The Christmas Questionairre

I’m really starting to feel the holiday spirit (even though it's still not white out there)!  As the season really winds up, here are a few details about my seasonal traditions.

1. Egg nog or hot chocolate?
I'm definitely more of a hot cocoa person, but if given the option of any Christmas beverage, I'll still opt for my favorite tree trimming treat: a mug of coffee with a shot of Amaretto (since I’ve been old enough, of course) and cream.  Warms the cheeks and the soul.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just set them under the tree?
I think it was my eighth Christmas morning that I noted how strange it was that Santa had the same wrapping paper as my mom.  Even his penmanship was a match.  My mom stared at me when I confronted her about this, slightly taken aback, and then my dad smirked and said, “Well, he delivers them all in one night.  You expect him to wrap them, too?”

3. Colored or white lights on tree/house?
Personally, my preference is white lights outdoors, colored on the tree.  I’m a minimalist.  However, I love the people who take the time to create the cookie cutter looking houses.  I haven’t done a lights tour in years.  That’s a tradition that I want to reinstate with my own kids someday.

4. When do you put your decorations up?
It varies each year, but I assure you, never one day before Thanksgiving.  We are a family that believes in celebrating one holiday at a time, and Thanksgiving gets its fair share of attention before we worry about hanging the holly.

5. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
Green bean casserole is essential, but no holiday season is complete without my Aunt Jody’s cheesy mashed potatoes. It has cream cheese in it.  Yeah.  You know you just made the Homer Simpson Sees a Donut noise.  Don't even act like you didn't.

6. Favorite holiday memory as a child?
This isn’t specifically a Christmas memory, but I have a vivid and cherished recollection of my dad, every winter, standing on the hearth in front of our wood stove, warming his haunches and relaxing after a long day at work.  One hand would be in his pocket, the other usually clutching a can of Busch Light, with which he gestured and pointed animatedly as he regaled us with long stories of his day, life, or pure creation.

7. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
“Though I’ve grown old, the bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe.” –Chris Van Allsburg

8. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
For as long as I can remember, our Family Christmases have been on the same day each year.  Christmas Eve has always been spent with my dad’s family, Christmas morning at home, and Christmas Day with my mom’s family.  It has been such a beautiful blessing that my entire family (both sides) has stayed, for the most part, within a twenty-or-so mile radius of one another.  So yes, we were allowed to open Springsteen Family Christmas gifts on Christmas Eve.  Santa and my parents saved their treasures for the next morning.

9. How do you decorate your Christmas tree?
See my previous entry for full details.

10. Snow: love it or hate it?
LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE IT.  Do you hear that, Mother Nature?  I’m STILL dreaming of that white Christmas.  Get on it.

11. Can you ice skate?
When I was little and Pearl Lake would freeze, we would go down and shovel off a large square in front of the VFW Park.  Then my dad would take a few buckets of water out and pour them on the ice, to smooth out all the rough edges.  The next day we would come back to find our ice rink ready, and often in use.  To this day ice skating is one of my favorite winter activities, though I don’t claim to be very graceful or good at it.

12. Do you remember your favorite gift?
The year I received a pink tutu, pink tights, and pink pig slippers (which I OBVIOUSLY wore together, because that’s clearly how they were supposed to go), I refused to take the outfit off for all the world.  After what I’m sure was a pretty epic battle, I remember sitting victoriously in the backseat of the car, wearing boots (the pig slippers begrudgingly left behind) and a puffy winter coat over my ballerina garb, on our way to my Aunt Tammy’s.  Though I loved my tutu, I think it was winning the wardrobe battle that I truly cherished.  Victory.  Best present ever.

Giant red winter mittens were another choice accessory.

Give me some credit.  They match better than Sister's socks.

Do not let that shy smile fool you.  I was a monster.

13. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you?
I know it probably sounds like a canned or cliché answer, but family truly is the most important thing in the world to me.  That said, I include many people in my family.  My friends are my second family, and I love them just as fully as if they were blood.  The older you get, and the more hardships you face, the more you realize that people are what makes life worth living.  Without companionship, the world is a dull and invalidating place.  This, of course, is a sentiment that we should carry with us throughout the year, not just on the Yuletide, but this is the time of year for reflection.  It is a good time to pause and consciously consider how much there is to be grateful for in the world.

