Jan. 2: Tevye said (sang) (hollered?) it best

Over the past 15 years as a family of 3-4, we’ve created some traditions to help make our Christmas season special and memorable—that’s what traditions are for, right? The kids know they always get new PJs on Christmas Eve, which they open after we’ve finished our Chinese food dinner. Sometimes they get to open another gift, but we choose the gift because I am Controlling And Overbearing Mrs. Claus, or so they say. Actually, we wait to put most the gifts under the tree until the kids have gone to bed (they’re not Santa believers, we just like to see the looks on their faces when they come down on Christmas morning). They know they’re not allowed to start opening presents until Vic and I each have a cup of coffee in our hands. Depending on what other family members we’re with on Christmas, the rest of the day’s activities vary from year to year.

I cling to our long-standing traditions, but I like to try out new ones here and there too. In recent years, I’ve made a point to prepare an extra-yummy Christmas morning breakfast/brunch. We don’t always sit down together to eat, but when each of us gets hungry, I like to have something delicious ready. This year I planned two dishes: my bodacious frit-TATA (originally Debi’s recipe, but tweaked into my own) and eggnog baked French toast. Both required preparation the night before.

Although I can’t seem to find the frittata recipe on my blog, I’m sure I’ve shared it before. Basically, it’s potatoes, cheese, eggs, and sausage. Savory. Delicious.

Here’s the French toast recipe we followed. It was new to us. We enjoyed it immensely, and its very sweet, Christmas-flavored goodness was the perfect companion to the frittata. 

The new part of this Christmas breakfast tradition—and my favorite part, the one I hope stays—is that Katie and Jack prepared the frittata and French toast. The only thing I really did was put them in the oven on Christmas morning. We loved turning the chef responsibilities over to them, and they loved all the compliments from our stuffed moufs. :)

“Tradition!” Those Anatevkans were really onto something.

Dec. 31: Month in review

Buh-bye, December.

special days i celebrated this month and how:

• Well, duh. Christmas. It was pretty great.
• For our celebration with the Nienhuises, Sonya did a Grinch feast—roast beast, Who hash, Who buns, Grinch bean casserole, Grinch salad with artichoke hearts (two sizes too small), and Who pudding… our contribution was the Grinch cocktails, which were green and contained booze and that means they were good and that’s all that matters.
• On Christmas Eve, we did our traditional Chinese dinner. Yum.
• We had a few ideas for what we’d do on Christmas Day, but it turned out that we all stayed in our jammies and spent the day enjoying our gifts. No complaints.

i saw things with my eyes:

• Guardians of the Galaxy. Action movies are probably my least favorite kinds of movies, but I like Chris Pratt and the movie didn’t totally suck. Best part: the Howard the Duck cameo after the credits. Did you know Howard the Duck was a Marvel character? Me neither! Crazy.
• I’ve been watching The Comeback on HBO. The Valerie character drives me nuts, so I spread the episodes out over quite a bit of time. The last few episodes really were well done. It’s a funny show, and deserved its return to TV.
• Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. If you’re not watching it, well, I’ll watch it enough for both of us and I’m totally fine with that.
• We went through the regular Christmastime viewings of A Christmas Story, Christmas Vacation, The Polar Express, Elf, Olive, the Other Reindeer, Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas, and White Christmas. It wouldn’t be the holidays without seeing those movies at least fourteen times each.
• I started reading Yes, Please, by Amy Poehler. Love her.

this month’s good and bad:

• Good: Christmas was fun.
• Bad: we were all sick for way too long. Vic got hit hardest.
• Good: I’m done with physical therapy! I hated physical therapy! I mean, it wasn’t as bad as breaking my ankle, but it still sucked. And yes, it did some good, and yes, my range of motion has improved, but you are totally ruining my cheer over being done so just STAHP.
• Bad: my mother-in-law had her hip replaced. That makes it sound like no big deal—“she had her hip replaced,” like “she got a new blender”—but, of course, it wasn’t just a teensy little procedure. Once they decided it needed to be done, she wanted to get it over with, so the surgery was just before Christmas and kinda messed up their celebration. BUT she feels much better, so the good part is that she’s on her way to dealing with much less pain than she’s had in the past year.
• Good: we got new iPhones. New gadgets are mostly not annoying. I’m loving the camera quality most, I think. Victor likes the bigger screen.
• Bad: my blog design got all messed up. I noticed some weird stuff a few months ago, but yesterday it was completely farked. It wasn’t me trying to tweak things; it was Blogger and that gives me frowny face. I’ll work on it. Eventually.
• Good: Mother Mary and I got a bunch of house projects done while she was here for Christmas. I love feeling productive, but I especially love my extremely clean floors, the new things in our family room, and my very organized kitchen.
• Bad: our kids’ winter break seems especially long this year, and I know that makes me a rotten mom, but I really, really hope they go back to school soon.

i likes to share pics I’ve found on the ‘net:

 

This one’s for you, Dina. (And me.)

