Surfacing for Air! Happy Holidays from Casa de JCAUNCMom!!

Hi glaydies!

I'm about three weeks late in saying this, friends, but do let me wish all of you a wonderful holiday season!  I hope every celebration in your holiday universe has been joyful, stress-free and fun -- be it Hanukkah, Christmas (traditional or orthodox), Kwanzaa or anything else including the often-overlooked Seinfeldian Festivus.

As you have no doubt noticed if you're one of my trusty little band of followers or are an occasional dropper-by, I've been AWOL from my own blog for weeks and weeks.  I've been suffering from an extreme case of Overwhelmeditis, which is especially easy for ME to catch since I am a card-carrying, founding member of the "seriously ADD but didn't know it til her kid was diagnosed" Club.  It's been an exceptionally busy holiday season around here, starting really just before Thanksgiving.  In six weeks here's what's been shakin' around Casa de JCAUNCMom:

• Journey Boy arrived home safe, sound, healthy and happy from his epic cross-country trip, with hundreds of pictures and reams of journal pages that he's working on editing (so, more to come on both text and pics as soon as he's officially allowed me to publish a few).
• I had a mercifully short bout of the flu -- the regular kind, not the swine kind, yet just awful nonetheless.  It started right before Thanksgiving and sort of limped along that whole holiday weekend during which we were in NJ visiting the DH Clan.  My immune system really pulled out the stops and I managed to get thru that weekend reasonably intact with just a sort of overall feeling of crummy, but when I got home the last of my brave little defenses collapsed and I was flattened for another four or five days.  Yuck.
  
• Blues Boy's early December birthday arrived (age 20 ... twenty???) just as I was recuperating from the flu and just as he and all five of his suitemates at UNC came down with a wicked head cold.  Poor kids.  I had remembered even in my flu-induced stupor to order him a strawberry birthday cake from my all-time favorite cake site Very Vera, and over the course of a week he and his buddies apparently ate it in shifts, as their heads cleared enough to allow them to taste it.  Then their exams started.  Poor kids again!
• Mrs. Santa -- depending heavily upon her Online Elves this year -- got a late start but managed to get everyone on the Nice List a few goodies.  In view of this year's economy we really did dial it back, but I was pleased to take advantage of a couple of the good sales at The CrewseShip's site.  Can I say that all my boys are lookin' quite well-outfitted this week? Oo la la!
  
• Mrs. Santa also decorated the house, which in our interfaith home means that I go allllllllll out.  Translation:  Cars slow down to gawk.  I think the neighbors send their friends to look, seriously.  We've got a menorah faithfully lit for the 8 nights of Hanukkah, but we've also got an old-fashioned multi-colored Christmas tree, a wreath on the door and reindeer in the yard.  And why not, right?  True story:  When our boys were young we used to invite some of their Jewish friends to help decorate our tree, and one year I actually had my DH (Jewish) and the two dads (one Jewish and one Buddhist) of a couple of our sons' friends on ladders putting lights on my tree for me.  Isn't that the definition of Ho Ho Ho???
• Blues Boy made it home safely after exams, still sniffling.  He's all better now, thanks to a ten day dose of super-intense Mama Care.
  
• Hanukkah came and went, with our usual small-scaled but sincere and fun celebration.
• The four of us went to see Billy Crystal do his one-man show 700 Sundays.  Fantastic show -- a hysterically funny, deeply moving and truly awesome tour de force memoir of Billy's fascinating family life.  Such a great treat for us, and a nice Jewishly change of pace from our usual family "holiday night out" which is often The Nutcracker at Atlanta Ballet or A Christmas Carol or some other festive Christmas show at one of the many local theaters.  L'chaim, y'all!
  
• And right on Hanukkah's heels Christmas week roared by in a happy blur of wrapping packages, cooking, baking and visiting with friends.

So here we are.  It's quiet at Mi Casa today.  JB's beautiful girlfriend is visiting, so they're out hitting the after-Christmas sales.  BB is, as I type this, searching On Demand for a movie and sinking into an impressive sub sandwich he constructed from Christmas leftovers.  I hear Eddie doing his most pitiful "pleeeeeeaaaaassse share" whine and I'm betting BB will ignore him.  DH is at work, and I am enjoying this tiny lull before I get set for us to ring out 2009 in style with a small dinner party on Thursday evening for three couples who are all dear old friends.  I'm thinking Italian buffet -- whatch'all think?  I'll post menu ideas, how 'bout that?

Glaydies, I hope for all of you, and for my own family here and scattered all over, that 2010 becomes a year that we'll be able to look back upon fondly.  I don't do "New Year's Resolutions" any more, having decided years ago that big, grand, long-term goals like that don't work for little ol' ADD me.  But I do set smaller, more manageable goals for myself, and one of mine this next year is going to be:  Write more in my blogs.  So, if I'm "on track", look for more of me and my scribblings here  (WITH OOTD AND IRL PICS, I PROMISE) and at my other blog 500 Characters Max.  You can bet you'll see me commenting here and there on YOUR wonderful blogs.

Before I sign off, I do want to share three pics with you all.  Enjoy!

The first is my Tar Heels (BB on left, JB on right) on Christmas morning (check out their Santa hats :-)) with our 13-year-old Bichon Frise, Eddie.  It was early-ish, and you can see how very excited Eddie was to be roused from his favorite Nap Chair for this picture:

And here is what I believe might win the prize for Funniest Power-Point-Created Christmas Gift Packaging Ever.  I had asked the boys for a copy of "This Is It", the Michael Jackson DVD.  Here's what I got:

Happy New Year, everyone!!!!!!