14. What is your favorite holiday dessert?
Though I’m far more of a salt than a sugar person, I do love cream cheese cookies.  I’m pretty boring, though.  I don’t want a bunch of frosting on them—just plain, simple and slightly doughy.  I could polish off a platter by myself.

15. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
 In recent years my mom and I have started the tradition of drinking a beer together and listening to our favorite “grown up Christmas story” on CD.  David Sedaris’ The SantaLand Diaries is a side-splitting good time.  If you haven’t experienced it for yourself, I highly recommend it.


16. What tops your tree?
As far back as I can remember our tree-topper has been a straw star that my mom found at a garage sale.  It doesn’t light up.  It’s nothing special, but it fits our taste perfectly.

17. Which do you prefer, giving or receiving?
I think in my heart, I’m a hobbit.  So obviously, I prefer to give.  I love thinking about the perfect gifts for people and seeing their faces when they tear the paper away.  I think that’s why I’ve never been an advocate for Christmas lists.  They stress me out, both to write and to read.  I can never think of anything I desperately want that I can’t just get for myself.  I feel selfish and greedy.  When I read them, I feel like it takes all the fun out of the treasure hunt.  I love collecting ideas throughout the year and then springing something on someone that they mentioned in passing back in March.  The whole thing just feels far more fulfilling when I have to dig for clues and then really crack it.  Frankly, just set aside some quality time and have a conversation with me that we haven’t had time to have in months.  I promise that will mean more to me than any trinket.

18. What is your favorite Christmas song?
“Old Toy Trains” by Roger Miller

 
Maybe my grandpa used to sing it, or maybe that’s something that I made up in my head.  Either way, it makes me think of him, because he loves Roger Miller and sounds a good deal like him when he sings.  This song just warms my heart.

19. Candy canes: yes or no?
Definitely yes.  I love to avoid biting them until they become needle sharp.  Of course, then I always stab myself in the mouth at some point, but I can’t help doing it again the next time.

20. Favorite Christmas movie?
I LOVE Christmas movies.  Forced into a corner, I have to settle for three equal favorites.

Favorite Funny:

Chevy Chase circa 1989...mm mm mm...if I had I time machine...

Favorite Fuzzy:

 Michael Cane is, hands down, my favorite Scrooge.  Also, Muppets.

Favorite Family:

I probably reference this movie about twice a week...and that's a low estimate.

 
21. What do you leave for Santa?
Dad said that Santa was likely to get diabetes, eating that many cookies in one night.  At his request, we always left him a beer, and sometimes a plate of cheese and crackers.  After my dad passed away, it became more of a present for him than Santa.  I like to assume that he took over Santa’s local route fourteen years ago, for my family at least.

Decking the Halls

Today The Librarian (aka my mom) and I decorated the house for Christmas.  We have been dragging our feet in the hopes that by the time we got around to it, there would be a pristine blanket of white outside, but alas, winter in Mid-Michigan remains M.I.A.  However, with the aid of our Pandora Christmas Station, we managed to get into the spirit and trim the tree.

First order of business, make sure the lights all work.

After the grueling task of yanking out dead bulbs, rummaging through the 30 year old brown paper bag full of "Colored 'Ho-Ho' Lights" (scrawled upon it in my dad's handwriting) and finding replacement bulbs, Christmas Tree 2011 at last glimmered cheerily from the corner.

After the annual light bulb battle, it was finally time to adorn the tree in our favorite ornaments.  In my 24 years on this planet and my sister's 27, we have accumulated roughly enough ornaments to decorate a small woodland grove.  Each year of our respective childhoods, we received an ornament from my Grandma Springsteen, which was always a fun and exciting tradition.  I have lots of favorites, and as the collection has grown, it has gotten harder and harder to choose.  This year, I had to be fair and represent Sister, too, as she is currently soaking up the sun in the Gulf of Mexico, working on a schooner.  I was pretty fair...she has one or two ornaments on the tree.

All in all, absent Sister and absent snow aside, it was a festive day, and the house looks beautiful.

And one of me doing something, for good measure.

