May 2016 Moms

Not pregnancy related- Holidays!!

I cannot believe the holidays are right around the corner. The last 2 Christmases have kinda blown for me. Two years ago, on 12/23 I noticed my cat breathing funny. On 1/2 I had to put him down. Last Christmas I went home to a very strained relationship with my mom. So this year, I want to enjoy it!! I want to take cheese-y bump pictures in front of the tree. I want to eat ALL the damn cookies and turkey. I want to sing Mariah Carey at the top of my lungs.

So in an attempt to get my holiday mood going, wonder what everyone's favorite thing about the holiday season is??? Mine has to be gift giving and wrapping the presents. I love trying to get creative and surprising family with the perfect gift. This year, getting DH a membership in a razor club and a new Steeler jersey. For my mom, new spin shoes. I love participating in Secret Santas at work, and gift giving to the less fortunate.

I know I am getting in the spirit a little early this year, but I blame my new maternal instinct and nesting :)

And yeah , holiday GIF it out ladies!!

Beyonce Christmas animated GIF


cat fail animated GIF

Re: Not pregnancy related- Holidays!!

  • sarawifenowsarawifenow member
    edited November 2015

    Omg I squealed while reading this. I am ob-freaking-sessed with the holidays, especially Christmas. I have been playing Christmas music for a week now!


    I am really looking forward to the cheesy bump pictures,too and just being with my family and friends. I always said I wanted to be pregnant for Christmas one year, so now I am extra excited.


    Also, we are finding out what we are having on the 21st of this month and are going to surprise my mom with an early birthday present (her bday is on the 27th) and will tell her on the 25th so we can announce to the rest of the family at Thanksgiving dinner!


    Oh, and...

    image

    ETA: I am sorry that your last couple of holidays have been so rough. Hopefully this year makes up for them tenfold!



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  • Oh and to add- our anatomy scan is scheduled for 12/29. Best Christmas present ever!!

    cat fail animated GIF

  • I love the holidays!! I love surprising my daughter. She's 8 and still believes in Santa. It's so much fun! We do Elf on the Shelf and she loves it. I love baking my grandma's recipes. Love spending time with family! 
  • I love the holidays!  I'm a total summer person but get really really excited once November rolls around an I can start planning.


    A few years ago, we started hosting Christmas Eve, so that's been really fun!  So much food and drink (none for me this year, womp womp womp).

     

    I love everything, the baking, the gift-giving, the decorations. 

    This year DH and I are going to NYC for a night in early December and I can't wait to go to Rockefeller Center and see the tree.  I don't care how crazy it's going to be. 

     

    image        image

  • I love the holidays!!! I'm excited to buy gifts for people and wrap them, to put up the Christmas tree and train, to bake cookies with DS, to watch holiday movies, sing holiday songs, and for the huge celebration my family has every Christmas Eve with lots of yummy Italian food. I'm excited for Christmas morning with DH and DS too!
  • I LOVE LOVE LOVE the holidays. November and December are my favorite months of the year! I love going to my family's out in CT and spending time with my nephews and grandparents and eating an amazing Thanksgiving meal. I am really looking forward to eating even more than usual now that I'm hungrier than ever. Celebrating Christmas with my nephews is so much fun too, I just love watching them open presents and help the adults open theirs. My mom let's me take over the decorating during the holidays which is my favorite thing!  I love making the place cards and centerpieces for Thanksgiving & Christmas dinner and putting together fun flower arrangements.

    I love holiday movies and weirdly love the cheesy media stuff at Christmas time like ABC Family's 25 days of Christmas where they play fun holiday movies every night leading up to Christmas. The Family Stone, Love Actually, & National Lampoons Christmas Vacation are my faves. I think I've said this in as many posts as were remotely relevant but NYC is magical at holiday time. I love walking around the outdoor holiday markets and eating yummy treats and buying special gifts for family. I love going to see the big tree at Rockefeller and the windows at Macy's. I love bundling up like crazy and taking our dogs to the dog park in the early morning snow.

    I COULD GO ON. I'M SO HAPPY NOVEMBER IS FINALLY HERE!!




  • I literally cannot wait to take holiday bump pics. I already decided I am doing the cheesy wrap your bump like a gift with the gift tag that says "do not open until may 2016".
  • I love the holidays! I love the music, the movies and the FOOD! This year will be a little more down though since it will be my hubby's first winter season without his Mom. 
  • We're not religious,but both of us grew up with very solid family Xmas traditions and they're a part of the year I look forward to every November. 

