The Keys to Our Christmases

Hey there Lovelies!!! I just wanted to pop in and say hello and Merry Christmas!

Every Christmas that Mr. Superman and I have been together have differed quite a lot from one another and it got me thinking the other night, about the little things that make each holiday season 'work' for us. Yes, there are the feelings of good cheer, happiness, sharing love all around, the gift of giving and all that but what is it really, dynamically, that works for us?

We haven't always been in the same state or even country and continent for that matter. We have never been in the same house for two consecutive Christmases and they are always spent with different people. It got me thinking more about what little traditions we have that we are able to take with us wherever we may be that help us to have a little bit of our home life with us during the holidays.

For the 2011 MilSpouse Holiday Blog Swap, I made a vlog where I shared some of our traditions and things we have been able to instill in our little family that help us make memories every year.

This year, we are spending Christmas in Utah with Mr. Superman's family and even though it may seem like a small thing, we brought along our own stockings to have a little piece of home with us. We also have traditions with Mr. Superman's family that we are able to actually participate in this year.

I think for us, no matter where we are or what we may be doing, the little traditions and things we can take with us and the memories in our hearts are a big part of what makes each Christmas so special.

The Reason For The Season

This is one of the coolest things I have ever seen.

You Should Practice Swallowing Your Words or Maybe Not Talking At All

Oh word vomit what a bittersweet relationship we have. On the one hand, I don't have much of a filter and severely lack the ability to bite my tongue, so I can appreciate when other people are brutally honest or don't sugar coat things. On the other hand, most people abuse you. Word vomit isn't supposed to be obscenely foolish or full of incompetence and yet so many humans don't grasp that their word vomit is just that. I guess once they vocabularily puke on someone who isn't able to suppress the innate desire to kick their teeth in, they'll start to catch on. 

But I won't hold my breath. 

We're used to people around us, most of the people we know/talk to, being (sometimes unintentionally) insensitive and just all around clueless about a lot of the things we have going on in our lives. We realize that multiple lost pregnancies, infertility, military life, and my rape are all kind of heavy things people will treat like landmines. Trust me, we grasp that fully.

Some people's excuse is that they just don't know what to say or do or how to act. 

Answer: NORMAL.  
Duh.  

To us, its just routine life, the life we've had for 5 years. There is no need for our conversations with you to be centered around the crappy things we've had happen. The last thing we ever wanna do is make people feel uncomfortable or be constantly rehashing the sometimes harshness of our past/present reality. We don't expect anyone to be fully educated or sound insanely cultivated on any of those subjects but most of the word vomit that abounds defies the normalcy of common sense. More often than not Mr. Superman and I will exchange glances that expressly involve the single thought of, "REALLY?!" and the more people tip toe around us and try to make conversations with us 'normal' the more dumb stuff falls out of their brains and off of their tongues. Its like the harder you try to be perfect at something, the more you'll find yourself making little mistakes but the minute you let yourself chill out and be the regular you, things will start to flow.

Unless you're a special brand of dim-wittedness a la Jessica Simpson or just flat out mean spirited, the conversations that seem to have been recycled for the last 5 years regardless of who we're talking to, need to stop.

EXAMPLES:

I get FB messages, emails, texts, and people telling me all the time about how sharing my story about being raped is disrespectful to my husband and I shouldn't be talking about it. 

We get told ALL the time that if we just relax, pregnancy and viable birth will just happen when the time is right.  

We are incessantly and without fail asked by friends and family when we plan on becoming parents. 

WTF? Again, REALLY?!

The first one I never even dignify with a response because that is just flat out, pure ignorance.

The second one is full of stupidity because trust me, if relaxing is all it would take for us to have a baby, I'd be more zen that Buddha. A) I no longer have the body parts and organs required to get pregnant on our own and all the relaxation in the world won't make those things grow back. B) Shut up unless you wanna get slapped. 

Lastly, the hardships and facts about our issues with having children are far from secret. In fact, people I've never even met know all the nitty gritty because its been all over this blog for years. Oh, and Facebook. And every time you ask us, we give the same answer. We'll have kids when we either win the lottery, someone dies and leaves us a fortune,  someone decides to donate the insane amount of mula our situation will require, or someone's 16 year old sister/daughter/niece/friend/cousin gets knocked up and gives us their kid. The one option I haven't tried is dedicating my life to becoming the best gosh-darn coke head street walker I can possibly be. Word is those lucky yatches get knocked up about as often as Charlie Sheen says, "WINNING!"


Really though...

When someone talks to us like they know how it feels to be more barren than the Sahara while holding 3 babies on their hips, I want nothing more than to stop them and ask them how stupid they're capable of sounding because I do indeed have a limit of how much I can tolerate before I just turn and walk away.

