Pre-Christmas column (12/20)

Although I’ve beaten the topic of Christmas to death in the past few weeks, it’s time to give it one more swift kick before the big day. I’m actually feeling more in control than I have the past few weeks. Although I will be one of the crazy last minute shoppers out this week, the list is short. I finally got around to ordering and picking up my Christmas cards. The majority got signed, stuffed, sealed, stamped and sent on their way Saturday morning. Another bundle found their way to the big blue box Monday. Now the only cards I have left are the hand-delivered variety. I figure why mail them when I’ll see the recipients this weekend.

The wrapping is also underway. I hit the first few bags last week. After wrapping and slapping on a few bows, I put them under the tree. The idea of having gifts under the tree is to keep Jacob from being able to walk right up to it. The novelty of pulling ornaments from the boughs still has not subsided. After piling up the present barrier, I was sad to find Jacob found something else to pull on. He yanked all the shiny stick-on bows from the presents and scattered them around the living room floor. I did find all the bows and put them in a pile on the TV. The new plan is to stick them on right before they leave our tree to go to the next. They might need the help of some tape though. The stickyness seems to have dried out.

Saturday morning I woke on a mission. After getting bits and pieces of all the toys Jacob’s getting for Christmas, I need to make more space in the house. That means boxes of baby clothes, the exersaucer and high chair will get shoved into the garage. But to do that I need to get rid of the pile of recyclables that’s been accumulating along one wall for a year and a half. Garbage is supposed to be Nate’s job. However, we’re in a dispute over whether recyclables are really garbage or not. In protest, I was letting it pile up. I guess Nate won because I was the one packing all the bottles into the trunk of my car for a short ride to the town hall. Two trips later, I gained about 10 square feet of storage. Since the weekend ran short on me, it’s going to take another kid-free afternoon or a weekend morning to move the unneeded baby gear from house to garage.

As of last night, I have nearly every present wrapped that’s been bought so far. The only three left out are for my secret Santa among my siblings and my secret pal here at the office. Those both require more shopping before the package is complete.

Overall the Christmas season has been bearable. I think our mild weather has had a lot to do with that. Other years shopping trips have been planned around the snowstorms. At the same time, I hope the cold and snow comes sooner rather than later or we’ll have some grumpy ice fishermen and snowmobilers come January.

From my family to yours, have a very Merry Christmas!

All I want for Christmas is a bottle of Nyquil (12/13 column)

There’s been a nasty little cold circulating through my family and extended family as of late. Apparently, the roulette wheel has finally stopped at my number. This is about the worst time for me to get sick. There’s just too much I need to do. There’s lots of good news to cover, lots of photos to take and lots of goodies hanging around the office to tempt our tastebuds. Christmas treats are pointless if you can’t taste them.

Not to mention I have yet to start my Christmas cards (although I did update my address book last week) and still have most of my Christmas shopping to do. Even of the presents I did buy, I’ve yet to wrap a single one. So I guess I’m just going to have to tough this one out.

I think the worst part of getting a cold it right at the beginning. I hate the achy, cold feeling of the body. And how is can go to too hot to too cold in a room without a single change in degree. I also hate the drippy sinuses that cause me to have a tissue right next to the keyboard at all times. And I hate how it hurts to blow my nose, and then nothing really releases itself from my irritated sinuses. It also seems as the body aches get sharper the mind gets duller. The head gets heavier and pretty soon you feel climbing out of bed is the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do.

Crawling out of bed is hard enough this time of year already. There’s just something not right about getting up when it’s still dark. Add a fever, sore throat and headache and you’ve got a cocktail for a sick day. With my fuzzy mind, I’m now even lost more than ever on the remainder of my Christmas list. Especially for the person I’m supposed to know the best: my husband.

Actually, I’ve got three special days to shop for him coming in the next two weeks. Our anniversary is next week. Christmas is the week after that, and five days later is his birthday. I think the problem, although he doesn’t call it a problem, is everything he wants is too darn expensive. A new truck, although he needs and deserves one for driving the ‘89 all these years, is $30,000, give or take. The cost of a milking parlor could buy him several trucks. Until recently I thought he got the combine itch out of his system since he bought a small, used one last summer. Then a few days ago he talked about upgrading to a size larger.

I guess I can’t really talk too much because my Christmas wish list has some awful big ticket items on it as well. The house is number one, followed by a new(er) car, computer, camcorder and a digital camera upgrade. That’s the problem with growing up, kids. The wish list grows up too. When it comes to needs and wants, I’m pretty good about knowing the difference. I’m sure Santa is as well, and I don’t think either of our lists will make the cut.

So forget Santa. I’m going to buy more lottery tickets. And some Nyquil.

It's Holiday crunch time

At the risk of sounding like a Scrooge, here it is: there’s a lot to hate about the holidays. It seems the older I get the more complicated it all becomes.