 

sooo… what’s next?

I’m going to try to kick-start my blog back into action by posting every day in January. I know, right?! Don’t worry, you don’t have to read it.

This year wasn’t our worst one ever, but it won’t exactly be featured prominently in our memory books, either. Bring on 2015!  

Dec. 29: All about Christmas

I’d like to start this post by sending out birthday wishes to people I failed to say “happy birthday” to on Facebook over the past few days because I’m a big loser-y friend. Also, these people deserve extra recognition because they have some of the suckiest birthdays in all of the possible birthdays:

• Jen E
• Stephanie
• my brother-in-law, Chris
• Lisa H-S
• Fancy Lori™

Here’s your cake. Sorry, you’ll all have to share.

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I know everyone was talking about SIMPLIFYING this Christmas, but you know what else is pretty great? Getting spoiled rotten. And even better, spoiling someone else rotten. That’s what ended up happening in our house, and each of us loved every minute of it. Soooo… simplify all you want. Maybe the Manullangs will try it next year.

In most other ways, though, Christmas was slightly less festive for us than it is most years.

Our Christmas season is always exceptionally long because we compile holiday music that goes out with a lot of our cards, and sometimes I start gathering those tunes in July. My kids have grown accustomed to hearing “Let It Snow” long before they’ve even dreamed of a day off school. Because of this, I don’t always love listening to Christmas music non-stop from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day. In fact, sometimes hearing it makes me Scrooge-y. Not Grinch-y—I don’t want the music to go away, I just don’t want to hear it for, like, A MINUTE IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK OMG IMMA KILL SOMEONE. At least one local radio station plays Christmas music 24/7 from mid-November on, and sometimes it’s all just a little much, y’know? I’m not sure exactly why, but this year it bothered me more than it has in the past.

Victor was sick and energy-less for the first two weeks of December, so our holiday decorating—which is always a family affair, just like the Bible says—was delayed. Jack and I put up exterior lights in mid-December, more for our neighbors’ sake than ours. I put out all our plush singing snowmen but didn’t bother battery-ing them up. And we didn’t even decorate our tree until December 21, which was so late we considered not doing it at all—but ultimately, decided Christmas morning just wouldn’t be the same if we weren’t gathered around a tree. I usually decorate all over the house. This year it just didn’t happen. I had the Christmas spirit, but when it turned mid-December and our house looked decidedly un-Christmas-y, I really just wanted to enjoy other people’s efforts, not my own. I think the kids were feeling that way too. I suggested we go to Zoo Lights or the PIR display, and their response was “why?” Pfffftt. I tried. (Kinda.)

It was the evening of the 25th when I looked at the tree and thought, “Yep, this has been up long enough.” And on the 26th, I undecorated it. I put away all the Christmas gift bags and wrap. I put away the snowmen (and only had to remove batteries from this year’s). The stockings, which were never really hung by the chimney with care anyway, have been boxed up. Christmas is D-O-N-E done.

Pretty much the only thing that happened as it does every year was our Christmas card. Here’s the letter we sent:

Dear friends and family,

Honestly? This year was kind of craptacular. I mean, we’re all still alive, but, y’know, just barely.

Victor turned 50 in July. As expected, he immediately began to fall asleep amid crowds of people, yell at kids to get off our lawn, and misplace his teeth.

Katie is now (pause for effect…) in high school. She took out her ear buds long enough to be a counselor for Safety Town last summer. In February, she’ll turn 15 — she’s both eager AND the right amount of nervous about driving. She’s in her seventh year of piano, and loves being in a high school choir. Feel free to ask her any question — she knows everything, or at least more than anyone else in our house does. Oh, and apparently we embarrass her constantly. Teens are FUN.

