I’m spent. Exhausted. Completely drained of anything bearing even the slightest resemblance to energy. The holidays, they can kill you if you aren’t careful.
It was a few days of highs (the girl doing her Christmas Evening Music Show clad only in a bumblebee hat and bandit-style eye mask, clutching a ride-along stick-pony and singing Jingle Bells at the top of her lungs) and lows (my mother calling Christmas Eve to discuss with me how very few Christmases my nephew has left and isn’t it heartbreaking that we can’t spend these remaining holidays together?) and very little sleep. So all that I am able to muster today – by way of a feeble, oh hai, am still here, somewhere, hello! – is this random list of observations and proclamations:
1) In the frenzy of Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, when the world is filled with brightly wrapped packages filled with gifts, be careful where you leave your Tampax box. Because when a small child discovers, in a washroom adjacent to that environment – a pretty, brightly-colored cardboard box filled with what look to be individually-wrapped treasures that may or may not be candy, she’s going to be curious, and you’re going to have some questions to answer.
2) Best to answer, in those circumstances, that it’s a gift for Mommy. Santa moves in mysterious ways.
3) Depressing phone conversations with your mother on Christmas Eve can cause drinking.
4) When drinking, it’s best to remember that rum is still rum even when it’s drowned in a quarter-litre of eggnog, and it can, accordingly, still cause a hangover.
5) Hangovers are infinitely worse when you spend the previous night awake with a newly-betoothed baby hanging off your boob.
6) Teeth and nipples don’t mix.
7) Teeth and nipples and too much rum and lack of sleep don’t mix, but naked three-year old bumblebees in flight and bright yellow Tampax packages tied up with string under the Christmas tree are kind of cheery, so maybe it all balances out.
Because the New Year is pending, and I need all the good karma that I can get, I’m giving away more donations to charity – this time through CanadaHelps.org, which will provide $25 charity donation gift cards to two readers (they provide the gift card, and you can make the donation to any Canadian charity) (you don’t have to be Canadian, it just needs to be a Canadian charity – so if you support breast cancer research, for example, just donate the funds to a Canadian research organization) – leave a comment with the cause – specific organization, generic cause, ‘save the world’, whatever – you’d like to support, and I’ll randomly draw names and post winners on New Year’s Eve.
(CanadaHelps is a charity that helps charities. Their website promotes giving by making it easy for donors to find Canadian charities and make a donation online to one of the 83,000 listed – and searchable – Canadian charities. Canadians – make your donations before Dec 31st to get a tax receipt for the 2008 tax year.)
Oh, and just because – there’s also a $25 iTunes card for the first name drawn. (You might also consider picking up your own iTunes card and passing it along to someone who could use a little happy music, or perhaps a little Dr. Horrible. If you’re in Canada, you can get them at any Sobeys, Mac’s or A&P (Toronto) and Safeway, Save-on Foods and Coop (Vancouver) and, obviously, at the iTunes store online. Remember: KARMA.)
WINNERS – Christina and Stacie; Christina’s was first name drawn so she gets the iTunes card as well!
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Wow… your holidays sound exhausting. Don’t you wish you were a kid again?
I am again sending in my vote for Crabtree Corner in Vancouver’s Lower East Side. It helps women who are abused, young, single moms, etc.
Sending you eggy noggy rum hugs!
For you Muscular Dystrophy.
You’re so great for doing this again! I’d choose the Canadian Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (http://www.jdfc.ca/)
Happy New Year! Hope you (and your boobs) recover soon.
Teeth and nipples SOMETIMES mix, depending on the context.
EDMONTON BRAIN INJURY RELEARNING SOCIETY
You are truly a doll HBM. Truly.
My vote is for BOOST Child Abuse Prevention & Intervention.
Thank you for this incredible opportunity. Given MP Rod Bruinooge’s recent disgusting comments (yeah, he totally pulled a “health of the mother”), I’d have to say that I’d give the money to Canadians for Choice.
The Canadian SPCA! I am going to send themn a little something just because – thank you for teminding me, roundabout.
And I thought my holidays were hectic. Ha! That’s you, laughing in my face.
I don’t have bumblebees and tampax strung all around at our house. I’m feeling mildly jealous!
I’d give to a stroke foundation, in honor of my mom who has suffered one major stroke and a few minor ones. It’s effected her life, and all of our family, tremendously.
Happy Holidays, HBM! That picture of Emelia is classic!
My cause is animals. The Canadian Humane society is one of the charities at CanadaHelps. That’s the charity I’d love to donate more to right now. Thanks….
Sorry, EmIlia….
You’re so great. I’d love to see the money go to the Canadian Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation for my sister living with the disease for over 22 years.
Red Door Family Shelter in Toronto: http://www.canadahelps.org/CharityProfilePage.aspx?CharityID=s35924
“The Woodgreen Red Door Family Shelter provides safe and supportive housing to individuals and families in need of refuge from domestic violence and to those who find themselves without accommodation. It assists residents in their efforts to establish a stable life outside the shelter through education, counseling, community services and advocacy on their behalf.”
