It really frustrates me that my decorative garland doesn't stay up on my mantle. I even put nails in it this year... who knew garland was so resistant.
Holiday decorating tends to stress me out, probably because my decorating sense is none existent. My house never looks like a page out of a pottery barn catalogue. I wish it would. I am so envious of people who are able to put things together like that. If and when tim and I ever get a house, I will definitely be hiring one of my friends to decorate for me. I feel so pathetic when I try to put out decorations and it looks like an A.C. Moore clearance rack. My drooping garland right now is like a blatant lit up reminder that I suck at interior decorating.
Along the lines of decorating, I changed the color background of this blog, which you have probably noticed. It needs some sort of makeover. The other colors were too summery... but once i started switching the colors around i got overwhelmed and left them as they are now, which is still pretty summery. I could spend hours picking out the colors and driving myself nuts... but I am choosing not to.
My favorite holiday of the year has come and gone. This year it seemed to go by extra quickly, maybe that is because two of my cousins are pregnant so they were not drinking. It was actually a pretty sober turkey day for the doherty family. Strange. Here are some of my highlights from thanksgiving:
1.) Seeing my mother completely stressed out and standing in the corner of the kitchen messaging her temples. My sister and I happened to notice it at the same time, which left us in tears of laughter.
2.) My mom yelling at anyone who walked through the kitchen to "please not come through the kitchen"
3.) My mom asking my dad to cut the turkey five times, then my dad yelling at my mom to tell him when to cut the turkey
4.) My mom rearranging the seating cards and sticking me in the worst seat possible
5.) Being seated in between my uncle and my dad... which leads me to the next highlight.
6.) The "Party Potatoes" which somehow led to my dad making a comment (while I was out of the room) that I had a "party in my pants" (line of the night).
7.) The "what i am grateful for" tradition... which had me in tears, mostly from laughter (or from thinking of my father using the words "party in her pants" in reference to me)
8.) Listening to my cousin's argue about pregnancy, shower dates, caffeine, paint fumes, etc. etc. Oh, and of course when one cousin gave us the chosen middle name for her daughter, which just so happens to be the other cousins first choice of first names if she has a girl. This could be fight of the century!
9.) Madeline in her tights. (that should be at the top of the list)
10.) And most of all, when leaving the festivities, my sister made a comment along the lines of... "why live here when you could be dead." She has been stuck living in my parents house for a few months... as you can tell, it's going well.
All in all, it was a nice holiday. But, it just didn't feel the same. I am really big into tradition, ok, I am obsessively into tradition. This year I knew would be a challenge because it was our first holiday without Mamae (my grandmother). About halfway through the afternoon I realized... we didn't have any bugles and dip. Bugles and Dip are a staple of every single family get together. It was my grandmother's specialty. Even a year ago when she was still alive I vowed to bring the dip to family get togethers for all the years to come! Then, the very first holiday, we all forgot. We even had it as a family after her funeral! I was horrified when I realized we didn't have it. Then, to top off the day of fudging traditions, we forgot to have the traditional napkin fight, which Page has since coined as the "Mary E. Doherty Memorial Napkin Toss". We tried to rally and have it after dessert, but it was mere shadow of what it used to be. We were desperate and used clean napkins. Have you ever tried to ball up a clean napkin... it doesn't work. Sure, it was cleaner, but that is not the essence of the game anyway. We let Mamae down. She was usually the first person to toss a napkin (or to be honest, it would be me throwing one at her because she thought it was the funniest thing in the world). I used to jokingly (half-joking) threaten her that if she didn't bring the bugles and dip to a party, then she couldn't come and that we would drive her back home. And yet, we all forgot. We didn't forget her though. She was definitely in all of our thoughts, as was evident during our "grateful" moments... when I got to be reminded twice that I am the only grand daughter that did not get to tell my grandmother that she would be a great-grandmother again. Part of me wanted to chuck my roll at my cousin in a burst of jealousy as I watched her cry and say how grateful she was that she got to tell my grandmother she was pregnant and how much that meant. I know, its no reason to have a child, but I won't lie, I would have loved to be able to tell her something like that. Oh, that was another thing, my aunt's kitchen is being remodeled so she could not make her standard pumpkin bread. Another staple of thanksgiving... completely dismissed. Replaced with store bought bread. It was a sad, sad day. Thank god all of this didn't happen the same year my mother transformed my childhood bedroom into "her office". That year was a wine-soaked fiasco.
This rambling has gone on long enough. I am off to work on one of my six crafting type projects that I have under way. Tomorrow is the start of basketball season... Watch out for that freshman team, we are going to come and take the middlesex team by storm! I have my brand new whistle ready to go... my try-out agendas... and a ball of anxiety in my stomach as large as a basketball itself! Why am I so nervous for this!> You'd think I was the one trying out... maybe it will be like tryouts when I was a freshman and I got so nervous that I puked. Awesome.
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