Category Archives: Holidays

November 25, 2010

Happy Healthy Holidays

Happy Thanksgiving! If ever there was a year to be thankful for life’s little blessings – this is the one.

Thanksgiving has always signaled the start of the holiday season to me. (Forget the Christmas creep in the retail establishment where carols are piped throughout stores beginning in August…) It’s the first long weekend as the year wraps up – a holiday appetizer if you will. The day after Thanksgiving is the appropriate time to begin seeing holiday lights brighten neighborhoods and acknowledge ones fashionable affinity toward a red and green color combination.

Every year around this time, I once again think to myself, “This is my favorite time of year!” We have a tree in our front yard that sheds its leaves (making a complete mess, but it’s a California girl’s taste of an actual season). Inevitably, shortly after making such a declaration to myself, I emerge from the comfort of my toasty sheets and am hit smack in the face with the abrasive cold of winter.

This past week, I have felt my cheeks pink right up as I watched my breath fog up my glasses each morning. I love this season, I love this season, I love this….IT’S COLD! The Bay Area has been setting record lows lately. The temperatures are dipping into the 20s overnight and our highs are around 50. (Before anyone from arctic regions starts in on me: See above comment about being a California girl. 50 degrees is cold, and anything below 32 actually, scientifically, is freezing.) Disclosure – I fully admit to being a weather wimp. I prefer not to see any Fahrenheit reading below 70 or above 80.

This holiday season has such special meaning because, as you all know, it’s the muppets first celebration. Right around this time last year is when I found out we were expecting and the whole adventure began. Today, we made the trek up to spend the day with some dear friends. I remember spending a holiday with Auntie Beeeca 11 years ago; we were freshmen in college. This year we spent the day chasing our children around. How times change.

I fully intend to regale you with the tales of the Muppets First Thanksgiving special. But with the culinary wonders of our hosts to blame, Jon and I are succumbing to the tryptophan’s sweet embrace. Family, friends, food and fun;, this holiday season is going to one to remember. And I am thankful.

  • I am thankful for our million dollar miracle muppets.
  • I am thankful for my amazing husband without whom I don’t know how I could have survived this roller coaster.
  • I am thankful for my family, whose love and support has given the muppets one heck of an amazing start.
  • I am thankful for my friends, who voluntarily chose to partake in the craziness and love the muppets as unconditionally as our family.
  • I am thankful for our Kaiser nurses. June, Susan, Ann, Jennifer (s), Margaret, and so many more, who spent two and a half months helping the muppets get big and strong.
  • I am thankful for the doctors who put up with a paranoid me while they did everything they could to make sure we’d have million dollar miracle muppets to be thankful for.
  • I am thankful we have someone who cares for our muppets with such skill that we leave home with complete peace of mind.
  • I am thankful for my furry four-legged sons because, well, dogs make me happy.
  • I am thankful I have a happy story to tell. I am also thankful (and ready) to start a new chapter in a new year.

I wish you all a healthy, happy and holiday season at home with your loved ones. And for being a part of the muppets lives – even just by reading their story – thank you.

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October 31, 2010

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone! This is such a fun holiday for the little ones – cute little kids in warm fuzzy costumes and sleep-deprived parents sporting zombie-like circles under their eyes simply blend in with the crowds.

On this first Halloween for the muppets, they will be helping me hand out candy to the slightly larger little ones traversing the neighborhood in search of fun-size goodies. Our celebration was yesterday.

With lions and tigers and bears – oh my – a number of moms gathered to watch our progeny dive headfirst into a massive sugar high (and ball pit provided for toddler entertainment). Chaos ensued. There were Buzz Lightyears and Jesse the Toy Story Cowgirl, a skunk, giraffe and butterfly. Sadly, the jovial atmosphere was dampened when Mickey Mouse took a bite out of the bear (literally). The bear spent the rest of the afternoon running amuck in his undies – judging by the pattern on those, I suppose he transformed into a fire truck.

But, of course, kings of the jungle were the lion and the mischief-making monkey.

Search

Destroy

Destroy was my little lion and Search was mommy’s monkey. I grew up collecting stuffed animals – I have containers full waiting for the boys and still more stored at GrammaJ and GrampaTavo’s house. Today, my million dollar miracle muppets were by far the cutest and cuddliest stuffed animals to ever exist.

(Momentary tangent: I was completely unsuccessful in my attempts to locate muppet costumes for tiny infants. Apparently they only come in size six months and up, which is too big for the muppets even if they were term size. I figure I have at least one more year of getting to choose their costumes. Who among my loyal readers is crafty enough to create the perfect muppet costumes for Halloween 2011?)