Jack, 13, played football again this year. He and his buddies are the best players in all of history. The constant phone calls from NFL scouts have become annoying, and now they’re going to have to compete with the NBA; Jack recently started playing in a basketball league. As the refs can attest, he was a natural at picking up his latest language: trash talk. We pretend he doesn’t belong to us more often than I’d like to admit. Personally, I’m most proud of The Boy’s budding chef skills — he loves to prepare entire meals for us and his friends. He’s still taking piano lessons, but he wants you to know he hates them.

Katie and Jack went with their grandparents and cousins to California for a family wedding this summer. They made time to visit three theme parks, much to our envy. Victor and I will eventually forgive our kids for going to Disneyland without us, but these things take time. (Oh, and we also regret missing Elissa’s wedding. Of course.)

My clumsiness continues to know no bounds; I broke my ankle in May and spent the rest of the year in a cast and/or humiliating physical therapy sessions. I’m convinced that physical therapists are nothing but sadist pranksters. Also in the category of “stuff that sucked this year,” my ongoing cancer testing took us on the least fun roller coaster ever. More scans and pokes will happen in January, and with them we hope for more definitive answers than we were given in 2014. The up-side is that, thanks to my excessive exposure to radiation, our house glows even without Christmas lights.

We adopted a sweetheart of a beagle in June. Maya was rescued from an abusive situation, and we feel honored to give her the love and comfort she deserves. Lucy is happy to have another critter with which to share the blame for the ongoing destruction of The House of Manullang.

After years of making gemstone jewelry for myself, I started sharing more widely by selling it online. Intrigued? :) I’m at etsy.com/shop/DearGirlJewelry.

Other things we had the privilege to enjoy: my new, not at all ancient-sounding great-aunt status (“former step-great aunt,” if you wanna be picky AND I DON’T) … a book reading/signing with the always-delightful Armistead Maupin … trips to see Sonya’s family … being a top fundraising team at our fifth Relay for Life … seeing our niece/cousin, Abby, perform in Pippi Longstocking with Bellevue Youth Theater … a huge party celebrating Vic’s 50th … floor seats at the Justin Timberlake concert (thanks, Sher!) … trips to Mother Mary’s … and local productions of The Producers, Dreamgirls, and Fiddler on the Roof.

As always, I share a few of the things said in or around our house this year:

“We stocked up at the liquor store across the California border. It’s not Disneyland, but if you ask me, it’s still one of the happiest places on Earth.“

Jack: “Dad’s a wifey boy.”
Me: “What’s that?”
Jack: “It’s like a momma’s boy. He does everything you say.”

“No, of course I don’t mind taking Jack to practice today. Totally unrelated, but have you noticed that all of his football coaches have blue eyes?”

[An impromptu Frozen singalong? Don’t mind if we do!] “Hey, where’d the kids go?”

ER doc: “What happened?”
Me: “My Danskos tried to kill me.”

“Well, the surgeon didn’t actually use the word ‘bionic,’ but I’m sure that’s what he meant.”

Dina: “Let me know if you need anything.” 
Me: “I need a walking cast and a house with no stairs.” 
Dina: “I have a cane and a tent.” 

“Today a physical therapist, whose pants were clearly on fire, told me I am ‘very graceful.’ I laughed so hard, I fell off the balance ball, hit my head on the stationary bike, and while pulling myself up off the floor, got to second base with the patient on the leg press.”

K&J challenged each other to say three words that describe their mother. Katie says right away, “She’s pretty, awesome, and tough” (I sooo ? that poor blind girl). Jack thinks for way too long and finally says, “Do they have to be *nice* words?”

“Inspired by my unfortunate lunch out today, my new band name is Pube Sandwich.”

As 2014 closes, we feel more grateful than ever for family and dear friends. Our hope is that you’re spending the holidays with people you can tolerate, and, if not, that you have easy access to the quantity of alcohol you require. AND: may the coming year be your best one yet. 

Jen

(and Vic, Katie, Jack, Millie, Lucy, and Maya)

And the photo card that went out with the letter:

So, that’s it for the 2014 Christmas season. It came and went. We loved the Christmas-y part, but the rest sorta sucked and we’re ready for 2015. Bring it on.

Dec. 30: Month in review

This was December. No doubt you were aware.

