My family celebrates on Christmas Eve night (I’m not sure if this is from the Dutch ancestry or the minister ancestry), so we are already relaxing and enjoying all our presents while you suckers are trying to get a shower and a cup of coffee in the midst of the chaos. My favorite parts of Christmas:
Cards around the doorway between living room and kitchen.
OMG UNDERWEAR IN STOCKING!!!
MOST HILARIOUS THING EVER!!!
Heading out for annual Christmas lights drive in pajamas.
Children reading new books, playing new video games,
looking at new coloring books,
while Mother has a latte and Cheetos for breakfast.
Non-favorite part: slipping on a step and hitting several subsequent steps with my buttular region SO HARD I have a bruise the size of a LARGE YAM. This is the only time I have ever been tempted to post a picture of my butt on the internet, because I would really love to get some big sympathy for this. I asked Paul if he wanted to see it and he was like “OH-kay! *waggling eyebrows”* and then he totally divebombed into “OOOOOO, GEEZ, AGGGG!!” I am not kidding when I say I can’t SIT, not because sitting is so painful (though it kind of is) but because getting UP again is too painful. I am kneeling on my sideways computer chair, elbows resting on the armrest, hunched over the keyboard like a butt-injured Christmas vulture.
I appreciate how your make your misfortunes so very entertaining to read about. :)
Love your Cmas card display. Of course I didn’t look reeeally closely to see if I could find mine. :)
Elizabeth’s laugh is wonderful.
(That was me above. Hit Enter before I was done.)
— Mairzy
you have such a sweet family. merry christmas!
“Butt-injured Christmas vulture” has basically made my entire life. MY ENTIRE LIFE.
Christmas looks fun at your house! Merry Christmas Swistle (+family) and sorry about your butt.
Christmas carnage all around! Love it. Merry Christmas to you and yours :)
Speaking from recent experience with a slip and a sore bottom – GO SEE THE DOCTOR. Because the pain in never ending. Just when you think you feel better, you roll over in bed or try to get out of the van and the pains is so bad you tear up, if only for a second. And while it may not seem like a big deal, the doc can give you a good meds (that maybe you can’t take because like me you are busy being a mother to 5 and can’t be falling asleep all day, but maybe Paul will be home for a few days and then you can) and the pain will be better and the healing will be quicker and you won’t be like me – unable to ride her brand new bike.
Merry Christmas, friend!
I’m sorry to hear about your butt. I fell down stairs once and I don’t think I had a bruise, but I had the standing up pain. It seemed so unfair that everyone else got to sit down and stand up so easily when it caused me intense pain to do either of things. Total non-motion was the best. I hope it feels better soon.
Looks like such a fun holiday. Love the hilarious giggles at underwear in a stocking!
Merry Christmas,
Erica
Yes, I did click on the Christmas card picture to see if I could find mine. And I did. SQUEEE!
Also, I’m sorry about your butt. I hope you don’t have to have butt ultrasounds ala Alice in Wonderland.
OUCH! Big sympathy to you!
2 of mine got underwear in their stocking too. hee
One of my most fav parts of Christmas is hanging the cards up too!
I love the pic of Elizabeth giggling over the underwear!
And yeaow, sorry for the big bruise! I slammmmmed into the side of our bed bringing up a load of laundry last week and I have a disgusting purple and green bruise high high up on my thigh. I haven’t been able to show anybody it either, but I really want to. It’s huge and gross and deserves coolness/sympathy points.
Oh my gracious, you hit the nail on the head about the scramble for a shower and coffee.
Hope your buttular region feels better soon.
I fell down a flight of stairs right before Christmas a few years ago, and cracked my tailbone. The awesome part was that it was three days before a seven-hour flight to Ireland. That was not comfortable.
Hopefully yours is just limited to the horrifying ass-bruise!
My (very skinny) husband once had to take a wee of sick leave off work because he backed into our wood hamper and “broke his butt”. He bruised his tailbone so badly he couldn’t sit down. Kind of a problem for a computer-y type.
Butt injuries: they’re no joke! ;P
I agree; you need to see someone about your butt. A doctor will do nothing. I have broken my tailbone 5 times — twice in real injuries and 3 times in childbirth and you need a physiotherapist who specializes in that region to see if it’s out of place and to put it back. You need to do it asap or it will heal in the wrong place. Take lots of ibuprofen too! Don’t be a hero!
Swistle dear,
Thank you for the gfit of your blog. It has brought much laughter and violent nodding of the head in agreement to the things that you say. I feel like I know you, in a non-creepy way. and I like you ALOT!
BTW, I am sorry that you hurt yourself .. but I was laughing SOOOO HARD that my nine year old came over and I read that paragraph to him. He fell on the floor and rolled around. Pure comic genius!
Ack. A butt injury for Christmas? BOO. Much sympathy! And I love the pic of the kids lolling around enjoying their gifts. It is a nice part of Christmas, the part where everyone chills the hell out for a little while.
C’mon – show us your butt!!! It could be your Xmas card for next year!
My kids got socks in their stockings from Santa, and my hubby is like, “How lame. Socks.” I said, “Didn’t you get socks & underwear for Christmas?” and he gave me this freaky look and said, “No.” (as in DUH! No.)
So I am thrilled to see that other people get socks and/or undies in their stockings.
My hubby is the freak. I KNEW it!
1. I do something similar with our Christmas cards, and I took a photo of it w/ the intent of blogging it BEFORE you posted this
2. We drove around in our pj’s to look at lights too.
3. We always get underwears (and socks) (and a new toothbrush) in our stockings too.
4. We open about half of our gifts on Christmas Eve. I like spreading it out a little.
5. I FELL ON CHRISTMAS EVE TOO, DOWN MY ICY FRONT STEPS AND ALSO HAVE A YAM SIZED BRUISE ON MY A$$. And my elbow. And I can’t sit, stand, roll over EITHER. Though it’s not my tailbone, just a nice deeply bruised butt cheek.
So basically, we had the same Christmas this year. :)
Marie- OMG! I wonder if we are TWINS or MIRRORS: my bruise is on my RIGHT buttular region. Are you doctor-bound? I’d love to get some nice pain meds, but my doctors are the type who gave me a prescription for less than a day’s worth of pain medication after a C-SECTION so I doubt they’d give me anything for a butt decoration.
I loved these Christmas pictures! And you might already know about this, but I thought I’d pass it along just in case, since you share my love of Christmas cards and of St. Jude’s, and of charitable things to do that are also easy to do! Did you know they have a program to recycle Christmas cards? http://www.stjudesranch.org/help_card.php
Oh, Marilyn! I hadn’t heard about it, and what a great program! I think I’m going to buy some cards right now!
I love the idea of the Christmas lights drive. (For us, it would be a Christmas lights walk, but still! Still! I love the idea and tradition.) :)
And a hearty “YESSSSSSS” about the rump-bruise. Once when my parents had just stopped the over-packed car in front of my college apartment we we were there to move me into, my dad opened my passenger-side door for me, since I was wedged into the back seat so tightly, I couldn’t even move my arm, and as soon as he opened the door, I fell out onto the ground and. . .enjoyed that same yam-size bruise in the same area for the first few weeks of the fall semester. I still remember that pain, and my mom still laughs about it.