    For me, it's all about the family/friends and food. My Mom is a baker, and my baby sister operates a cake business, and for Xmas every year, we make truffles, various types of cookies (from old country to new country), cakes and an assortment of perogie-like dumplings filled with shrimp and fish that are native to where we're from. Because we were immigrants, we have a particular tradition of visiting other immigrant families (the people, we joke, who came over on the boat with us), which means a lot more food, and friends and family. We used to go out and get a tree just north of the city, but with me out of the country until the week before Xmas, and my sisters' crazy schedules, we now have a remarkably life like fake tree and my baby sister decorates it like a pro every year (she's already started decorating the house, actually). We have an Xmas eve dinner and midnight presents, as is custom where we're from, and we've incorporated more Canadian-like things - like crackers. 

    My SO's family is staunchly Canadian-American and has different traditions, which is great because it means that we can do both with relative ease: his family celebrates on Xmas day itself, and though they are not huge bakers-  they do love to eat, so I just bring over some things from my mother's house, or help my MIL with lunch. 

    I am looking forward to Xmas this year since it will be the first time I get to see everyone after finding out about the pregnancy! (Being long distance can suck, so bad). I can't wait to fly up to the Great White North and light up the night! :) 
    BabyFruit Ticker
  • LadySamLady , I actually hate Christmas in NYC... too many people!! But I love the vibe. Checking out Etsy popup shop in Chelsea Market- I believe its the 1st weekend in December. And I love grabbing a hot chocolate and wandering the Union Square Markets. I am making Dh take me to Dyker Heights this year for the lights. I have been wanting to go for years, and this is THE year!

    cat fail animated GIF

  • yogahh said:
    I love the holidays!! I love surprising my daughter. She's 8 and still believes in Santa. It's so much fun! We do Elf on the Shelf and she loves it. I love baking my grandma's recipes. Love spending time with family! 

    Image result for creepy elf on the shelf


    Disclaimer- I love Elf on the Shelf and cant wait to start this tradition next year!

    hahaha I know! Some kids do get freaked out by it. My daughter loves the "magic" of it. My dad had some elves from when he was a kid that are in our Christmas decor now so my daughter doesn't think the elf looks creepy. It is fun though! I love experiencing the holidays through my daughter's eyes!
  • I LOVE this time of year!!!!

    Decorating for Christmas - yay Christmas trees!
    Peppermint mochas
    Wrapping presents
    Traveling to see family
    Christmas music
    Shopping
    Making a gingerbread house with DD (we bought our kit at Costco this weekend 8->
    I could go on forever...

    I definitely fall into the category of those creeped out by Elf on a Shelf, though. And Santa for that matter.....
  • yogahh said:
    LadySamLady , I actually hate Christmas in NYC... too many people!! But I love the vibe. Checking out Etsy popup shop in Chelsea Market- I believe its the 1st weekend in December. And I love grabbing a hot chocolate and wandering the Union Square Markets. I am making Dh take me to Dyker Heights this year for the lights. I have been wanting to go for years, and this is THE year!
    I totally get it - the crowds can be such a pain. For some reason I still just love it. The Union Square Markets are the best to wander, but I do try and avoid it during the weekends because of the crowds. I've never been to Dyker Heights for the lights either, might have to add it to our list of NYC holiday to-dos this year too!!
  • Christmas music, decorating, baking, buying gifts for people and wrapping them, watching Christmas movies (ABC Family and Hallmark/Lifetime...don't judge...I've already started watching them). I really enjoy that everyone seems nicer and happier around the holidays. 

    I love everything about this time of year!
  • I hate the cold! Total summer person. But of course I love Christmas time because I have a young child and seeing things through their eyes for Christmas is the best! Everything is so magical.
  • I secretly played Christmas music a few weeks ago. I'm ready! This year will be a little different because we are traving for both holidays so some traditions won't happen the same ways which I'm quietly disappointed in but hey, next year with the new baby it'll be a whole new level of different too!

    Most excited for baking, music, and getting our Christmas tree. Oh, and Christmas scented Yankee Candles!
  • I've always been a HUGE Christmas fan, but after my "holiday loss" in 2013, last Christmas was just emotionally draining and overwhelming. But I cannot WAIT to make the goddamned best of it this year. I want to enjoy my holiday and the food and my family and the gifts, even if my fiancé is being a total scrooge about this baby. My family always makes a huge day of cookie baking and decorating the sugar cookies, my mom makes jammies for the grandkids (and sometimes my sisters and I if we're lucky) which get opened on christmas eve, and then the adults stay up late stuffing stockings. I can't wait to fill my body with potatoes. I've been dreaming of it for WEEKS. MMMMMMM.

