he has that cute accent and he’s also brilliant. So, I’m really excited to see the new Rob Marshall movie, Nine. No endorsement here, I’m just lusting over DDL because I saw him on Oprah a few days ago.

I’m not usually super excited to see movie musicals, but any chance to see Daniel Day-Lewis sing and do a bunch of make out scenes? I’m there. It’s also cool to live in Los Angeles because we will get to see it before the rest of the country. Major release is on Dec 25.

Hmmmm… what other mundane thoughts are running through my head? This is a really lame time of the year for me every year. Work is slow, I go broke, I mope around because the phone isn’t ringing and then in January, things pick right back up again. It’s the two or so months of slow that make me insane though and I’m right in the middle of the insane period. Ugh.

Oh, Thanksgiving! My friend since 7th grade, Stacy, and her hubby Mike and boys, Brendan and Keenan, came for Thanksgiving. They were here for three nights and we had a great time watching the kids play and say things like, “Close the door and I’ll show you my pumpkin!” No one got seriously hurt and nothing got broken EXCEPT, the pumpkin (which is mendable with some duct tape). It was a holiday miracle!

The day after, we visited Nicholas Canyon Beach and played in the tide pools, stopped for tacos and burritos and then went home to swim in the pool. Yay for life in SoCal! It really was a fun few days and Aubrey and I were sad to see our friends leave.

Aubrey, Brendan & Keenan

Now I have this weird allergy/cold combo thing (not sure what it is) that just won’t go away. If I had some work right now, I’d go see my acupuncturist and she’d knock it right out, but I need to save my money for diapers and food and gasoline and other fun things like that. Sigh… OK, I’m being such a Debbie Downer. Sorry. Next post will be cheerier…