Special days I celebrated this month and how:

• My father-in-law turned another year older. No one knows for sure how old he is. Apparently his sisters disagree with the date on his birth certificate and have debated his actual birthdate since the beginning of time. Well, the beginning of Wellington’s time, anyway. Aaaanyway… we celebrated like we do every year: we went out for brunch and at the end he paid.
• It was also our niece Presley’s TENTH birthday this month! How is she already ten years old???
• Sonya’s husband, Chris, had a birthday too.
• A bunch of friends had birthdays. Don’t you December birthday people know how much it sucks to be born in December? You shoulda thought of that a long time ago. If I do shout-outs I know I’ll miss some, but here goes anyway: Dorothy, Michael, Cassie, Greg, Jen E, Stephanie, Lisa, Fancy Lori™, Terri, Cindi. I know I forgot someone there. Sorry.
• Dur, this month was Christmas. Yes, I celebrated Christmas, not because I’m a Christian, but because my family has always celebrated Christmas and I love the traditions of the holiday season. What I do not love is people being jackasses about it being CHRISTmas. I know, I know, Linus has been reminding us since 1965 that Christmas is too commercial and frequently Nativity story-free. But why aren’t we all taking responsibility for that, since few of us actually celebrate ONLY the Christ of Christmas? Why do the “Christians” (quotes because the Sarah Palin types are not very Christ-like, in my opinion) blame the atheists, Jews, and whoever it is that celebrates Kwanzaa (I don’t know any black people who do…) for it? The whole thing is just ridiculous.  
• P.S. I’ve said “happy holidays” for years because it’s shorter than saying “merry Christmas” and “happy new year.” It’s not because I’m hyper-sensitive to other types of celebrations this time of year; I’m being succinct. So if I say “happy holidays” to you, please don’t accuse me of being the whole reason there’s a war on Christmas. Just be grateful I said something with good intentions behind it. Gah!

Moving on…

I was in the audience:

• Jack’s music class performed at the mall one afternoon. They didn’t have microphones and, well, have you tried to carry on a conversation inside a mall in December? It was impossible to hear them. They looked cute though.
• Unfortunately, we could hear them much better when they performed again at a winter concert at the school the next week. I know they’re kids and I shouldn’t be critical, but I don’t blame them for the awfulness; I blame the people in charge. First, the music teachers need to take the songs down a few keys—very few people sound good singing at the top of their range, and none of those people are in the middle school choir. Secondly, kids need to be given more than a week’s worth of class periods to rehearse before performing in front of an audience. The real bummer of it was that some of the kids were quite good and had obviously practiced outside of class, but they were drowned out by the ones who couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.
• On the other hand, it was lovely to have actual Christmas music performed in a public school setting. Maybe people are starting to freak out less about having to be so PC in December??? One can hope.
• We watched lots of our favorite Christmas movies. They’ve become a tradition in which I find great delight.
• Psych the Musical: it was big, silly fun.
• This month we watched both Sherlock Holmes movies starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. I liked them very much. RDJ wasn’t the worst Brit ever.

Gifts I gave and/or received:

I’m not going to list every single thing that was under our pagan, unJesus-y tree this year, but here were some of the biggest hits:

• The kids got an Xbox One for our newly-created media room (formerly my office). It’s super-creepy when I walk in there and “Hi, Jennifer!” appears on the TV.
• Another media room addition was a wireless printer, which I am looooving—I can print from my iPhone or iPad anywhere in the house. Why didn’t I get one sooner? So convenient.
• I hand-painted more glass goodies for gifts.
• Totally not exciting but still awesome: vacuum cleaner! Everything in our house constantly has a fine layer of Lucy-ness, and this new little wonder picks it up surprisingly well.
• I discovered these sports fan glasses on Etsy and had a pair made for one of our nieces. I think they’re way fun.

This month’s good and bad:

