The whole Birthday/Thanksgiving extravaganza, with the small exception of me accidentally dressing Mazzy in a pilgrim costume (see above), went over remarkably well. The fact that I am even calling it an “extravaganza” means my husband, a man who has been known to ignore “the concept of gift giving” altogether, delivered WAY above expectations. Which is a good thing, because if I gave away a better birthday gift than I got (enter my $300 Beso Shopping Spree giveaway here), I would have been PISSED.
WEDNESDAY: Mike and I started a fabulous new Birthgiving tradition involving us both playing hooky from work to go see a movie. (I highly recommend “The Descendants”, even though Clooney is disturbingly gray.)
THURSDAY: We took Mazzy to see the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. For seasoned New Yorkers, like ourselves, “going to the parade” does not mean standing amongst the throngs of people praying they won’t get trampled by balloon wranglers chasing an out of control Hello Kitty.
“Going to the parade” looks like this:
We watched the festivities from an obscenely high floor in Mike’s office building. It was warm, crowd-free and had readily available mimosas. But Mazzy will forever associate her first Thanksgiving with Kermit the Frog’s dimpled ass.
Sadly, the above picture is using the highest setting on my ZOOM lens. Not that Mazzy was complaining. She knows no different and thus, loved every second.
THURSDAY NIGHT: We went to Mike’s cousins’ place in Brooklyn. Mazzy didn’t eat anything at dinner (“Don’t you understand? Stuffing is delicious!”) but she was so preoccupied with Gabriel, her seven-year-old cousin, I was able to enjoy MY meal.
After dinner, I was surprised with an actual birthday cake (YAY!), although I had to share billing with another family member whose birthday is in early December (BOO!). She’s 17 and I was in HER house so I’ll give it a pass.
FRIDAY: Mike made Challah French Toast for breakfast (my favorite) and then we celebrated “Black Friday” by staying as far away from Best Buy as possible.
SATURDAY: Mike and I hired a sitter and went out for a VERY ADULT birthday dinner. VERY ADULT means “uptown, no jeans and more courses than my stomach can handle”. Not “dining on the set of a porno”, in case that wasn’t clear.
SUNDAY: Gingerbread cookies and cider in Union Square and then tree trimming at a friend’s apartment who was nice enough to share their Christmas tradition with a bunch of Jews.
In total, Mazzy had more sweets on Sunday than on any other day of her life. Even Halloween. And there might have been a mini meltdown when I moved a bowl of Hershey Kisses out of reach.
But all was well as soon as Mazzy located the resident Elmo of the house. This is standard protocol at houses/apartments other than her own. Take a quick survey of the space, deduce which room belongs to the youngest child, locate their supply of Sesame Street paraphernalia and then hang onto all characters as if her life depends on their safety.
Did I mention my birthday present?
Because I received the BEST GIFT EVER.
Diamond earrings? A spa vacation? A sanctioned nap on a Sunday afternoon?
Nope.
Who cares about diamonds and massages and sanity when you have a brand new iPHONE 4S!
My husband knows me SO WELL.
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That sounds like the kind of week I totally need.
Glad you had a great birthday and Thanksgiving!
Fun birthday.
That is an awesome present!
I told you! Older Cousins are the Best. Distraction. Ever! Not only did we have Rebecca’s local cousins (6 & 4), but we also had some out of town cousins (13 and 6, both girls) who were very happy to make silly faces and build duplo/lego towers with her.
Rebecca spent most of the meal pointing to her various cousins and telling them that they are “Big Girls” or “Big Boys”. She didn’t want to eat anything either, but I think that’s because we ate between 3 and 4PM, and she had just woken up. Although she did enjoy the “cake” (i.e. corn bread)
Glad you had a great Birthgiving 🙂
It probably would have been even easier if Gabriel was at all interested in her. He was trying desperately to play a handheld video game in peace while Mazzy kept asking repeatedly— “Whatchoo dooing??”
Thankfully, Mazzy never tried to actually grab it away from him so all was well.
That sounds like so much fun! What did Mazzy think of trimming someone else’s tree but not having one of her own? Is that hard?
Also, that sounds like the BEST way to enjoy the parade, hands down.
She doesn’t know the difference yet. And where we live, more of her friends will be without a tree, then with. I was never sad about missing Christmas until I was an adult.
I love your raunchy, disguesting posts… A LOT. But, I really liked this one. It was so nice to read today!
