You think that’s bad? When she was 3 years old, my FIL got my daughter a toy calliope. That ran off a blown-up balloon. So it was insanely piercing and LOUD. Oh, and did I mention LOUD? Needless to say, she adored it and played with it nonstop for three days until we all thought we were going to go mad.
Then, thank heaven, the balloon died, and in trying to replace it, we managed to break the calliope. Honest, it was an accident! Really! (Although if it hadn’t been, I suspect one would have occurred in any case.)
I have since hunted high and low for another toy calliope, but for some reason they stopped making them. Gee, I wonder why. :rolleyes:
My little one (who is two and a half) got some K’Nex Sesame Street toys from Santa.
I have heard the words “Mommy, Grover’s leg fell off! Fix it!” about 100 times over the past 3 days. :smack: I know they’re designed for smaller hands, but they could at least make them so that the parts STAY together.
Fucking awful, miserable holiday, just like all holidays, except this is the absolute fucking worst of the lot. Next year I want to be in Marrakesh or Peshawar or somewhere where not only is it not celebrated, but it’s illegal to do so.
New Years - Why Don’t You Have Someone to Kiss Day
Valentine’s Day - Why Don’t You Fuck Me With A Splintered Axe Handle Day
July 4th - Why Aren’t You Patriotic Day
Halloween - Why Don’t You Like To Dress Up Day
Thanksgiving - Why Aren’t You Grateful Day
Fuckmas - Why Aren’t You Happy Day
“Have one whenever you need one. Don’t wait until Christmas!”
(How much would it cost an employee of Nintendo to pick up the phone and ring up a member of the English speaking world and ask - “Is there anything, you know, wrong, with ‘Wii’ as a name for a console? … It means what?? OK, back to the drawing board. That’s twenty thousand we paid them to come up with that name”
I spent a significant amount of time Christmas morning putting together my nephews’ Thomas the Train Collapsing Bridge Thingy, all the while Number One Nephew freaked out because it didn’t look like the picture (yet).
Nonetheless, more enjoyable than, say, listening to my parents drone on. The kids were at least fun once it was together and they were running around screaming “AWESOME!” because being able to collapse the bridge was blowing their minds.
I cultivated my rep as the Fix It Uncle for good reason.
I got the Chipmunks Christmas tape several years in a row, the last time it still had the cut out bin price tag for 1.99 on it. Since then I refuse to participate at work no matter how much someone tries to persuade me. Christmas should be about giving joy to people you care about, when it becomes a chore you should rethink your plans.
We had our Xmas yesterday and bitchikins did show up. I was surprised. She even was somewhat personable. I think she said “Hello” and “Pass the ham” to me.
It’s the third one she’s sent me over the years. I don’t even LIKE the anti-Semite, conniving Joan Crawford mom from the 12th century (not the Doper EofA–she’s nice). She could have at least sent me a book on Queen Elinor–the one who got all those crosses made for her by Edward (I think it was Ed). But, no.
Her other gift to me was a set of 12 white linen table napkins (huge, btw), monogrammed with my married initial. My husband and I are going to get divorced.
the rest of Xmas was ok, except for MIL, shrieking at everyone (including the small cousins) because we weren’t “doing the Christmas picture right”. Whatever, bitch. Die soon. Please…
He was thrilled and spent the next two days putting it together all by himself.
He got to the very last part–the second engine…and there is one goddam piece missing, so he can’t finish it.
And, yes, it really is missing. It isn’t like any of the other pieces in the rest of the model and we were very careful about keeping them all together.
My mother never.stops.talking. It was a small and strange Christmas this year, but it’s all over but using the giftcards now. At least I didn’t gain any weight.
Lego is awesome about sending out replacement parts, IME. I know it’s a bit of a letdown to have to wait, but it will come. I’ve never done the online form, but when I’ve called for replacement parts they have shipped very quickly.
BTW, I bought the same set for my husband for Christmas. (It was on sale at the Lego store.) I hope his isn’t also missing an engine!