Easy choice.
I’m not Canadian, but we support the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation here (hubby type 1 for 24 years), so put us down for http://www.jdfc.ca/
I do enjoy your blog… I laugh or cry whenever I visit.
Crabtree Corner
Happy New Year!
I support the too-little-supported Island Sexual Health Society in Victoria, BC.
Good times! So glad Christmas is over!
Any cancer group you like is fine with me.
I vote for the Ottawa-Carleton Learning Foundation, which works in collaboration with the school boards, governments and community in the Ottawa region to provide breakfast programs for children in need (as well as volunteer readers in schools and a drug prevention program).
Because no child should go to school hungry.
Sounds like you’ll be just as happy to be done with the holidays as me.
If I should win, give it to the women’s or family shelter closest to you.
I’m going with Sick Kids, even though it attracts lots of money, because my oldest son has an operation scheduled there soon and so far our experience has been great – I’d like others to be able to have positive experiences there.
I would support HomeFront. Agency in Canada breaking the cycle of domestic violence.
http://www.homefrontcalgary.com/index.html
For Tanner, Muscular Dystrophy Canada- http://www.canadahelps.org/CharityProfilePage.aspx?CharityID=s7232
Also, “betoothed” is an awesome word
elizabeth@table4five.net
can you drink enough rum to have a hangover and still have a betoothed baby hanging off your boob?
If I were to receive the $25 gift card I’d give it to the Canadian Mental Health Association here in Halifax – there’s far too little awareness and help going to those who struggle with mental health.
Hope your life gets back to normal soon!
I would donate the money to the Canadian Burn Foundation. My husband was burned over 1/3 of his body in third degree burns,had skin grafts, and he is doing wonderfully; I would want to offer another burn victim that same opportunity.
Thank you for doing what you do, Catherine. Happy New Year to you and your family.
Ah, the holidays. Fun times, huh?
I’d donate mine to the Canadian JDRF, too, because my daughter has type 1 diabetes and I haven’t been able to donate more than a few dollars to them this year. http://www.jdfc.ca/
You’re so great.Ilove you blog.Happy New Year to you and your family.
That picture is just too much – I love it!
Shannon @ McBlog (because I’m too lazy to sign my husband out and me in)
I would say the Daniel Mclellan Memorial Fund. I picked that one because I think one of the saddest things is for a child to have a cancer. It hurts for me to see anyone have it but for a child it just burns a little more. Thanks for the chance. brewerchickey78(at)yahoo.com
If I win, I’d like the donation to go to the Canadian Humane Society
http://www.humanesociety.com/
Nice contest!
digicat{AT}sbcglobal{DOT}net
I’m a huge animal lover, so I’d love my donation to go to the Humane Society.
libby_design at yahoo dot com
My vote would be for CHEO. (Childrens Hospital of Eastern Ontario).
Canadian Red Cross~I mean they have disasters in Canada as well, don’t they? (wink)
Red Door Family Center in Toronto!
Thanks for a great giveaway.
I would donate to children’s cancer research.
My choice would be March of Dimes since I am a NICU nurse and they do a ton of research on prematurity prevention and awareness
jasonncaryn at yahoo dot com
The wild adventures of life!!!
I’d definitely make a dono to NARCONON TROIS-RIVIERES!!!
Don’t you just love paying it forward?
Thanks so much for this give~away! : )))
leahita[at]gmail[dot]com
Oh, a Christmas morning hangover. Ouch, my sympathies. Nuff said.
I’ll pick the Canadian Cancer Society. It was a bittersweet Christmas, with it being the first one without a friend who would have had his birthday on the 20th, but lost his life to cancer this past summer.
Wishing you a peaceful restful New Year.
Sounds wonderful. What a great thing to do!
I love the idea of being able to contribute to a charity in Canada..count me in on this give-a way!
madmerkf at aol dot com
You sure have an interesting blog! I like ones with humor!
I would choose the Canadian Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (http://www.jdfc.ca/)
Really nice giveaway!
Thank you!
baileybobby6(at)hotmail.com
definitely one of the canadian cancer organizations. happy new year!
I would choose Canadian Juvenile Diabetes (my brother has diabetes and is very persistent that if they raise enough money they will find a cure)!
Thanks for the opportunity!
~Stacey
csfish@roadrunner.com
I’d give to a children’s charity in honor of my own 3 kids.
Breast Cancer Support Services. What a great opportunity!
Susan Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, Thanks!
I’d like to give to the Autism Society of Canada in honor of my niece and two nephews with autism. What a great giveaway!!!
The Canadian Cancer Society would be my pick. We’ve had so much cancer in our family and I’m a breast cancer survivor myself. Sorry for the heartache at Christmas. I hope the cute and silly memories outshine the sad ones.
I love the bumblebee serenade! That always makes for a joyful night.
My son opened up a tampon and tried to eat it, he thought it was just another granola bar in the baby bag… “lollypop?!” I think he said as he tried to push it out! LOL
Great giveaway! I would give the donatation to cancer research because two of my grandparents died of lung cancer.
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