Dec
29
As I mentioned last week, I was sick with the flu. Not fun. I started feeling better on Christmas Eve, but Josh was just starting to feel sick. So, we decided to skip the festivities with my extended family. Neither of us was feeling up to chatting with everyone while watching Eleanor, and I didn’t want us to get all of my cousin’s little ones sick. My dad was hosting this year, so we waited until the extended family had left and headed over to his place for Christmas Eve gifts with the family. Since my parents are divorced we do Christmas Eve with my Dad, Christmas Morning at home, and Christmas dinner with my mom. It works out that Josh’s family is Jewish, I don’t think I could handle any more Christmas events.
Eleanor wore her lovely holiday dress and headband that my friend Megan bought her for her birthday. You may remember it from our Hanukkah post. We threw on some white tights to keep her warm and I found some matching sparkly shoes at Target, which we gave her as a Hanukkah gift. I hope you approve Megan!
You’ll notice that Eleanor went straight for the plate of cookies. She proceeded to lick the icing off of several and then run around like a crazy person. Neither Josh nor I had the energy to stop her. And, whatever, it’s Christmas, she can have sweets at Christmas. We’re not monsters, after all. At least not at Christmas.
And that was Christmas Eve. Pretty relaxed. You can tell by the way, my brother Emmett is lying on the floor. Super relaxed!
Tomorrow we’ll skip the usual Wordless Wednesday and have some words along with photos of Christmas morning!
Dec
28
Last Sunday night we had Andrew & Amy and Betsy over for a holiday movie and baking party. The whole thing was Andrew’s idea, by the way, and thank you Andrew! It was a great idea! We all had so much fun. This is one of my favorite parts of the holidays, getting to spend time with our closest friends.
I wanted to bake my favorite holiday cookie, chewy chocolate gingerbread cookies, but the dough needs to be refrigerated for several hours before baking so I spent the morning making all of the dough so that once the guests arrived all we would have to do was to roll it into balls and roll them in sugar before putting them in the oven.
Here are my ingredients. I actually make this cookie from scratch, and real scratch, not my new ” from scratch.”
Of course I didn’t actually take any pictures of the party itself, because as I’ve said I tend to forget about my camera when I’m hosting a party. And to be honest I was pretty drunk through the entire party. I hadn’t eaten much that day, so all it really took was a glass of wine just after Andrew and Amy arrived.
At some point I had a second glass of wine and then while Amy, Josh and Besty watched Love, Actually (such a great holiday movie, always makes me cry) Andrew and I worked on the cookies and some very very boozy eggnog that he had made himself. It was actually really good eggnog with tons of Brandy. So I was pretty good and drunk through the entire party. We had a great time just talking and laughing and occasionally watching parts of the movie. I spent half of the night just listening to Betsy and Andrew talk which was so much fun for me. It felt just like old times when the three of us were best friends in high school spending every Friday night watching movies at Betsy’s house. Oh, the good old days!
Anyway, it was a fun little party and luckily Amy was there with her camera. Here is the link to the photos she put up in her SmugMug gallery. If she posts about it herself later, I’ll update this post with a link.
Update: Here’s the link to Amy’s post about the party!
300 Posts! Whoo Hoo!
Time to Give Away Some Stuff!
29
Posted by: Maggie
We finally reached 300 posts! So as I announced two weeks ago we are having a giveaway to celebrate! And here is what we are giving away:
This fabulous package of gifts was chosen with love to represent the best of Making Me Cranky goodness.
First of all we have my very favorite panties from Victoria’s Secret:
You may remember them from a past Fabulous Friday. I have them in a whole bunch of colors and patterns. They are super soft and comfy and they will come to you in a size medium, which I wear, but with a gift receipt to exchange them for another size if you aren’t as generous in the caboose as I am, or if you’d prefer a different color or pattern. If you are a gentleman winning our giveaway, these will make the perfect gift for that special lady friend in your life, or if you are without a special lady friend you can keep them under your pillow and dream about a day when you will have a special lady in your life. Hahaha! Oh god, I’m funny. Moving on…
Next, for the guys, a lovely pair of argyle socks:
Those in Josh’s inner circle, and the people that work in his office, know that he regularly wears argyle socks. And by regularly, I mean, pretty much every day. I’m planning a Fabulous Friday post about them. He has like 30 pairs. Again, ladies, these will make a great gift for the gentlemen in your life. And if you don’t have one, you can reference my instructions for single guys above.
Next up, a nice big red mug for your morning coffee, filled with some Irish Cream Hershey’s Kisses, you know, to Irish up your coffee:
You might remember my attempt to go coffee-free about six months ago. Well, I’m back on the coffee wagon (or is it off the wagon), in a big way and think you all should be too. I can’t live without my morning and afternoon cups, but I’m trying to limit myself to just those two cups a day. Now you can enjoy your morning cups in this beautiful red mug lovingly selected by me with just you readers in mind. I’m terribly thoughtful.
Now, I also plan to include some Newhall Coffee, my favorite from a local independent coffee roasting company, if I can get my hands on some! They were out at the store we usually shop at, so I’m going to try to get some later this week. We’ll see. I’m not making any promises.
And last, but certainly not least, straight from our latest Fabulous Friday, David Sedaris’ Holidays On Ice!
And it’s the super new hardcover edition with six new stories! This is way better than the one we have. I am super jealous. You may just be receiving a pre-read copy. Because, you know, I have to make sure it’s appropriate for my readers, who I love so much.
So, to win all of these fabulous prizes, here are the rules once again:
You get an entry for commenting on the previous post announcing this giveaway, answering the question: What is your favorite thing about the holiday season?. You can get a second entry by emailing me at maggie@makingmecranky.com with a suggestion for a Fabulous Friday post. And you can get a third entry with a comment on this post telling us what you love about Making Me Cranky. I am very clearly fishing for compliments and I have given you plenty of time to think of one, so they better be good! And I know you people are all going to say that it’s getting to bask in the adorableness that is Eleanor.
Oh and I’ve added one little restriction. I’ll only ship to the lower 48s. Apologies to our international readers, but I really can’t afford the postage. So if you don’t live in the lower 48, please don’t enter.
Okay kids, you have until Midnight New Year’s Eve (PST) to enter! The winner will be chosen, probably at random, by Brian at our New Year’s Eve get-together. The winner will be announced shortly thereafter, depending on when I’m sober enough to type.
Oh and don’t forget there will be a second prize for the 500th commenter but we’re not getting super close, so you might have to wait a while for that one. I’ll post again to remind you about it and announce what the prize will be when we’re getting closer to reaching it.
Good luck everyone!