Marmot got me a vacuum for Christmas. He’s such a dear.

In other (unrelated) news, the TV is acting up again.

Merry Christmas everyone!

July: I am going to do Christmas cards early this year. Yep, I’m going to mail them by the week after Thanksgiving. And we’re going to do an awesome blog Christmas card, and possibly a holiday blog makeover like Little Woman.

Fast Forward Four Months…

Week After Thanksgiving: Oh shit, I forgot to order the Christmas cards! I’ll do that first thing tomorrow.

First Week of December: Oh shit, I forgot to order the Christmas cards! I’ll do that first thing tomorrow.

Second Week of December: Oh shit, I forgot to order the Christmas cards! I’ll do that first thing tomorrow.

December 16th: Stand outside and freeze ass off with whining husband (who just loves living in the godforsaken Arctic tundra) while sister Apple tries to take a picture in which Marmot doesn’t look pissed and I look 40lbs thinner. Upload pictures in horror.

December 17th: Take the most pitiful picture (ever) of Queen B. and I standing by the garage, although mercifully the picture does not show her slippers. Its so f-ing cold that our scarves could pass for burqas. Blog Christmas card fail.

December 18th: Talk to blog design goddess and find out she’s booked out through January. Blog Christmas makeover fail.

December 19th: Buy $500 of pine cone stamps at the Post Office to ensure that you don’t have to fight that mob again until December 2015. Call Mom to brag, she informs me that the price stamps is going up in four weeks.

December 20th: Go to the site where we got cards last year. $102 for Christmas cards, thats highway robbery! Google cheap Christmas cards, get distracted by site with cheap calendars, then go upstairs to find 2012 calendar, decide to take a shower, and then get into bed and read. Laptop left on all night, sitting on coffee table.

December 21st: Get online to order the Christmas cards. If I overnight them, I can get them out by Christmas Eve right?

December 22nd:  Fuck it, they’re going to be New Year’s cards. I’ll order them first thing on Monday.

A Phone Call Transcript – December 17^th, 2011

Queen B:  Honey, really, if we are going to put a Christmas card on the blog we need to get it out soon – it’s the 17^th for crying out loud!

Honey: We need a picture to put in and of the twenty-six pictures I took of us last weekend, they’re all hideous! Why weren’t you looking at the camera?  Twenty six pictures and you are not looking at the camera once. Seriously Mom, what are the odds?

Queen B:  Were you taking pictures?  When was this, I don’t remember this?

Honey:  With my phone, remember I was taking pictures of us with my phone!  You know that pink and white thing that I was holding up in front of our faces??

Queen B: I thought you were texting. What’s wrong with them?

Honey:  Well other than the fact that I look like I have six chins, and you look like an gray haired nut case gazing off into la-la land? Absolutely nothing.

Queen B: Fine then, just post a Christmas post without a picture if you think they’re so bad.

Honey:  Mom, we have to do a picture. We are the faces of our blog, people want to see that we actually exist! I can just hear it… “Are these people real? This amount of idiocy has to be a joke, and they don’t even have a picture up…the Bunnies story? Give me a break.”

Queen B: You can hear it?  Literally, you can hear it?  What else are they saying, have they ever told you to do things, to hurt yourself or others?

Honey:  Mom, I’m almost to your house, and when I get there I’m going to hit you over the head with one of your prize fruitcakes. Just so you know.

Queen B:  Did the voices tell you to hit me with a fruitcake?

Honey:  I’m pulling into the driveway, put your coat on. Cold makes things constrict, we’ll look thinner if we take a picture outside.

Queen B:  It might be snowing! I’m not standing in snow in my new slippers, I don’t know where my snow-boots are. I’m only standing out there for 5 seconds. Are you wearing my scarf? Are you wearing boots? Where’s your camera?

Honey: Mom! We are taking a picture for the #*@- ing blog, and you better be looking at the #*@-ing camera this time!

*click*

Honey: Ta-da! The worst holiday photo ever!

My favorite time of the year. Its a holiday that truly shines in the godforsaken Arctic tundra, because of the snow. Last year we had a shit-ton of snow (a shit-ton is equal to four craploads) but there is nothing like Christmas lights twinkling through the drift of snow they are buried under.