• There was much whining about this last month, and here’s some more: Victor had to work on Christmas Day. Pfffftt. We did everything on Christmas Eve, and when he got home the next day we went to Wellington and Darlene’s for a traditional turkey dinner. It would have sucked a lot more if not for the Xbox and the company of Mother Mary.
• I got my office cleaned out and the kids’ media room stuff moved in. Instead of tossing all my office things into boxes and moving them  into the hallway, I actually sorted every drawer and shelf. I threw away TONS of stuff, donated about the same amount, and organized all that was left over. It’s not perfect, but it’s closer than it ever has been. I think the hardest part of organizing, for me, is making decisions. I start out with piles like “file,” “shred,” “toss,” “donate,” and then as I go I add more piles, like “give to [specific person],” “sell on eBay” (which I probably won’t do), “put in a scrapbook,” “store somewhere, ANYWHERE else,” “file in that home organization binder I keep thinking I’ll create but never get around to because it requires too many decisions.”
• I floated a couple times this month. I’m enjoying floating more than ever, and truly feel refreshed and renewed for days afterward. If you haven’t floated, I recommend it. Highly.
• Victor is super-sicky today. He’s running a fever, doing the cold sweat thing, and generally feels miserable. This afternoon my throat started feeling scratchy, and now I’m worried I’m coming down with the same thing—just in time for a very non-memorable, now-all-our-plans-are-cancelled New Year’s Eve. Stoopid germs.

newsy bits from in and around our family:

• Katie’s done with the first major phase of her braces! In mid-February she’ll get the spacing appliance removed and have the railroad tracks put on her top teeth. Brace yourself (haha)—she’s a big baby when in pain.
• Jack told me today that his favorite food is ramen noodles, drained of all moisture and with no seasoning whatsoever. What is wrong with that boy??? Blech.
• A while back I mentioned that my last post-cancer treatment checkup had shown some weird stuff. I wasn’t being intentionally vague, but some of you have asked about it since and I want to clarify with a bit more detail. Here goes.
  
  My regularly-scheduled January 2013 CT showed a single lymph node that was several centimeters larger than the scan in July 2012. The radiologist recommended a PET scan, which showed no new cancer growth—they decided the lymph node was enlarged for no apparent reason (totally normal in a person who hasn’t had lymphoma, but a red flag for someone who has). I was advised to have another CT in six months.
  
  Even though my cancer was still in remission, I was frustrated because January 2013 was supposed to be the last of my 6-month checks. I desperately wanted to get my port removed, but figured I should keep it since I had another checkup on the calendar. I went in for a CT in July 2013 and there were 4-5 enlarged lymph nodes. Some of them were two and three times what they had been in January 2013—but we’re still talking millimeters/centimeters; it’s not as concerning as it might seem (apparently). Still, given my history, my oncologist said we would keep our eyes on those nodes. On the radiologist’s recommendation, we scheduled a PET scan for January 2014.
  
  Again, this is frustrating because I can’t have my port removed yet—and I have to go to the chemo room every six weeks to have it flushed and I HATE being back there, even briefly—but also because I just want to be DONE with cancer. Grrrrr.
  
  My next PET scan will be January 23, and I’ll see my oncologist on the 28th. Think good thoughts, please.

I likes to share the silly stuff:

I know I just posted silly pics the other day. Here are a few more.

 

 

  

Tomorrow I’ll post my YEAR in review. You are on pins and needles waiting. I know this. 

Dec. 25: Merry Christmas!

I hope your day has gone well and Santa brought you everything you want in spite of that horrible war on Christmas no one even knew we were having. Here’s our Christmas letter for 2013, with Katie and Jack photo goodness at the end:

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Dear [your name]:

This is probably the only Christmas letter you’ll receive this year that will not end with you sarcastically clapping at someone else’s accomplishments. You’d think having nothing to report would mean I shouldn’t bother writing a letter this year, in which case, HI! You must be new here.

So yeah, not much changed for us in 2013. Victor still works his same job at which he was given no promotions or recognition worth mentioning. I still work occasionally, also with no promotions; in fact, I kinda got fired from my volunteer job. Katie (almost 14) is in eighth grade and Jack (12) is in sixth. They don’t have jobs.

Like last year, Katie competed in cross-country running and Jack played tackle football. They continue their piano lessons, too, in adherence to our Rule for the Well-Rounded: one athletic activity = one artsy-fartsy activity. Both kids attended classes this year that were supposed to teach them about being more responsible: Katie got babysitter-certified and Jack learned not to answer the door in his underwear. Katie’s orthodontic treatments have begun, as evidenced by the tiny rubber bands all over our house.

We occasionally left Portland, visiting some of our favorite spots in California, Oregon, and Washington, and checking out new places too. The highlight of our travels was spending spring break in Disneyland, our first fly-to-get-there trip in waaay too long.