You know, it's hard to admit that you had to move back in with your mom because you're jobless, moneyless, carless, and unexpectedly single.  That said, days like today make it feel like the most natural thing in the world to be back here.  'Tis the season to love, cherish, and heal.  I may be a bit of a sap, but looking at our Christmas tree (no pun intended) does fill me with a sense of inner peace.  By the way, imagine The Peanuts Christmas music is playing in the background, and that whole paragraph goes from being a little bit cheesy to completely moving.  Try it.  It works.

Christmastime is here...happiness and cheer...

Five Things I Love...

1. Blackberry Sage Tea

The Republic of Tea

Though I consider myself a bit of a beer connoisseur, this tea really is my favorite beverages, period.  Drinking it iced takes me back to early college, visiting one of my Bests (William) in East Lansing and going to one of our favorite little shops in Okemos, The Triple Goddess Bookstore.  Afterwards, we'd eat next door at the Traveler's Club, where I was introduced to this delicious blend.

2. Goodwill Industries

I know that there are other nonprofits out there with similar aims for bettering the community as Goodwill (Salvation Army, to name the most obvious contender), and though I fully support all of them in theory, my loyalty is to Goodwill.  I love this company.  I love donating there.  I LOVE shopping there.  I am addicted to bargains, which is a good thing to be addicted to when you are unemployed and sitting on a heaping pile of college debt.  You know those people who boast about their $5,000 purses?  Yeah...I don't know those people, either.  But I got my purse for $2.50, and I get compliments on it constantly.  Win.

2. Tetris

This picture gives me goosebumps.

As a little girl (and boy), I begged my parents for video games.  My dad continually told me that I already watched too much TV, and he would be damned if he was going to give me another reason to sit on my butt all day in front of the "boob tube."  Now, looking objectively at my addiction to Tetris, I have to admit, I can see his point.  Some nights I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, imagining it as a giant game board.  It's like counting sheep to me.  L block...line piece...L-block...L-block...square...

4. Knee high boots

Steve Madden 'Dyme' knee highs

As a short, curvy girl, it is important to know the secret of the knee high boot.  It will make you look taller and thinner... IF you can find a pair that will fit over your curvy-girl calves.  And THAT is why I have an extremely love/hate relationship with knee high boots.  I recommend suede boots for girls who suffer from what I have self-diagnosed as "Fat Calf Disorder."  They typically have just enough give to slide over those honking log-legs of ours, and enough elasticity to stay up fairly well.  As for where to find them, I shop at Goodwill (see #3), so I couldn't tell ya.  Just keep your eyes peeled.

5. The Jaw Clip

Before you ask, no, I don't own a fanny pack.

Call me a mom from 1995 if you want.  I make no apologies.  Jaw clips are my favorite way of semi-tricking people into thinking that I maybe sort of tried with my hair a little bit today.  They make the front wisps of my hair fall lightly around my face in a flattering way that gives off that vibe that I've been working really hard and haven't had a chance to glance in the mirror in hours, but it's okay!  I still look good(ish)!

Adventures in Shmizney World

In just a few short weeks it will have been a full year since I donned cap and gown and bid adieu to formal education.  I then packed up my 1999 Mercury Villager "Mom Van" with everything it would hold, and drove from America's High Five

to America's...other appendage...

...and took a job at a very large and popular corporation in that state.  For the purposes of this entry, and because I'm pretty sure I signed a document on my first day giving them permission to end my life with brute force if I ever utter a negative word about them, I will call said company Shmizney World.

The thing about taking a job at Shmizney World is that you basically have to be clinically insane to do it.  Or really into cults.  Or both.

...will ride all the rides with you.

Now, I am admittedly a crazy person.  I work really hard most of the time to hide this fact, but there it is.  I build up an exoskeleton of feigned sanity, and the thicker it gets, the less people can tell that I actually am, at my core, completely batsh*t.  Every few years, though, I shed this exoskeleton, and this is when things like platinum blonde hair, doing keg stands with my aunt, and moving to Florida to work for a fascist rodent happen.

Some people eat the oatmeal on their first day and happily resign themselves to a life of creepy grinning, waving, singing, and an unsettling dedication to a supreme overlord they will never see.  They cry at orientation, because their dreams are coming true, and they use the word magical so much that it loses all meaning.  Everyone walks around in a docile fog, intensified by the humidity, slack smiles plastered to their faces that don’t quite reach their eyes.