One little boy was wearing an oversized “My First Halloween” onesie. He was one week old. I looked at the tiny man, who weighed in at a hefty seven and a half pounds, and exclaimed, “He’s so tiny!” I had become so used to my little perfect preemies that I hadn’t realized how quickly they were growing up. Not only are the muppets no longer the youngest kids in the crew, they are no longer the smallest!

I was thrilled to actually feel a baby (full term) was small. Look how far we’ve come – and that realization was the best “costume” of the day.

We’ve all had a great time during our first official kickoff to the 2010 holiday season. And Search thinks this weekend’s adventures have been hilarious.

Trick-or-treat!

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October 29, 2010

The Great Pumpkin Heist

The muppets are in bed. Last night, they slept for nine hours. I suppose I shouldn’t be that surprised – they’ve had a busy week.

Yesterday, they came to visit me at work – in costume. With so many colors, lights and new people moving all around them, it was quite a bit to take in. Tomorrow we celebrate – in costume again – at a Halloween brunch, followed by candy and trick-or-treaters on Sunday. Before bed tonight, we watched “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.” That cartoon, along with picking out a pumpkin from the pumpkin patch, are some of my favorite spooktacular memories of childhood.

As G.G. mentioned in the Tiny Disguises post, Halloween has become quite an important holiday – at least in terms of childhood memories. So, in anticipation of the muppets future memories, we decided to tell scary stories reminiscing about the past.

Much like me, a pumpkin from the patch was a traditional part of the haunted holiday for Aunt J. One year, Joanne became determined to procure a “real” carved pumpkin. Back in the days before open land was parceled into suburban track homes, there was a 40-acre field across from the house she lived in – where a farmer happened to have a bumper crop of autumn fruit.

Her best friend (and trouble-courting sisters) had already successfully managed pluck their own from the farmer’s field. They said it was easy. All she had to do was walk onto the field and chose her favorite.

Joanne was young, daring, adventurous and innocent. She decided she was brave enough to attempt the perfect great pumpkin heist. She had the courage, naiveté and peer encouragement. What she did not have, however, was timing. The caper commenced right after school, at the mysterious witching hour of mid-afternoon. She approached the field with caution and selected the prime, perfect, plump pumpkin. Then she started making her way home.

G.G. and Gramma J were watching the caper from afar.

Joanne saw them. She did not see the farmer watching her every move. As she crossed the field, so close to completing her mission, the farmer headed her off at the pass. Joanne froze. Her pumpkin splattered.

And she high-tailed it out of that field as fast as her little legs could carry her. Trembling, and scared to death, the budding criminal was bursting with adrenaline as she galloped across field – the farmer on his tractor in hot pursuit.

Gravely concerned for their daugher/sister’s well being, G.G. and Gramma J practically collapsed, convulsing in hysterical laughter.

Joanne did not return home with her pumpkin.

Boys – do not steal pumpkins. We will make our own adventures at the pumpkin patch.

 

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October 26, 2010

Tiny Disguises

This weekend is the muppets first holiday. Technically, they’ve already celebrated Independence Day and Labor Day – but this is the first holiday with muppet-specific planned events.

Perhaps it’s the weather. It’s chilly, slightly gloomy and very blustery. We’ve got a pumpkin on our porch and some very decoratively enthusiastic neighbors. Leaves now litter our tree-lined street and the arbor skeletons beckon to spirited children.

Halloween is here!

This is the first time in a very long time I’ve been so excited about All Souls Day. Two years ago, I was thrilled because we had a house and I was going to get trick-or-treaters. And even though they’re still a bit young, we have our own little monsters this year.

As several people have pointed out, yes, the muppets are too young to appreciate dressing up. Yes, I am aware of this and no, I am not driving the sport utility stroller door to door in a citywide search for fun-size candies. However, they will be participating in a parade at my work and attending a costume brunch on Saturday. Sunday, they’ll be home helping me hand out candy to the local disguised tricksters.

I issued a pop quiz to Gramma J – what did Paul and I dress up as each year of our childhood. She responded, “Are you kidding me?”

If my memory serves, I spent my childhood as a clown, witch, Barbie, angel, rabbit, Phantom of the Opera and, my personal creative favorite, a yellow Crayola crayon. My brother was a pirate, Indian, dinosaur, Care Bear GI Joe, and Ryne Sandberg.

I’m not sharing what the muppets are dressing up as just yet. I know many of you already know – but for those who don’t, let’s save the surprise for the big day. I’ll give you a hint. Despite my best efforts to procure the costumes, the boys are not going to be muppets.

I’m excited and eager for the memories. They grow up so fast.

See?

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