Other memorable experiences this year: graduation from elementary school (Jack) ... Darlene & Wellington’s 50^th anniversary celebration ... singing for the middle school talent show (Katie) ... a fabulous community theater production of Spamalot ... Relay for Life ... poker nights ... My Fair Lady at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival ... football football football ... Outdoor School (Jack) ... pub trivia nights with our geek friends ... a David Sedaris show ... and lots of RE-ing—repainting, reupholstering, repairing, recycling, reminding, relaxing, rehearsing, rehydrating, revising, recalculating, recuperating, refusing, refraining, restraining, retaliating, and retaining (a lawyer).

And the things we hope never to experience again: SWAT activity in our neighborhood ... taser burns ... football injuries ... falling-down-the-stairs injuries ... kidney stones on vacation (Jen) ... root canals ... tattoo infections (Katie) ... cancer treatment follow-up checks that necessitate further follow-up checks ... Windows 8 ... the kids’ extracurricular schedules of Fall 2013 ... and Movember.

As always, we share some of the things actually spoken in or around our house this year:

“Was I a sexy baby?”

“That is not how Yoda said it. If you’re gonna nerd it up, get it right.”

“The smallest drawer in your dresser is for those things you don’t use very often, like belts and gloves and, in your case, underwear.”

“Hi! How come my poison didn’t kill you?
Wait, forget I ever said that.”

“Are we really driving 30 miles out of the way just to eat fast food?” (Um, it was In-N-Out. Totally worth it, but-cept if you’re a vegetarian… so… sorry for the detour, Mother Mary!)

“Are you all packed for Outdoor School?”
“Yes, except for my rubber spider.”

“I haven’t heard Mom curse in, like, three days.”

“Nothing like taking a long car ride with the family to make us wonder why we ever thought kids would be a nice addition.”

“We’ve lived here for 15 years and never knew there was a 30-foot waterfall in the neighborhood?” (It’s true, there is!)

Jack, reading a fortune cookie: “You will live a long, preposterous life.”

Happiest holidays from our family to yours, and best wishes for a new year full of the things that bring you joy.

Victor, Jennifer, Katie, and Jack Manullang
Lucy and Millie too

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Dec. 15: a look at our tree

One of my favorite parts of the holiday season is enjoying the tree late at night, after everyone else has gone to bed. Sometimes I’ll play Christmas music, other times I’ll keep things quiet. Either way, it’s peaceful, just looking at the light cast on the walls. This is the only time I actually appreciate the halo effect that LASIK caused—it makes the tree even more glow-y and nice.

More than anything, though, it’s our ornaments that I like to look at. Each one of them has special meaning to our family. I made collages of just a few.

1. A 50th anniversary Disneyland ornament from 2005 is a reminder of the year I went there three different times. Best. Year. Ever.
2. A Queen’s Guard bear from Harrod’s, a memento from our trip to London in 2001, was bought so we would never forget the tasty-ish $50 sandwiches we ordered at the Harrod’s deli, as well as our incredibly poor currency conversion skills.
3. Lucy! This was our first ornament honoring our giantest puppy ever.
4. Jack’s first Christmas. There’s no picture because he was goofy-lookin’ at six weeks old. I’m on the hunt for one of our funniest pictures we took of him on Christmas Day 2001 because he looks like such a goblin in it. I’ll share if I find it, I promise.
5. My oldest ornament is from 1976. We third graders painted them, and our teacher calligraphed our names and the year for us. Bethany Elementary, hollaaaaaa!
6. Our musical Charlie Brown ornament was a gift to Victor because it’s his favorite Christmas special. Don’t most of us oldsters have happy memories of that special? I remember putting on a puppet show version of it in sixth grade. TVJA, hollaaaaaa!
7. Victor and I visited the Cayman Islands in 2007 for our tenth anniversary Disney cruise. Another memento from that port is my anniversary ring. It’s slightly more valuable, so I wear the ring and hang the turtle on the tree instead.
8. The most special of our ornaments is one we bought in honor of Scout in 1997. Hallmark’s puppy series just happened to be a beagle that year. When Katie was little, this was the hardest ornament for her to put away at the end of the Christmas season—she always asked to keep it in her room year-round. If we’d let her, I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t still have it. (Have you seen the pig pen in which she lives???)
9. The Yankee ornament is in honor of my dad, the biggest Yankee fan there ever was. It’s not dated, but I bought it in 2005, the year he died.

