Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to our wonderful readers, from the Bossy Sisters.

Please enjoy this beautiful video, especially appropriate for little ones.

Next Christmas Wish List

by Emily

Have you, your children, your husband, or anyone else you know, already begun to make next year's wish list?

I thought I would be gifted-out to the max. Done, done, and done. But then I saw what cool gifts others got, and to top it off, I read the Sky Mall magazine yesterday on the airplane.

The Sky Mall magazine is great, it has all the gadgets and gizmos you've thought about inventing for yourself and then realized that it really wasn't worth it. It has a way of making me feel anew in my motivation to organize every little thing in my life when I arrive home.

It is also great fodder for some hilarity during your flight. Joe and I flip through and show each other various items with our own commentary, "Now, I've always wanted one of those!" or "Seriously, is pouring yourself a glass of water so difficult that you need a machine that does it for you?" Etc. You get the idea.

Here are a few of my faves:

The "Progressive Wake-Up Clock"

I love that it isn't called an "alarm" clock, because HELLO! that would be too ALARMING which is beside the point. I've been wanting one of these for the last 6 years. As with everything in Sky Mall, I don't want it bad enough to spend the ridiculous money on it ($60+, no thanks)

The "Slanket"

Buy multiple Slankets for your guests to enjoy! Embroider them with family members' initials! Get one for the dog! These Fleece One-Size-Fits-All Slankets are FAR superior to those nasty old blankets the proletariat use. Our Slanket can be WORN! WORN, I SAY!

The "Pet Crate End Table"

Seriously? Why do you even have a dog?

And finally...

The "SkyRest Travel Pillow"
Oh Please, oh please, oh please, don't let me sit next to that guy. And do you really want to be "that guy"? You know, the one who is still blowing up his travel pillow halfway into the flight? "Ahem, excuse me while I inflate my huge drool pillow. Could you just scoot? I need some elbow room while I puff this thing up. If I pass out, I think there is an air-mask thingy you can use to revive me."

Is there a Sky Mall/As Seen on TV gadget you've pined after?

Buh-bye, Santa

It's still Christmas at our house. Josh Groban is singing Little Drummer Boy to me, three reindeer are enjoying their spot in the kitchen, and not one ornament has been packed up.

Last year around this time, my friend Paige proclaimed the Christmas Decoration Rule. Christmas decorations must be down by her Jan 9 birthday (her sister Celia probably disagrees). Because I respect and appreciate other bossy women I must comply, even though I live nowhere near her. So it's time to take 'em down.

Goodbye sparkly tree. You make me feel peaceful. Especially the night that my kids and I sat in front of you for an hour singing Christmas carols, my favorite event of the whole season.

Goodbye super cute Santa. Great work not getting destroyed by the kids who tried to ride the reindeer.

And goodbye to you, just a small portion of the medicine we and our many wonderful houseguests needed to get through this holiday alive:

Josh Groban and I are going to hang out for a few more weeks. Sorry, Paige.

Here's a tip on getting the kids to help clean up:

Hide wrapped candies (hershey kisses, perhaps) in a few spots on the tree and around your other Christmas decor. The kids can search for the candies while they help put away the decor. No candy can be unwrapped or eaten until all the decorations are put away. It's like a New Year's Easter Egg hunt.

Happy Freakin' New Year

Thanks, Trevor.

Don't forget. I know you've been running nonstop since the week before Thanksgiving, but you need to plan your New Year's Eve party, as well as some resolutions to make you perfect in 2009.


No pressure.


I'm not a big New Year's Resolutions person, I probably only do it every 2-3 years and I'm careful to only set practical goals that are really important to me. Here are the resolutions I'm considering this year:


1. Take a nap at least once a week. Yes, I am serious. Like most of you, I am chronically sleep deprived, as we've discussed before, and me napping would be a huge benefit to my whole family if I could just make it happen.


2. Go to the beach more often.


3. Pretend I am 20 years older, and I've been granted an opportunity to come back and do my life over for a year. I am 35. This means that I must pretend I am 55 but I get a chance to be 35 again, with my little children, my husband, my self at 35. I love this idea, I know it will help me be more patient, loving and happy, but how to make it practical? (btw, I'm borrowing this idea from this essay, from a site that I like which is targeted towards working moms)


2009, here I come. To nap.

What was the sleeper hit?

MERRY CHRISTMAS! Hope it was flawless.

So, how are you handling the Christmas let-down?

What was the "sleeper hit" gift at your house? This is the gift that didn't seem like a big deal, but was surprisingly well received.

Merry Christmas Eve!

by Emily


For the Fun:

Instead of being a time of unusual behavior, Christmas is perhaps the only time in the year when people can obey their natural impulses and express their true sentiments without feeling self-conscious and, perhaps, foolish. Christmas, in short, is about the only chance a man has to be himself.
-Francis C. Farley


Nothing's as mean as giving a little child something useful for Christmas.
-Ken Hubbard

Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.