During training, I tried really hard to be into it.  I clapped politely when a guy in a mouse suit walked in with our name tags, while the girl next to me started hyperventilating like she was meeting the Pope.  [I thought of photoshopping a picture of the Pope wearing mouse ears here, but I decided against it.  If there’s any chance my soul isn’t a completely lost cause at this point, I don’t want to consciously tip the scales.]

As the months at Shmizney World progressed, I realized that I was not among my comrades.  The complete lack of intellectual stimuli was steadily sapping me of the emotional strength I needed to go on.  Orlando offers convenient, single serving experiences.  The problem is that when you live in Orlando, you must continue to intellectually feed on the same experience over and over and over.  Imagine, if you will, having one book that you have to read for the rest of your life.  Also, that book is Twilight.

It was early September when I escaped.  I ran for The Mitten without a backward glance.  Standing in the rubble of a failed career, a failed relocation, and a failed relationship (did I mention I moved down there for a guy?  No?  I moved down there for a guy.) I could choose to be pretty miserable right now.  However, looking back on my nine months in Florida, I feel like I’m waking up from a really drugged out dream.  If nothing else, it’s given me a really solid concept of exactly the kind of life I DON’T want.

Give me new experiences.  Give me trials.  Give me challenges that I may overcome.  For the love of all that’s good, give me reality, and let me fight for the happiness that I deserve.

That, my friends, will be a magical day.

Thank You For...

...my Aunt Jody's cheesy mashed potatoes/waistbands that stretch/digestion.
...going to see The Muppets tomorrow with Mom and Sister.
...coming home from the movies and listening to this on vinyl.
...Christmas season starting in an hour and twenty-seven minutes.
...both sides of my amazing family being within ten miles of each other.
...friends who have rallied around me and shown me unconditional kindness and love lately.
...stout beer.
...my new favorite nail polish.
...pajamas and bare feet after a long day in heals.
...new beginnings.
...laughter.

A Bit of Backstory

I was in fourth grade when I turned into a boy.  It was on the day that my dad took me to get my new glasses.  A few weeks prior to this, I had left my old glasses outside in the yard, in silent protest of their continued existence, and my mom had run over them with the lawnmower.  I had considered this a victory, until I realized that I could no longer sit in the back of the classroom with my friends, as I could no longer see what was written on the chalk board.

On this day I was sitting in the cab of my dad’s old Ford pickup, riding home from the eye doctor, where I had been refit with a new pair of equally ungainly spectacles.  At the age of ten, my vision was already worse than that of most grandparents, and eyewear technology was still struggling to catch up to my rapidly increasing nearsightedness.  I was also contending with my parents’ belief that the larger the frames, the less likely I was to lose them again.  Imagine Peter Jackson’s glasses circa Lord of the Rings, but way thicker and on a ten year old.

I love peripheral vision!

Because my dad’s pickup had no working air conditioning, and it was mid-August, we were driving with the windows down.  My long, dirty blonde hair whipped and danced in the wind, getting more and more snarled by the mile.  I tried cramming it up inside my baseball cap, but it was thick and heavy and ultimately, a losing battle.  My dad glanced over at me from the driver’s seat and said, “You know, we could go get that cut if you want.”  My magnified, bug-like eyes turned to him hopefully.  I had been begging to get my tresses chopped for years, but my mom had flat refused.  “Short?” I asked expectantly, and he grinned.  “As short as you want.”  Years later I discovered that I had been a pawn in a calculated scheme: my dad lived with three long haired women, and he hated unclogging shower drains.

The rest of the ride back to my hometown was spent daydreaming about my adorable new “do.”  I pictured myself, a classy twentysomething, my frail, delicate features accented eloquently by my sophisticated pixie cut.  Of course, my vocabulary was slightly less advanced back then, and I couldn’t remember Winona Ryder’s name, so when we pulled into the parking lot of Phil’s Barber Shop, I was ill-prepared for what lay in wait.

The bell above the door jingled merrily as we entered the shop.  The walls were covered in dark wood paneling, and deer heads dominated the décor.  Phil was deep in conversation with an elderly gentleman about fishing, into which my dad animatedly joined.  I sat quietly in the corner, awaiting my turn, oblivious to the red flags surrounding this hair cutting venture.  I glanced around, hoping for an InStyle magazine, so I could find an example of my vision.  To my left, there was a hefty stack of Field & Stream, and a lone, battered, out-of-date copy of GQ.