1. We have lots of Mickey and Minnie ornaments; in fact, much of our tree consists of Disney ornaments of some type.
2. We also have several Scout ornaments. She was a special girl.
3. The “our new home” thing is a weird key and dated 1997, when we bought our house. That year was a big deal for us—we got married, adopted Scout, and built a house.
4. Elvis Stitch is one of Victor’s favorite Disney characters. I love the sparkles on his jumpsuit.
5. Katie’s first Christmas ornament has a picture because she was adorable at 11 months old. Yes, we know it makes us terrible parents to compare our kids this way. Oh well.

We’ve created a bit of a tradition for decorating the tree each year too. We put on Christmas music, and Vic and I start the decorating by wrangling the always tangled colorful garland (visible in some of the pics above) and lights. Then I sit and unwrap each ornament and hand them over to Katie, Jack, and Vic to hang them on the tree. It’s fun because we do the whole “I remember this one!” thing, or re-tell the stories about them, or ask ourselves why we keep some of them year after year. I occasionally pare down our collection, but more often we end up adding to it each year.

When we became a family in 1997, our tree had a few special ornaments but was mostly matchy-matchy with lights, garland, and bows. I love how it has evolved. Someday I’m sure we’ll go back to having a beautiful themed tree, but I’m going to enjoy our nostalgic trees for as many years as I can. 

Dec. 31: Month in summary

It’s the end of the month and time for my recap of December 2012. I would love to do a summary of the entire year, but my memory isn’t long enough. Also, I kinda did it in our Christmas letter.

Special days I celebrated this month and how:

• At school, we got to reward the entire student body for their fundraising efforts during our Jogathon. We brought in Presto the Magician on Dec. 7 to perform for them, and it was truly magical to see the students’ excited faces during this event. I also found out that Presto lives just down the street from me—how cool is it to have a magician for a neighbor??? I plan to consult him the next time the neighbors behind us start in on another loud Live Like You Were Dyin’ marathon. He’s gotta be able to fix that hillbilly nonsense, right? If not, then I want to know which of my neighbors is a voodoo expert.
• Well, this month held Christmas, so we celebrated that. Mother Mary was here. We got together with the other Manullangs on the 22nd, which was a blast. Many of them joined us on Christmas Eve for our traditional Chinese dinner at home. On Christmas Day, it was just us and MM around the tree. Later that afternoon we saw Les Misérables on the big screen (more on that below). The day was perfect.
• My father-in-law turned 80. The family celebrated together on the 23rd; we went to Wellington’s favorite brunch place and then home for entertainment. The granddaughters sang “What a Wonderful World,” Alec performed a beautiful piano piece, and Presley showed off her Hawaiian dancing skills. It was a beautiful day and well-deserved. He is much-loved by many.
• I didn’t do a lot of celebrating on my friends’ birthdays, but I can’t not mention them because it sucks to have a birthday so close to Christmas: Cassie, Stephanie, Fancy Lori, and my bloggy friend, Jen E all turned another year older in December. Our niece, Presley and our brother-in-law, Chris, also had birthdays. Exciting month!
• Tonight we’re joining a small group of friends to usher in 2013.

Gifts I gave and/or received this month:

• It was Christmas, so I gave Christmas gifts. Duh.
• The use of beekeeping supplies I purchased last month were finally revealed in gifts I gave to several friends: Mom and I made lots of skin care products—hard lotion, eye cream, cuticle butter, and tinted lip balm—with all-natural ingredients. I’m not done yet—I’ve been creating recipes for some other cool stuff too. Why am I into this all-natural stuff? The idea of taking petroleum-based skin care products out of my regimen is most appealing, but I also like using specific combinations of essential oils to create really special potions. Yay!
• We Manullang kids got Wellington an iPad for his birthday. This gadget was given with all the grandchildren’s phone numbers and email addresses, as they will provide tech support better than any of us can. I was excited to see him using his new gadget at his birthday party, but within an hour it was back in its box. What do you wanna bet it’s still in there?
  
• As mentioned in my last post, I got an iPad mini for Christmas, and I. Am. Loving. It. My favorite apps right now are Kindle, Nook, and Kobo; although I have them on my iPhone, it’s much easier to read books on a larger screen. Happy Jen!