Our wretched neighbors celebrated Christmas eve by having another horrific fight in their driveway. The bastard husband screamed and bellowed at the wife, and she cried and sobbed. We finally did what we’ve been wanting to do: we called the cops on that asshole (who had been thrown out of the house months ago but boo-hooed his way back in on Thanksgiving Day). We had been trying to ignore the domestic rows going on over there, but we didn’t want our first call to the cops occur because he was standing over her dead body. We wanted to have the crap that goes on in that house get into the police records.
On the plus side, we got to see him dragged out into the street by a cop, held face down on the asphalt, and cuffed. The drunken imbecile kept yammering abuse and defiance at the police while the patient policeman tried to lecture him about knocking off the domestic abuse and to think about his kids. Finally the policeman told him, “You know what? Just Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”
On the minus side, the dolt of a woman decided to take him back into the house after awhile.
My sympathies. The only thing more fun than a laser pointer and a cat on laminate flooring is two cats and a laser pointer on laminate flooring.
I’m just waiting to see what happens first. One of them turning itself inside out or one disappearing up the other’s butt when I suddenly stop the point.
And you’re surprised? Have you never seen an episode of Cops? Poor police officers are routinely going to the same house over and over and over again.
You’d think after the fifth or sixth time, they’d bring along some woman from the abuse shelter to talk some sense into the woman being beaten…no, he’s not sorry, no, this won’t be the last time, no, it wasn’t your fault, yes, your kids are watching every second of this and don’t think they’re not learning the wrong thing.
My wife used to have this problem when they did one of those swipe-gifts-from-each-other gift exchanges at work - people would spend a fraction of the limit, or buy stinky candles that nobody under the age of 65 with fewer than eight cats would want.
Her solution, which I thought was brilliant, was this: have everyone buy a gift card of a specific amount ($10, $25, whatever amount you like) from the place of their choice, and then take some time to wrap it creatively so that the wrapping suggests what the card might be. No cheapskates, no useless tchotchkes. My wife is so smart that it’s hard to figure out how she wound up married to me.
My inlaws’ side did this for this year, and it was wonderful. Previous years have been “pick a name out of the hat and buy for that person/couple, then get something smaller for everyone else.” Well that ends up being one big set of gifts, then 4 other not-much-smaller gifts for the other siblings in the family (and their spouses when applicable), plus gifts for the kids, and gifts for the parents. It got to insane levels in recent years, with expectations of giving lots and lots of presents (mostly self-made, in a ‘keeping up with the siblings’ fashion I’m sure), and one year, one SIL was secretly months behind on her rent but brought in more presents than anyone else.
After the presents and dinner last year, one of my sisters-in-law went around to everyone and basically issued a ‘stop the madness’ plea. Women pick women, men pick men, $50 limit. Get what you want for the parents and the kids. You can opt to not have your name included if you want. Other gifts should be preferably inexpensive and homemade.
In previous years, we found ourselves coming back with bags and bags of stuff we didn’t need. Unsuitable winter wear (not warm enough, horrible colors, doesn’t fit) that got donated, piles of cookies and candy when the givers know we’re trying to lose weight, coffee ground so fine that it clogs the coffee maker, more cosmetics/bath products/nice-smelling stuff than I can use in a lifetime. I hated feeling like our house was an intermediate stop on the way to a charity donation box. Even the things that were nice and wonderful weren’t appreciated as much because of the sheer volume of stuff! I also hated the insane amount of money we would have to spend, and we always felt embarrassed to give each sibling “only” a basket full of pretty well-chosen foods and coffee/wine.
I don’t mind so much the Big Wheel or video game system versions of these Lexus commercials, but the woman whose Young Bratty Version had gotten a real live pony for Christmas? I hate that one. You (generalizing here - more or less, OK?) only get a real live pony if you live on a farm or something closely resembling one, or have money. And since she screamed loudly enough that the next-door neighbors heard and came to see, that means she didn’t live on a farm. I could see the other two versions as “I grew up middle class or poorer but succeeded through hard work” but the “I had a pony” version really hit all the wrong notes with me.