When someone complains about how annoying their kid is or how lucky we are to be childless and then drones on about how 'doing the whole mommy thing' is the hardest thing anyone could ever do I want to correct them and say the hardest thing anyone could ever do is not strangle you while you're rambling on like a world class dumbnut.

Now I'm not going to say this isn't directed at anyone personally (because I don't LIE) and because it is. I have to chuckle whenever I read someones blog or FB rant where they go off on something but then say, "Now no one take offense because its not directed at anyone." Why do I let out a jolly old "Ha Ha!"? 

Because its a fib and everyone knows its a fib. 

The person who reads that and believes you is probably the person you are dedicating that slice of vent heaven to. You're writing it for a reason and its directed at someone. 

I will say that this isn't directed at just one person. Its a whole slew of these word vomit users and abusers that this goes out to. If you have to think in your pretty little head if you've ever made me wanna flick you in the nose and walk away, you probably have but hey, we're all human and it happens. I know I bug the beejeebeez out of some people and that is just dandy because I have the peace of mind that I don't toss my verbal cookies in someones face over sensitive issues and I know I'm not mean, I'm honest. I can't give offense, you can only take it and that too sweetcheeks, is your prerogative.

MilSpouse Holiday Blog Swap 2011

(NOTE: The Swap doesn't go live until Midnight EST but my computer was too excited to wait)

Hey there Lovelies!! Merry Christmas! I am so excited to be participating in this year's

I jumped on that wagon as fast as I could! Be sure to head over to Riding the Roller Coaster's wonderful blog (or just click that adorable little button) to check out all of this year's participants and even if its just a few, go visit and leave them some comment love! 

Don't be a blog comment Scrooge otherwise you'll get some ghoulishly haunting visits from the Ghosts of Blog Comments Pas, Present, and Future. 

As for me, today my post for the Blog Swap can be found over at Faith & Deployments and lucky you, its a video blog! Go listen to me jabber on and on about our holiday traditions.

Now to the main event. I have the beautiful and wonderfully talented JG here sharing with us a little insight into her family's Christmas! 

One of my favorite things  about Christmas was always going over to my Grandma and Grandpa's  house. I have something like 60 cousins on that side of the family,  counting all of my cousins' kids. Not everyone gets to make it every  year, but it's the best day of the year, getting to see everyone who has  moved away and only gets to come back once or twice a year. Now, we're  one of them. We  don't do presents, really. The little kids get presents, 12 and under.  But before anyone can open any presents, we sing Christmas carols. Yes, we do.

this particular year was during an Oklahoma-style  blizzard, so it's a smaller crowd than  usual

Every year, we sit around my Grandparents' TV and pop in the old Mickey's  Christmas Sing-A-Long VHS in the VCR and sing along with the bouncing  Mickey head. It is by far my favorite 10 minutes of the whole season.  Everyone sings, the little kids and the parents and the grandparents.  And we've got a lot of talented people in my family, so it's actually a  quite enjoyable experience, with harmonies and embellishments. It's a  blast.

Then the video goes off and the kids say, "Let's open presents!" And my dad says,  "How about we sing the video one more time???" And they all yell, "NO!"  Every. Single. Year.

My Grandpa died a few years ago. My Grandma died in September. Christmas  won't be the same without my grandparents.

This year, we aren't meeting at their house. We're all still getting  together. We're going to do the sing-along. We're going to enjoy our  family. And we're probably going to talk about them a lot. I'm not  really sure what to expect, but I know we'll all miss them. And I know  it'll make them happy to know we're all together.

Sounds like a good time to me. Now get going on making the rounds! 

Merry Christmas Lovelies & Happy Holidays!

Ours

I love Taylor Swift.
She's adorable.
She speaks her mind.
She doesn't care what anyone thinks.
She loves wildly and without regret.

I just watched her newest music video for her song 'Ours' and had to share it. It was a hidden track on a bonus disc in a deluxe set of one of her albums. All of her fans who discovered it, loved the song, requested the heck out of it, and clamored for a music video.

So she listened. 

I love what she said in response to how it all unfolded.

'I love my fans because they let the best song win.'

The best song wins indeed. I thought it was endearing and charming and SO honest. My heavens I had flashbacks from all of the horrible jobs where I had to sit in a cubicle and just counted the seconds until the end of the day. Then I saw the last 15 seconds and started bawling.

Thank you Taylor.
Its once again, an honest and spot on portrayal of real life.
Maybe not everyone's real life but mine and a whole lot of people I know.

Now watch it Lovelies.