-Norman Vincent Peale

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring,--not even a mouse: The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.

-Clement C. Moore

Oh, for the good old days when people would stop Christmas shopping when they ran out of money.

-Author Unknown

Christmas is for children. But it is for grown-ups too. Even if it is a headache, a chore, and a nightmare, it is a period of necessary defrosting of chilled hidebound hearts.

-Henry Vaughan

There is a remarkable breakdown of taste and intelligence at Christmastime. Mature, responsible grown men wear neckties made of holly leaves and drink alcoholic beverages with raw egg yolks and cottage cheese in them.

-P.J. O'Rourke

I do like Christmas on the whole.... In its clumsy way, it does approach Peace and Goodwill. But it is clumsier every year.

-E.M. Forster

For What Brings Peace and Hope:

For the spirit of Christmas fulfils the greatest hunger of mankind.

-Loring A. Schuler

The time draws near the birth of Christ: The moon is hid; the night is still; The Christmas bells from hill to hill Answer each other in the mist.

-Lord Alfred Tennyson

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

-Luke 2:13-14

Great little One! whose all-embracing birth Lifts Earth to Heaven, stoops Heaven to Earth.

-Richard Crashaw

Gingerbread, gingerbread, gingerbread rock

Just a reminder that if you have made a gingerbread house, of any kind whatsoever, send us a picture (or a lot of pictures!) at bossysistersatgmail.com. If you need some inspiration, you can read Robin's original post about the bossy sister gingerbread house tradition, or my post about how ours worked out this year. It is fun and your kids will LOVE it.

Send your pictures by Dec 22 and we will pick a winner to be featured here at Bossy! Happy decorating!

It's December 6, do you know where your gingerbread house is?

As Robin already told us, making gingerbread houses is fun and easy. It's a great way to celebrate with family and friends, while creating something decorative and giving you an excuse to buy and eat tons of candy, too.

And I mean TONS of candy.


The front and back of my wonderful MIL & FIL's house.

As I always do, I obeyed Robin's bossing and after hosting 17 people at my house for Thanksgiving dinner, we made gingerbread houses. Which really should be called candy houses, because they are mostly made of candy with lots of frosting and a few graham crackers and absolutely no gingerbread. And in fact, calling what we made "houses" isn't really accurate since we ended up with 3 houses (one with turret, very handy in the suburbs), a ship, and a bridge.

The Golden Gate Bridge, my BIL Matt's contribution. Apparently SF sold the GGB for advertising for honeymaid graham crackers. Also pictured is the Candy Caine Mutiny, by clever punster and famous sportscaster BIL Rick.

Adorable cottage by BIL Jordan and SIL Ashley. We call them Jordash.

In my family, there is very little competition and mostly a lot of cooperation. Which is why we all work together to make one big house. This year I hosted my husband's family, some of my favorite people ever, and I knew without a competitive hook there would be little or no participation from the men. So we had a competition of sorts, with each couple making their own structure.

Mine. It's now sitting on my fireplace mantle. My husband helped too. Thanks honey.

This is how it went:
I spent a small fortune on candy.
We cranked up the Christmas music (too loud at one point, made the babies cry).
We stayed up ridiculously late.
It was really fun! Until we had to clean up.
I had enough leftover candy to feed an army. Well, to feed them dessert.

As you may recall, Robin bossily told us to send pictures of our houses, so I dutifully took lots of photos.

Our impressive creations.

What I will do differently next time:

• Go to a drugstore for creative candy options. Even Target didn't have a great selection of colorful candy.
• Still buy tons of candy.
• Instead of every couple making their own houses, I will either pre-make small houses for everyone to decorate (see below), or just make two houses--women against men (drawing on an idea from Robin's Par-tay post).
• We will not do the decorating in the formal dining room, even though it's the largest table surface we have. Instead, we will go to Hawaii and do it on the lanai. Or at least go to the kitchen or the backyard here at home.
• Start before 8 PM so we can go to bed before midnight.

So what did I do with all the leftover candy? Eat it? Of course. I mean of course not! We made more gingerbread houses! Yesterday I invited some of our little buddies over to make little gingerbread (candy and graham cracker, really) houses. The houses I made ahead (if you do this, make them a full day in advance so the frosting is dry and strong enough to withstand 3yo decorating pressure). Set out the leftover candy on the backyard table, give the moms some frosting, and let the creativity flow.

The houses. Pretty simple.

This is about 1/3 of the leftover candy.

One of the finished candy houses.

The four houses with enough structural integrity to survive the decorating process. I sense a sunday school analogy here.

There was a little demolition, and a little licking of the houses, but mostly very satisfied guests. It was really fun and not too messy.

Candy joy.

Have you made your gingerbread house yet? It's fun! Try it! Then send us a picture to bossysisters@gmail.com by Dec 22 and we will pick a winner to be featured here at Bossy! Also send your worst, wreckiest pictures, and if we get any bad enough we will do a cake wrecks-style Gingerbread House Wrecks award. Happy decorating!