Last year Marmot’s brother-in-law put icicle lights up along the roof line because Marmot and I are both scared of heights. Dumbest thing we ever did, because he didn’t have a return trip planned for the spring! Finally in June I sent Marmot up on the ladder (just hold tight babe, you’ll be fine) to take the lights down. We will NEVER be doing that again! Although this year we did put up the garlands and one strand of lights outside.

Taken from my vantage point inside, after I'd frozen my behind off! He has always said he wants to stay in the North...lol

And the Christmas tree- oh how I love the Christmas tree. Ours is always a little wonky looking though, due to no ornaments at Labrador-tail level or lower (the boys shattered a few last year). There is also a lack of Christmas presents because someone-who-shall-remain-nameless taught Brewer to unwrap his own presents last year- so now Brewer thinks all gifts hold chewy bones, and the presents are lovingly placed on the dining room table out of his reach.

Hope you’re having a wonderful start to the Christmas season!

My husband bought me a TV for Christmas. Because, I have been talking all year about a getting a TV, specifically a 46″ Sony Bravia LCD 1080p HCTV, because SEC football games are just amazing on this kind of screen. The three-stone diamond anniversary ring would just be a waste of money, what was I thinking?!

And it just so happens that Queen B. had such a TV, through her Finish the Basement project.  {Note: The problem with just painting and sealing the concrete floor (so trendy) when you live in the godforsaken Arctic tundra? It makes the basement colder than the Abominable Snowman’s asscrack, and completely unlivable.} So because wearing a parka was required, the TV had been watched less than ten hours total. My Dad is on a business trip, so anything in the basement is for sale.

So my sweet darling dearest husband bought the TV. For me. With absolutely no ulterior motives whatsoever.

Our entire Christmas budget is blown, and its not even Thanksgiving yet. I was going to inflict Tit for Tat on him, one way or another. And the opportunity presented itself sooner than I thought.

This past weekend Marmot had the TV home, set up in the sunroom. He was extolling the virtues of the new TV, demonstrating with the latest SEC football game – look at the uniforms babe, the colors are freaking brilliant!- I made a realization. Our old TV was a Sony TV. And therefore, we had a Sony remote. And with the addition of the new TV? We have two Sony remotes.

So, while he is engrossed in the game, I tuck the extra remote next to me on the couch, out of his sight. The Bullfrogs throw the ball – all the idiots in football helmets start running – Marmot starts cheering!

And- blink! The TV goes off.

Marmot: What the f#$%.

Me: That was weird. Did you hit a button?

Marmot turns the TV back on. He missed the play, but they have instant replay.

Somebody in a football helmet kicks the ball. The idiots in football helmets split up and start running towards each other. Marmot is screaming the most important of football strategies to the idiots in the football helmets. The game is heating up!

And – blink! The TV goes off.

Marmot: Mother-f#$&!@r!?!!!

Me: Geez babe, this is weird. You don’t think some electrical stuff was knocked loose when you moved it do you?

A few minutes later, all the idiots in football helmets starting running across the field again. Marmot stand up to cheer the Bullfrogs on, this is it! The idiots in helmets are running faster! Its going to be the touchdown of the season!

And- blink! The TV goes off.

Marmot throws the remote into the living room, shrieking expletives, and kicks the side of the coffee table. The cat goes streaking from the room, the dogs sit up and look at him- and I stifle a smile.

Marmot picks the remote, and the battery case, and batteries from the other room and turns the TV back on. The camera is panning over the crowd, still cheering themselves hoarse over the most fantastic play of Bullfrog football history.

Me: I think something was knocked loose when you moved it babe, you should call Customer Service.

An hour and three calls to India later, he finds out the warranty is null and void because he is not Queen B. But Hi-my-name-is-Larry in India helps Marmot through an hour and a half of system resets and diagnostics.

They have it all figured out, everything should be fine. The Bullfrogs are in fine form this season, amazing plays. This is shaping up to be a GREAT football season.

The Christmas cards are going out in shifts, with the third wave going out on Monday…but the real question is, if you get a Christmas card after Christmas, do you think they forgot about you or are just behind??

Christmas means that Queen B. and Dad are arguing over if Dad is going to make spaghetti for Christmas Day or not, because he uses every pot and pan in the house and gets spaghetti sauce all. over. the kitchen.

Christmas also means my husband explaining to me that making him go to the mall on Christmas Eve is grounds for divorce.