A few more minutes passed, and the elderly gentleman shook Phil's and my dad’s hands and departed, tipping his hat cordially at me as he left.  I smiled back, unperturbed.  My dreams were about to come true, after all.  What were a few minutes compared to a lifetime of beauty?  Phil turned to me and pointed to the chair.  “Hop on up, kiddo.”  I complied, visualizing this old fashion, cracked leather seat as my throne.  Behind me, my dad plopped into the chair I had just vacated and began leafing through a Field & Stream, whistling a cheery tune.

“So, what are we thinking today, Morg?” Phil asked.  For years after I would regret my responding brevity.

“Short.”

Phil turned to my dad.  “Short, short?” he asked tentatively?  Phil was a family friend and knew my mom.   Without looking up, my dad gave a single nod of consent.  Phil shrugged and turned back to me.  “Well, alright then.  Let’s lose these goggles and get started.”  He reached around and pulled my glasses from my face.  The world instantly became a haze.

Snip went the scissors.  Buzz went the electric razor.  And within a few short minutes, away went my girlhood.

“All done!” Phil announced.  A thrill of excitement shot through my stomach.  I reached blindly forward, groping for my glasses, expecting to see this:

I make this look sooo easy.

My hand slid over its target, and I drew my glasses up to my face, slipping them on and looking up into the mirror for the dramatic reveal.  What met my enlarged, expectant eyes was far more reminiscent of Kevin McCallister, right after he slaps aftershave on his cheeks.

WHAT HAVE I DONE?!

Phil smiled at me through the reflection in the mirror.  I hitched up a grin bordering on a grimace and whispered, "Thanks."  My dad, looking up from his magazine, smiled broadly.  He finally had a son.

At school the next day, I baffled other students and was asked by first and second graders on the playground whether I was a boy or girl .  Admittedly, I exacerbated the problem by responding more often than not, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”  With the name Morgan Lee and my affinity for flannel button downs and jeans, even adults struggled to deduce my gender.  I was, without question, the “Pat” of my elementary school.

I didn't get invited to many sleepovers.

Looking back on the two years (you read that correctly) of my life that I spent with that haircut, I believe that it is these experiences which turn children into interesting adults.  How many girls do YOU know who went by the nickname George until their freshman year in high school, when most of her friends couldn’t even remember the origin of said moniker?

It wasn’t until college that I truly figured out how to be (kind of) pretty, though I experimented a lot with skirts, fishnets and old man cardigans throughout high school.  Form a line, gentlemen.  Not all at once, now.  I believe that I appreciate my femininity more than girls who have never had it unceremoniously wrenched away from them, as I did.  So thank you, Phil.  Sorry I haven’t been back for another haircut in 14 years.

Let's Get This Thing Rolling...

Okay, so truth time.  The blogosphere intimidates the sh*t out of me.  Now, don't get me wrong; I've been reading blogs since I was about 13, and back in the days of OpenDiary and Xanga, I was all about sharing my adolescent woes with unfiltered abandon.  As blogs started becoming a means of artistic expression, however, I lost my gusto for sharing with the entire world how much I wanted a boyfriend and how lousy my hair had turned out from my last box job hair dying excursion.  Suddenly, I felt irrelevant and, frankly, boring.  I became an internet recluse, deleting my former blogs and changing the settings on my LiveJournal to private, no visitors allowed beware of dog KEEP OUT.

So why am I here, you wonder?  Good question.  I suppose I'm here because I am ready to challenge myself.  The past year of my life has been a whirlwind of changes, for better and for worse.  I am ready to put my thoughts out there again and to dare the world to put up with me.

I would love to say that I have some epic goal for this blog, like that Julie & Julia chick, because that's how you get books published and prove, once and for all, that your thoughts are valid and interesting.  For now, though, I'll summarize with this: I want to document my intellectual and emotional growth.  I have spent the better part of 2011 hiding from my fears and letting myself believe that other people have more to say than I do, but that's simply not the person that I want to be anymore.

So look out, Internet.  I'm back.