I Survived Whamageddeon And Other Holiday Tales

Christmas is behind us and the New Year is just around the corner.  I am happy to report that I survived Whamaggedeon (more on that in a moment) and the rest of the holiday craziness.  I am PRAYING for a quiet end to the year.  This mom has had enough of the crazy and chaos that inevitably surrounds me from Thanksgiving on.  (I fully admit that the majority of this is of my own choosing.)

Let's start off with Whamaggedeon.  What is it?  You can follow the link I provided, but in a nutshell from December 1 through December 24 you do everything in your power to avoid hearing Wham's "Last Christmas."  If the rules pushed it back to right after Thanksgiving, I would have been a dead woman, but since the rules have a start date of December 1st, I was good.  (I heard the song on the evening of November 30!)  Although the rules say that you only have to avoid Wham's version of the song (because it's been covered and covered and covered again!), I tried to avoid all versions of the song no matter what.  Which is why I considered myself slightly injured when I heard the beginnings of a cover on SiriusXM's Acoustic Christmas channel.  But I wasn't down for the count. For the time frame I was good.  With the additional holiday channels that SiriusXM added this year, I figured I would be good; Acoustic Christmas and Jazz Christmas are what I listened to, and there was no threat of Wham there.  But there was the threat that could come from places like the grocery store, drug store, etc.  Still I managed to avoid it.  I even made sure that the Thrift Shop where I volunteer was a Wham free zone!  I DID have one co-worker who threatened to call me and play it (after HE was whammed), but the threat was not followed up on.  So I can proudly say that I made it through Whamaggedeon and am up for the LDB (Little Drummer Boy) game next year (which starts right after Thanksgiving) and will give the #lastman (http://lastmangame.wikia.com/wiki/Last_Man-The_Game_About_Avoiding_The_Game_Wiki) another go on February 3, 2019.

What else was I up to over the holidays?  Well, like any "regular" (crazy) mom, I did more than my share of cooking.  Friday and Saturday prior to Christmas I baked several batches of my chocolate cinnamon sugar cookies.  I might have thought I was done on Friday night, but having a teen son, I needed to make more by Saturday morning!  Additionally, I wanted to make something special for Christmas Eve morning (forget Christmas morning...it's too crazy to try and do anything other than Pillsbury cinnamon rolls).  Bfth the Baker:  A Holiday Adventure is chronicled here.

Then there was the cooking of the mid-day meal on Christmas.  While A Christmas Story played continuously (I don't think we changed the channel all day), I got the big ass ham in the oven and continually basted it with glaze.  In the movie, A Christmas Story, the mom and dad are enjoying a glass of red wine after the presents have been opened, but BEFORE Ralphie finds the specially wrapped official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle.  Based on the fact that it is daylight outside when Ralphie gets up (so it must be after 7) and how long it might have taken for the family to open all the presents (maybe 90 minutes), I came to the conclusion that they must have been partaking by around 10 in the morning (central time).  If mom and the "old man" can be sipping in the morning, I figured it was all right for me to do the same while I prepared our Christmas meal.  (Which was WAY too much food for only 6 people.  I'm rethinking how I might do this in 2019...and I'm open to any suggestions!)  Somehow, while basting, preparing two veggies and 2 carbs I managed to burn my left index finger quite nicely. More wine and an ice pack on the hand was required during the meal.  Despite this, I still cleared the table and packed away the left overs (which are jammed in my under-sized fridge) while my husband (and to some extent my son) cleaned the dishes, made coffee and served dessert.  (Did we really need dessert?  Probably not, but we had to get rid of that music fundraiser cheesecake!)

What to do after all the guests go home?  Laundry!  Vacuum!  And then finally crashing with more wine while watching A Christmas Story and part of Love Actually (network tv does not do this film justice, cutting out the John/Judy storyline and having Billy Mack write on the boy band poster "we have little brains" when every kid over the age of 10 knows what he REALLY wrote.)

You MIGHT think that taking a vacation day on the 26th meant that I would spend the day relaxing.  If you DO think that, you are NOT a mom!  Instead, I drove my son (the husband rides shotgun) out to my in-laws in Pennsylvania.  (Thankfully, I did not have to pack for him; he does his own packing with a little reminding.  I didn't even check his bag!)  The drive out and back was not too bad, despite passing a major mall and several other shopping outlets, but did take a big hunk of time out of the day.  Once home I (foolishly?) did a check of office email and (even more foolishly?) did a little work.  Garbage went out and then hubby and I headed to the local T-Mobile store.  For Christmas I had gotten both of my guys new phones and I had to add a new line to our plan (more $ that I don't have, but...) and get a new SIM card for my son's phone.  Yes, the sun was down when we finally finished up all that needed to be done.

Now there are just two days of work for me until the weekend and the next holiday break.  (I am lucky enough to get New Year's Eve AND New Year's Day off...my luck will run out after this unless I decide to take a vacation day for the Eve of Christmas and New Year's in 2019.) I have no plans; although you know I will end up doing some volunteer work at the thrift shop on Saturday and my son WILL come home with laundry on Sunday.  Perhaps I'll just climb into bed early on Monday night and not get up until late on Tuesday?  (Not likely...come on you should know that by now!)

Hoping that all who have taken the time to read this, had a wonderful holiday (no matter what holiday you celebrate...or not) and that 2019 brings us a world of peace.  (One can hope, right?  We CAN all work towards that goal.  Every person DOES make a difference.)  And as Tiny Tim says, "God bless us, every one!"