Books I read this month:

• I started re-reading the Tales of the City series. I plan to read one every few books, I think.
• Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro. Odd story. Fascinating, and an easy read, but odd. I’ll remember it, however, as the first e-book I read start-to-finish.
• I just started on Falling Together, by Marisa de los Santos, but the story involves three friends and I keep getting it mixed up with Never Let Me Go. I’m diving into Anna Karenina instead. Someday I’ll get through that list of 100 books. Someday.

Movies and TV shows worth mentioning:

• We loved the Les Misérables movie. Russell Crowe was fabulous as Javert, but his singing was so-so. Otherwise, we enjoyed the cast. I wish movies like this could use talented singers, not big box office stars. My choices would be Alfie Boe for Jean Valjean, Michael Ball for Marius, and nobody would play Cosette because her voice hurts my head.
• Vic and I finally saw Skyfall, the newest James Bond movie. I thought it was one of the best Bond flicks in a long time. The plot was actually follow-able, and although I didn’t love the ending, I hope that the new M and Q signify the return of a more traditional Bond.
• I saw, for the first time, A Clockwork Orange, and found it utterly unwatchable. What a waste of time. I’ve never been a Kubrick fan, and I’m also not much for futuristic/dystopian stories… I should’ve known better than to think I might enjoy this movie.
• The new version of Footloose confused me. It’s updated, yes, and the new cast was fine, but did a remake really need to be made? I’m still not sure.

New recipes or restaurants I tried:

• I made my version of baked French toast for Christmas morning. I’ll share the recipe soon.
• A new teriyaki restaurant opened nearby. So far, so good.

This month’s disappointments:

• There were the shootings—the local one and way worse one. I have no words.
• Seriously, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are having a baby? This is a sure sign of the apocalypse, isn’t it? Neither of these people have any business procreating, and certainly not with each other. Gah.
• Of all the pets we’ve had in our 15 years in this house, none of them has ever had fleas. It’s not that we’re good at preventing them, we simply did not ever have a problem. When Lucy started scratching a few weeks ago, we assumed it was a skin allergy and changed her food, which made no difference. Then Mom actually SAW a flea hop off her. DAMMIT. Now it feels like they’re everywhere and I’m constantly itchy. We’ve done all the standard treatments to the dog and house, and the fleas appear to be mostly gone but I can’t stop thinking about them. This is soooo not fun, but I am glad we don’t have to change to fancy prescription food for Lucy.
• Santa didn’t bring me a pony.

My accomplishments:

• Lots of school-related stuff… but no time to reflect, because we’re already busy planning the carnival in February!
• We undecorated the house yesterday. Sometimes this doesn’t happen until mid-January, so yay us.

Anything else noteworthy:

Just some funny pictures to share...

I think I need this shirt. Val definitely does.

How cute are these iPhone shelf backgrounds???

That’s all I got. Be careful tonight.

Dec. 26: Post-holiday hangover

In recent years I've felt the need to undo Christmas celebrations as soon as possible. I think it's because I start celebrating too early, and I'm plum Christmas'd out by Dec. 26. Or SUGARplum Christmas'd out, if you will.

(Rest assured, I am punching myself in the throat for even *thinking* that horrible, horrible pun.)

Here's my to-do list for today:

1. Think about undecorating. It took days to get the house done up; it'll take at least that long to undo it up, right?

2. Accept that I will not undecorate today, but I might get around to cleaning up wrapping paper and boxes.

3. Read.

4. Eat leftovers from our Christmas Eve Chinese dinner.

5. Read some more.

6. Curse at Vic's new Bluetooth keyboard Christmas gift, which is enabling me to blog semi-easily on my iPad mini Christmas gift. The keys are way too close together and I keep pressing Page Up instead of Shift and it is making me angry at the keyboard and also a little bit at Vic but not too much because he gave me my new iPad so I love him today.

7. Read even more. I got some great books for Christmas!

8. Think happy birthday thoughts for my brother-in-law, Chris, who turns a very high number today, and my dear friend Stephanie, who turns a number that is still lower than mine. Pffft.

Alright, Mom just helped me clean up wrapping paper and boxes. Since I don't want to tackle the rest of the undecorating project, I guess I'll spend the next couple hours napping, reading, and napping. Yep, that sounds like a good way to spend the day after Christmas. Later, doods...

Dec. 14: Festive goofiness

This gave me the giggles, even though it’s really, really stupid. Really.

Yep, that’s Grace of Daily Grace and Hannah of My Drunk Kitchen. They be funny together.