    ALSO, YESYESYES TO THE MARIAH CAREY BELTING :D
  • So I used to get a lot more excited about Thanksgiving and Christmas until I married the every-holiday-grinch.  My DH is a total grinch when it comes to holidays, especially Christmas.  It kind of sucks the fun out of it being around such a sour puss.  It is my favorite time of the year and I'm sad to say that I have stopped putting up my big Christmas tree since there is no one that appreciates it but me.  I now own a little four foot tree that I put up just to have a tree.  When LO's first Christmas rolls around, I will put the big tree back up.  I love Thanksgiving and Christmas.  My family decided that this year for Thanksgiving that we are ordering one of those pre-made dinners from a restaurant.  I'm really not too keen on that for several reasons, but the powers that be have spoken.  When I lived at my parents house we had several traditions, and now that I am married and live away from them, it's almost like we have no traditions.  Again it is not very fun to go at alone.   I do however LOVE LOVE LOVE Christmas music and the Hallmark Channel during this time of year.  :)   I love buying gifts for people and I have already started doing that :) I hate wrapping them though.  Our area is famous for the Tanglewood Festival of Lights.  Check out the youtube video I found where someone videoed part of it.  It's basically a park that has billions of light displays that you drive through.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u35eLUNTu3o


    First Pregnancy
    • BFP: 01/25/2015
    • EDD: 09/28/2015
    • Incomplete MC: 02/28/2015

    Second Pregnancy

    • BFP: 09/11/2015
    • EDD: 05/25/2016
    Baby Born
    04/15/2016



    PGAL
  • yogahh said:
    LadySamLady , I actually hate Christmas in NYC... too many people!! But I love the vibe. Checking out Etsy popup shop in Chelsea Market- I believe its the 1st weekend in December. And I love grabbing a hot chocolate and wandering the Union Square Markets. I am making Dh take me to Dyker Heights this year for the lights. I have been wanting to go for years, and this is THE year!
    I totally get it - the crowds can be such a pain. For some reason I still just love it. The Union Square Markets are the best to wander, but I do try and avoid it during the weekends because of the crowds. I've never been to Dyker Heights for the lights either, might have to add it to our list of NYC holiday to-dos this year too!!

    I am look at this craziness that is Dyker Heights. How can I miss this again this year? Th


    So I used to get a lot more excited about Thanksgiving and Christmas until I married the every-holiday-grinch.  My DH is a total grinch when it comes to holidays, especially Christmas.  It kind of sucks the fun out of it being around such a sour puss.  It is my favorite time of the year and I'm sad to say that I have stopped putting up my big Christmas tree since there is no one that appreciates it but me.  I now own a little four foot tree that I put up just to have a tree.  When LO's first Christmas rolls around, I will put the big tree back up.  I love Thanksgiving and Christmas.  My family decided that this year for Thanksgiving that we are ordering one of those pre-made dinners from a restaurant.  I'm really not too keen on that for several reasons, but the powers that be have spoken.  When I lived at my parents house we had several traditions, and now that I am married and live away from them, it's almost like we have no traditions.  Again it is not very fun to go at alone.   I do however LOVE LOVE LOVE Christmas music and the Hallmark Channel during this time of year.  :)   I love buying gifts for people and I have already started doing that :) I hate wrapping them though.  Our area is famous for the Tanglewood Festival of Lights.  Check out the youtube video I found where someone videoed part of it.  It's basically a park that has billions of light displays that you drive through.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u35eLUNTu3o
    My DH is also grinchy. I think alot of guys are. He does love putting up the tree through; must be something "masculine" to him! We have a similar park in Pittsburgh! They are so much fun!

    cat fail animated GIF

  • I used to love shopping on Black Friday but now it's all about Thanksgiving shopping so I'm getting bored by the idea. I love putting up my Christmas village and singing Christmas carols. My mom has a cookie bake every year and I looooove decorating them!
  • If you're talking about dollar shave club I got that for DH last Christmas and he LOVES it!

    I like being with family, cooking and baking, and seeing DD's face in the morning when she runs down and sees the pictures. I love the movies too.
    image
    Been married since 2009.
    Unicornuate Uterus (yes I menstruate glitter)
    Several MCs
    DD born 2013 (our miracle "you can't have babies" baby!)



  • mhc13mhc13 member
    edited November 2015
    My daughter turns two in December so I'm looking forward to doing everything Christmasy with her like looking at lights, baking cookies, opening presents, etc.! I think she'll finally be old enough to enjoy most activities.

