Category Archives: Blog Stuff
Guest Post: Traditions, Truces, and Cartoon Moments
The following guest post is by a fellow Goose, Anne, from Homeschooling 911
Traditions, Truces, and Cartoon Moments
Family traditions are important in that they give us a connection to our past and strengthen the family bond. However, when a couple gets married, traditions can actually become a point of contention. After all, you have two people, possibly from very different backgrounds, each having their own traditions, memories, and a lifetime of experiences – joining their lives together.
For instance, maybe you grew up in a family that bought their Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving and had all the decorations up that weekend, while your spouse’s family never bought their tree until just days before Christmas (or even the day before like my husband’s family).
It may sound simple enough to adjust and make peace with each other’s traditions…if you don’t understand how humans really work!
After all, you went through the planning and execution of a wedding – hmm…maybe execution isn’t the best word – but keep in mind that infused in that event was a romantic element that helped to cushion some of the tensions.
When the day-to-day of married life hits and the holidays start to roll around things can take a turn…for the annoying or possibly for the comical!
When my husband and I first married, even though our background was somewhat similar, how our families approached and celebrated the holidays was very different. And it did cause some, uh, lively discussions in our home! After sharing this predicament with my mom she clipped a cartoon out of the newspaper that illustrated our dilemma perfectly, and hilariously.
The cartoon was titled “Cathy.” You might remember this comic strip – it ran from November 22, 1976 through October 3rd of this year. The comic my mom had clipped showed Cathy and her boyfriend Irving decorating for Christmas. The gist of it was that they both had their own ideas of how it should be done – and at the end of the strip Cathy is standing there with a tangle of Christmas lights all over her. It was perfect.
Over the years we adapted and called truces and found our way through the holidays. These days my husband and one of my sons decorate the outside of the house in style. The four children decorate the tree. I try to stay out of all the decorating if possible. Not my cup of tea anymore. But I do send out approximately 100 Christmas cards every year and cook a bang-up Christmas dinner.
So take heart. You too can combine those traditions that work for you as a couple and a family, as well as forging those special traditions that belong to your family alone.
“The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.” (Unknown)
Anne Galivan is a home-schooling mother of four whose website www.homeschooling911.com is dedicated to helping prospective and current home-schoolers find answers to their questions about home education. Check out her website for home-schooling tips, curriculum reviews, and much more!
Halloween Crafts: Kleenex Box Costume
So there’s this awesome giveaway going on over here where you can find the best blogging tips. To enter you need to write a post about something you’ve created for Halloween.
I am not a crafty person. I don’t cook/bake. And we’re not really “into” Halloween. But I really want the camera!!! So, here’s what I came up with.
When I was in 7th grade I came up with the brilliant idea to be a Kleenex box for Halloween. While my mom did most of the hands on work, the concept was all mine. I’m going to tell you how we “created” the Kleenex box.
1. We got a large cardboard box (an appliance box for a refrigerator or stove). We turned the box upside down cut a hole in the top for my head and a hole on each side for my arms. We trimmed up the bottom of the box until I was able to walk in it without tripping.
2. We got contact paper and completely covered the box.
3. Using a real box of Kleenex as a guide we added a label/logo and price to the front of the box using construction paper, markers, and crayons. At the bottom edge of the box I put the information for the size of the box…just like on the real one!
4. Underneath the box I wore a white turtleneck, pants, and white tennis shoes. You want something that blends into the box well, but will also be warm and comfortable.
5. We took white tissue paper and stuck it out of the top of the box to look like Kleenex coming out. Looking back, if we would’ve been more ambitious, it would’ve been neat to fashion some sort of tissue paper hat to wear.
6. I carried the real “matching” box of Kleenex with me everywhere.
*Note that this costume was very difficult to Trick or Treat in because it was hard to get up and down the stairs. You’d need to cut the box up really short (possibly to the waist) to be able to move around easily.*
Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of me wearing the Kleenex costume 😦 But, a year ago I was at my mom’s house and I saw something outside by the trash. I didn’t know that my grandmother had saved that Kleenex box all of those years and kept it in the basement. My mom finally discovered it and set it out with the trash. When I saw it I had to snap a picture of it. It was actually sitting in the grass upside down, but I turned the picture around for your convenience. It looks pretty beat up after spending 20 years in the basement…but hopefully you get the general idea.
Here are the only 3 photos that I have of my Kleenex Masterpiece!
If anyone ever decides to use this idea (or you already happened to have made a Kleenex box costume) I would love to see your photos of the finished product! If you’d like, I’d be happy to post the photos here and/or link up to your blog post about the costume.
So there you have it. My lame attempt at being crafty is to tell you about a costume that I made 20 years ago and then show you photos of garbage (literally).
To read a post about all of my childhood Halloweens and costumes click here
To see the “Halloweens Past” link up at SITS click here.
I want to thank the SITS Girls for hosting this giveaway. You can go to their website to find the best blogging tips. It’s also great if you’re looking for a way how to find blogs (Hmm, that wasn’t proper English). Also unicorns are real and Tiffany is pretty! (Hey, whatever I can do to get that camera, right?!)
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Fun and Dysfunction 