One Direction Woes

   Ahhh. Christmas time is coming. I love Christmas. My family loves Christmas. My sister has had her apartment decorated for Christmas since Halloween, which is nuts. But it's her apartment, and this is her right. However, I feel like a Grinch whenever I walk into her apartment, because while her apartment looks like a Christmas-y wonderland, I have a tree. And that tree was decorated by my daughter, because I didn't want to do it. If my daughter hadn't gleefully accomplished this task, we would just have a bare tree. Someone should just follow me around playing "You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch." Except I really do love Christmas -- I just don't like decorating. Everything you put up must eventually come down, and I don't feel like doing all this extra work.
    Anyway, we do the whole gifts at Christmas thing. I know that I have heard some people express that gifts take away the meaning of Christmas, and that Santa has taken over a day made for Christ, but I think that both can coexist. They do in my home at the least, so I leave this how I always leave issues such as this, you do what you want, I will do what I want, and we won't hurt each other and call each other nasty names, and all will be well. And to those of you who don't celebrate, Happy whatever-you-do-celebrate. I wish you much joy. My family just happens to celebrate Christmas, and my story today revolves around our tradition.
    Some families wait until Christmas Eve to put out gifts, but we don't do that. We generally place all the gifts out except the ones specifically from Santa (who is based off a Catholic Saint, Saint Nicholas, who is the patron saint of children, and others but I'm not giving a Catholic history lesson here) and the presents from Santa are the ones that are placed out on Christmas Eve, after the kiddos go to bed.

This is what our tree looks like right at this moment.

   Which leads us to the fact that my daughter has seen some of the wrapped presents under the tree, and she began to playfully try to guess what they were. So I began to playfully suggest things that they could be, but I picked things that she would absolutely hate to get. In doing this, I hit on One Direction. My daughter hates the boy-band One Direction. She doesn't like the music, doesn't want the assorted items with their faces plastered all over, and doesn't wanna watch the 'movie' of the tours. So I started suggesting that these gifts under the tree where things like One Direction CDs, One Direction action figures, One Direction pajamas, and a One Direction poster, that I suggested that she could tack to the ceiling of her room, right above her bed, so that when she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw would be their faces.
   This horrified her, which was so much fun, that I followed around after her for days, suggesting every time she looked at the tree, that perhaps she was excited to get all of her One Direction presents. She would put her face in her hands, and pretend to cry, while laughing, because after all, she knows that I would no more do this than set the house on fire. I don't care for One Direction any more than she does, and giving her all this would place me in direct contact with all of their music. Plus, that would just be mean, and while I like to do a little teasing, I abhor meanness.
    However, today my little kiddo had a really bad day. And for a few moments I didn't quite realize how bad she felt, and I fell into teasing her. Her response, "If it's really all One Direction, just burn it. I don't want anything." Poor little silly-head. Momma's done teasing you. At least for a while. (And she got a giant hug and assurances that she was NOT getting One Direction.)

Deviled Eggs And Christmas Trees

   Happy Thanksgiving all you grateful, feasting people! I love Thanksgiving, so my sitting down to write a blog may seem a bit strange, because where is the family time? Well, I did do a small turkey and some stuffing today, because I wanna eat too dammit, but my family's Thanksgiving is being held at a later date. This is due to the fact that my mother is an oncology nurse, and she works tonight. Cancer patients don't get the day off from being sick, and they still need someone to take care of them. So while I had a little mini-feast, this is not my day of huge, massive, artery-blocking feasting.
   But as I said, my daughter and I did have our little two-person meal, and so far as my daughter is concerned, a meal is NOT a holiday meal unless you have some deviled eggs. She loves these things and eagerly awaits their completion. Today was no different. She hovered over me until I got all the other prep work for the other food done, had the hard-boiled eggs out (we boiled them last night) and was just eagerly assisting and awaiting.
   Our deviled eggs are not sweet. The first time I tasted a sweet deviled egg I had to fight to stop from spitting it out. That's nasty; before that ill-fated taste, I never even knew that deviled eggs could be sweet. Who knew? Not me. The person who made them thought I was weird as hell for making deviled eggs with vinegar and mustard; I thought she was weird as hell for using sugar. But regardless, vinegar and mustard is the way my family has made deviled eggs forever. These are the eggs that I ate as a child, and these are the eggs that my daughter devours like candy.
   This is my family's deviled egg recipe:
    6 hard boiled eggs (chilled)
    1/2 teaspoon salt
    1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
    1/4 teaspoon pepper
    2 tablespoons mayo
    2 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar
    Paprika (to sprinkle over eggs)
    Cut eggs in half, putting yoke in mixing bowl and mashing with fork. Mix in spices, add mayo and vinegar, mix well and heap mixture into egg halves. Sprinkle with paprika.
    It should also be noted that you can use regular balsamic vinegar as well, but this makes the yolk mixture turn brown, and so guests might be a little wary of eating the deviled eggs. Of course, this way, there is more for you. Or your fiendish egg-snatching daughter.
   Another thing that my daughter and I did today was put up our Christmas tree. I know that traditionally, you are supposed to wait for the day after Thanksgiving to put up the tree, but I am a working mom, and I have today off. We tend to do these types of things around my work schedule, often throwing tradition out the window, and in that spirit, the tree went up today.
   One tradition that my family has is that every year, the kids get a new Christmas ornament as a Christmas gift. My sister and I always knew that we would get a new ornament, and of course, my daughter probably knows this as well, but she has manners, so she doesn't go around shaking presents and hollering, "This one's the ornament!" Nor does she groan after opening the ornament and proclaim, "An ornament, again!?!" I think she likes getting her Christmas ornament, but even if she didn't, she knows that momma would be pretty pissed at this type of behavior. Punishment would ensue. But I digress.
    Since every year my daughter has been getting ornaments, and I tend to pick out her gifts according to her tastes and not mine, I have a tree with a shit-load of My Little Ponies and Tinker Bell. If this tree was decorated with my taste in mind, there would be pine cones, traditional glass balls, and maybe some cardinals or something; instead I have a hodgepodge of Disney and Hasbro toys. But long ago, I came to terms with the fact that my life now included My Little Ponies and Strawberry Shortcake. Not much I can do about that. Kids will be kids.
   So anyway, the deviled eggs are devoured, the tree is up and decorated, and now my daughter and I are winding down. I hope that all of you had a very happy Thanksgiving! Get your feast on, be thankful, and celebrate family.

Every single year, this set of ponies are hung together in a group like this. It's the ugliest damn thing ever, but my daughter has to have them this way. I think it's mind control; the ponies take over her mind so that they can be hung together. This is so that they can plot against us. One day, the ponies will stage a rebellion and take over my house. I am sure of this.