    I'm also throwing a Christmas party so planning it has totally got me in the Christmas spirit already!
    #1 Claire 12.17.13 & #2 EDD 5.11.16

  • My favorite thing about Thanksgiving is deer hunting and spending the week with family. For Christmas I love spending time with family as well. We celebrate Christmas Eve with the in-laws, Christmas with my family, and the weekend after Christmas at my grandmas farm with all my aunts/uncles/cousins (about 50 people). We don't do any gifts anymore so the focus is on family time. Also we play board games and I love board games.
    _______________________________________________
    TTC#1 July 2015 
    • BFP: 9/16/15 — MC: 11/8/15 Blighted Ovum
    • BFP: 3/10/16 — Baby Girl born 11/20/16
    TTC#2 April 2019 
    • BFP: 9/12/19 — EDD 5/15/20

  • I love picking gifts for people, decorating, Christmas music, and baking cookies. However, this year money is really tight, which makes shopping more stressful than fun, and I've gone gluten-free, which kind of ruins cookie-baking for me. So I'm not really feeling the holiday spirit, sadly.
    Baby Birthday Ticker Ticker
  • @bluejuice, I am not gluten free, so can only imagine how hard that would be. But what about some of these?

    https://www.food.com/slideshow/gluten-free-holiday-cookies-269


    The chai spice cookies look pretty delish!

    cat fail animated GIF

  • @yogahh, thanks! Some of those look really tasty. I don't want to sound too whiny - for 95% of the things I eat it's not even a big deal, but I totally miss carby baked goods. Thanksgiving pie is going to be a challenge too. :P
    Baby Birthday Ticker Ticker
  • I love the family time!  We play a lot of games, so it's nice to have time to sit down and enjoy it.
    Me: 27    DH: 30
    Married in 2011
    Baby 1: Stillborn at 27 weeks (April 2014)
    Baby 2: Due May 2016

  • HALLMARK CHANNEL!! My sister and I literally veg out to the hallmark channel November and December with our peppermint hot cocoas. Thankfully DH is gone away at C school so he won't have to be tortured through the Hallmark movies (most of which we've seen before, however those cheesy productions never seem to get old when they're about Christmas!) My mom and grandma have passed the cooking baton down to me, and we do EVERYTHING from scratch. Grandma never let us get boxed stuffing or canned cranberries so I've already made and frozen all of my homemade pie crusts for thanksgiving, and have baked and scooped pumpkins for pumpkin pie. Can't wait to get to my parents house and start on the three day food prep for thanksgiving dinner! Love spending the holidays with family and friends. We go for razr rides into the White mountains and the Sierra Mountains back home and pack a lunch. We freeze our butts off enjoying all of the snow on the peaks and watch all the wildlife stomp by. By far my favorite time of year!
  • Christmas is hands down my favorite holiday! I love spending the time with my family! The day of we usually get up (first one awake wakes everyone else), eat my dad's pancakes, open presents, play board games, help make food, eat the best meal of the year, and then hang out by the fire. That's kinda the loose run of events. :) We aren't on any schedule or anything that's just kind of how it seems to happen each year. DH loves it because his family didn't do anything except open gifts and go back to their separate spaces.

    Christmas is also when H proposed out in the snow. :) I would've loved to have gotten married around Christmas too but waiting a year seemed such a long time. Maybe for our 10 year we can have a vow around Christmas. :)
  • This time of year makes me want to pop in Love Actually :)

    image
  • LemmyRNLemmyRN member
    edited November 2015
    This was the apple pie I made SOOOO good. 100% from scratch. It tastes divine and will be a hit at Thanksgiving. It's already gotten the approval of my FIL, who is kinda like that Clint Eastwood character on Gran Torino. Man of little words and no fluff, but if he says it's good, it's good.

    image
  • missnc77missnc77 member
    edited November 2015
    This time of year makes me want to pop in Love Actually :)

    image
    I watched this yesterday for the 300th time, and at the end I was just sobbing like crazy. I've never had that sort of reaction. My husband looked over and was about to pause the movie thinking something was on my mind or wrong, but all I could manage to mumble was, "I looove this movie" between sobs. These hormones have me feeling all the feels.
  • I'm always excited for the holidays but I get even ten times more excited because of my kiddo. Her birthday is 12/22 so it's always exciting to celebrate her birthday and then Christmas after that. It's fun. I ALWAYS separate her birthday and Christmas. 
    (Me) 30 & (DH) 32 {Together 11 years - Married 04.17.15}

    Lilypie Kids Birthday tickers 
    TTC Baby #2 since 06/15 | BFP 9/4/15 | EDD 5/07/16

    BabyGaga
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