Christmas means that the dogs have destroyed the presents that were under the tree, in search of their apple-pumpkin chewy bones.

Christmas means debating whether or not to adjust the crooked tree, since its been like that for a month?

And Christmas means not getting too caught up in gifts and food and everything else, and just enjoying the holiday.

In our case, that’s on the couch snuggled up with one of our favorite dogs.

Happy Christmas everyone!

I’m so glad to be home!! It was an interesting trip. This is a week’s worth of blogging condensed to an overview, so pour a glass of sweet tea and have a read.

-Marmot’s family are (for the most part) sweet Southerners, they just make me nervous. My biggest fear was stubbing my toe and dropping the f-bomb unintentionally. My MIL had a mild coronary at the dinner out with the non-Baptist extended family and we all ordered white wine. I ordered and got ‘the Eyes of Shame’ and almost said shit, out of straight-up fear. As badly as I needed a little something, next time I’m sticking with sweet tea.

-Southern hospitality is charming, Southern racism is not. Marmot has a redneck uncle that doesn’t hold anything back. I’m under a order by Marmot to not rock the boat, but I’m pretty sure my slack-jawed look of horror got the message across loud and clear.

-Seeing my beautiful niece Baby Belle made me want one. As in bad. Usually it takes a hella amount of alcohol to tell Marmot we should skip the birth control when I’m ovulating, but this time I was stone cold sober the entire week (thanks to the Baptist family) and still totally ready to toss the birth control. Thankfully Marmot’s clearer non-baby-dreaming head prevailed.

-A thousand miles in one day is too long. Marmot and I are still both sickeningly in love, and really actually have a rock-solid marriage. But a day in a standard cab truck (no where to stomp off to!) and I’m questioning the entire concept of marriage. The next trip is Thanksgiving, and plane tickets plus car rental are going to run about a grand. I think its worth every penny.

-Belle made the announcement that they’re moving back to the Deep South, and after the excitement, eyes turned towards Marmot and I inquisitively thinking maybe we had an announcement too? Thankfully I had a mouthful of praline-gooey-dessert, otherwise I’m not sure that I could have avoided some verbal incontinence, and announced that we’re going to start trying. In my mind that’s pretty much announcing that we’re going to be having sex a lot (I’d rather die) but the environment just seemed right for an announcement, and that was all I had! Thank god for praline-gooey-dessert thing.

Ahh, the holidays. Ahh, family.

And now the dieting starts! Once I have the nerve to get on the scale and evaluate the praline-gooey-dessert thing damage. If the pudgy SIL doesn’t do it, this picture should!

Vacation is wonderful, seeing family is (mostly) good….but I can’t wait to go home!

The Deep South is amazing…we’re just a couple hours away from New Orleans, and I’ve had a true Southern Christmas. My first green Christmas! We spent last night in a gorgeous bed and breakfast along the Mississippi River, complete with cannonball lodged in the wall, a remnant of the Civil War. The Great Midwest was just a frontier at that time, so being in an area so steeped with history is absolutely amazing for a history buff like myself! I told Marmot that I think we should give up the Northern life, buy a bed and breakfast and set up shop in the South. He just smiles.

All that aside, I’m ready to go home. I miss my Moo dog, my house, and yes, even my work. A routine is a wonderful thing, and I miss mine. I got a hella dose of my sister-in-law, and well, just prepare yourself for a blog post. Not what I expected, but Belle is still a Southern woman through and through. And meeting more of the extended family, well I learned a lot about the family that I’ve married into!

Hope you all are having a wonderful after-Christmas weekend. I miss you all, I miss my blogging friends, and keeping up with your lives via Google Reader! I’ll ‘talk’ to you all soon…

We have to bring a $15 guy gift, and a $15 girl gift for the Secret Santa with one side of Marmot’s family.

I hate being like this, because it sounds like I’m ungrateful for being given a gift. I’m not! But come on, pass-around gifts are truly the worst gifts. They have to be something that can go to anyone, from 12 year-old cousin or 90 year-old Gramma. Which means that as a woman, you are limited to smelly bath stuff or food that can be chewed with dentures.

Why do we put ourselves through this? I would so much rather shop for someone in particular, because if I have to go generic, you’re getting my Secret Santa gift from last year. Which is a lovely rose-scented bath set, still in the plastic wrap.

So tell me….what is the worst generic Christmas gift you’ve ever gotten?