At age three my sole purpose at Christmas was to eat cookies and open presents. I was happy with that.

At age seven I sang in the school Christmas concert, took a treat to my class for the holiday party, ate cookies and opened presents. It was still all good.

During fourth grade I remember the first time I felt the stress of the holidays. For our class gift exchange, we each brought in a gift: girls brought girl gifts and boys brought boy gifts. Then the teacher drew a name out of the hat and the person selected one of the wrapped presents. My name was picked first. Being the new kid in school that year, I was still in the process of making friends. Since I had the top pick among all the girl presents, I got to select the best looking one and, by default, possibly make or lose a friend. So the heart starts racing as I consider my options: do I pick the prettiest package, the largest, the cute little bag, the shiny silver one? It’s a little much for a fourth grader. I didn’t want to pick, so I quickly grabbed a medium sized, simply wrapped box. It was a puzzle. I actually enjoy puzzles today, but then not so much. I couldn’t help but wish I’d chosen a different package.

By age 12 the stress started to kick in. Since class gift exchanges were now done, groups of friends started buying each other little trinkets. Without any income, my budget was stretched and I feared someone would give me a gift without me having one for them. In my senior year of high school we finally got smart and drew names with a $20 limit. I got a t-shirt which can only be worn today by my petite little sister.

In college it was more of the same, but now with boys thrown in the mix. What are the rules on buying gifts for the guy you’re dating? Will he like it? Is it too much? Not enough? I once read you should spend $10 per month you’ve been together. Sounds fair enough to me.

Somewhere along the line, Christmas cards also became a necessity. This year I got smart and bought a special address book for my Christmas card list. Then I can pack it away with the decorations after the holidays. Too bad it’s still blank. Truthfully I haven’t even ordered my Christmas cards yet. We plan to do a family photo with the new-to-us combine, but it hasn’t worked out yet; rain, work and lack of a photographer keep getting in the way.

Now that I guess I’m an adult, there’s more fun things in store. Since our first Christmas together, Nate and I agreed I would shop for my family and he would shop for his for joint presents from the both of us. This year though it seems I’m picking up the slack on both ends. My siblings and I did make one smart decision last year: we started drawing names for a gift exchange, eliminating five gifts from my list. But at the pace I’m shopping now, everyone else is getting gift cards.

One crazy Thanksgiving

For the past two years, Nate and I has shoved two Thanksgiving celebrations into one day. That’s two turkey dinners, two pieces of pie and two sessions of conversing with the relatives. Thanks to a suggestion by my mom, we ended the madness this year and divided Thanksgiving into two separate occasions: one Thursday with the Eckerts and one Saturday with the Nelsons.

For me Thanksgiving began Wednesday afternoon with a trip to the grocery store. I decided to make a dessert and a salad for the Eckerts so I needed ingredients. Luckily I beat the after work rush and made it out of the store just as it was getting crowded. Later that evening Nate’s cousin Chris and her new fiancé, Jeff, arrived. Nate and I took them to a local tavern for some pre-Thanksgiving entertainment. While we were there a wrestling match ensued between a few hunters.

“They’re related,” the bartender said as she shook her head. Turns out they were fighting over what kind of pizza to order. The following day I whipped out my chef’s hat and made my contributions to Thanksgiving dinner. Both turned out pretty well, considering the dessert was a first try.

On Friday afternoon Nate and I headed to a local Christmas tree farm to cut a few for my relatives. After hearing what my mom spent on a tree last year, I promised to bring her one fresh from the farm. We also threw a second one in for my aunts since we had the room. My brother turned down a real tree in favor of a non-shedding fake one. On Saturday Mom, my sisters and I took over the kitchen while Nate kept an eye on Jacob. My grandparents and aunts also came over so it was a full house.

After dinner and a short rest to let the turkey settle, a few of my family members took Nate out into the woods to hunt the steep hills. He got the better end of the deal though; they stuck him in a tree stand and drove a doe right to him. He dropped it with one shot. After we got the deer situated for the night, Dad found two heifers calving. One had her heifer calf with no problem, but the other (flash back to last week) had twins.

Kaitlyn, who aspires to be a vet, and I dove into the problem. We found both were trying to get out at the same time. I pushed one back in while Kaitlyn tried to bring around a front foot that was folded back. After we had the first one out, a little black heifer calf, we checked on the other who now wanted to come out ears first. We pushed her back again and got her nose coming first. This one had her whole leg back. We tried to bring it forward, but eventually gave up and eased her out with no damage. The second was a heifer calf too, but with a surprise: this one was almost completely white with a couple of black specks on her. I’ve never seen a pair of twins so different in color, kind of like white meat and dark meat in a turkey.



Both were lively and ready to eat, especially the little white one. I don’t think my sisters named them yet, but something like Pumpkin and Apple would be appropriate for Thanksgiving calves, don’t you think?