Most people are really surprised when I explain that Channukah is actually one of the least important Jewish Holidays (your standard issue “They tried to kill is, we won, lets eat” speckled in with some games, candles, and chocolate coins). Yes, I’ll indulge in some light gift-giving to help make it fun, but I intend to keep it mild as much as I can.
My biggest pet peeve on the issue of Christmas vs. Channukah is when there are attempts to make one holiday *INTO* the other (“Hannukah Bush”, I’m talking to you). Christmas is a lot of fun (I love the ambiance — the lights, the trees, the cookies, the singing & story-telling), but so is Channukah — FOR DIFFERENT REASONS! Hopefully I can do a good job of making Rebecca appreciate the fun & exciting stuff that comes with being Jewish so that she doesn’t feel TOO jealous of the Christmas stuff. But if any of her friends want to invite her over for Christmas dinner or Christmas morning or what not, then I will not stop her. Heck, I have a non-Jewish friend who totally plans on crashing our family seders some day, so it’s all good. The more happy in the room, the better 😛
I WISH I associated Thanksgiving with Kermit’s dimpled ass.
Or that I celebrated my birthday on the set of a porno (not really).
Still. I did do the mimosas.
And today (stone-cold sober and in a post-gluttony daze), I wish you a most fabulous year to follow what sounds like a most fabulous birthday.
As for that 17-year-old? Sure she shared your cake and probably doesn’t have dimples on her ass.
But.
You’ve got Mike, Mazzy and an iPhone 4S. I’d say your life is about as close to perfect as it gets.
With or without the zoom lens.
I haven’t done eight days of Chanukah gifts for a really long time so I am very excited to do it this year with Mazzy. I loved that tradition as a kid and thought it was just as fabulous as Christmas. But we are not going to mortgage the house to pay for the gifts. I am always a bit relieved when I see everyone else going through the holiday buying frenzy and I don’t have to partake.
I’m really glad to hear someone had a good one. In my mom’s group we have coined this as ‘The Cursed Thanksgiving’. So many family disasters- not enough time to type. I even had my own crisis where all of the boys clothing was lost (but found by my in laws) on the freeway. Rogue bag flying on the highway!
I, for one, and freaking THANKFUL it is OVER!
Score on the phone, Ilana. Glad your birthday rocked!
Oh and that pepper spraying? Happened down the way from our house. Good times.
Hello magical holiday weekend! A very happy belated birthday to you.
Oddly enough, Mazzy and I have the same reaction to displaced chocolate. She pulls off the Pilgrim outfit way better than I would though.
Be sure to check out the Kate Spade covers for your iPhone. Love ’em! And no, unfortunately I don’t work for Kate Spade, otherwise I’d send you one with my employee discount. 😉
I’m glad. I like to think that my life falls mainly under the “undisgusting” variety.
Yeah- I am not complaining, for once. I hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving too. With many many mimosas and very few ass dimples.
Oh god! Nightmare. I do hope your children were fully dressed over the holidays. If not, less to clean after dinner?
Was the pepper spray the same incident as the woman with her pants falling off. Because i would really hate for her to be my neighbor.
The chocolate was still within MY reach. I wouldn’t be very pleasant if someone was witholding readily available chocolate either.
I will definitely check them out. Thanks for the tip!
Wow, you did a lot over the holidays!
So glad you had a great week! Ours was awesome too – the kind of stuff memories are made of! Love your present. And LOVE adult dinners. 🙂
Hey, that’s my birthday too!
Sounds like a fabulous holiday weekend! And I’m so jealous that you got to watch the parade live, in person. I love the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and, true to genetics, now Vivian does too. In fact, we DVR’ed the last hour of it since we had to go over the river and through the woods to my SIL’s house, and now Vivian wants to watch the “harade” all.the.time. Which means I’ve watched Neil Diamond sing “America” approximately 82 times in the last four days.
I really wish we’d thought to record the entire parade instead of just the last hour.
We have had the same ten minutes of a Sesame Street episode DVRed forever. It’s this incredibly annoying skit where Jimmy Fallon is “Wild Nature Guy”. It drives me insane.
Your view of the parade in Manhattan was way more impressive than my view of the one in Austin. On Saturday. Why the heck was there a parade on Saturday anyways? Saw it for just a minute on TV.
Totes jealous of your parade experience.
Exactly! I’m going to do gifts, but I plan to spread them out, and she can get stuff from different people on different days. And nothing huge. I remember getting a package of colored notepads on Channnukah and I liked it 😉
I dunno, sister – “Birthday Dinner” always reads PORNO to me…