See, that’s why I can’t have a proper Christmas setup in my apartment. We don’t have kids, we have cats. Cats jump, so any kind of unprotected miniature scene with porcelain stuff is out of the question. Cats like to bat at things, so glass ornaments are also out of the questions, and I won’t do plastic. They also think tinsel is just shiny grass that dangles tantalizingly, so no tinsel, either. And trees are for climbing.
sigh
Ruble that’d be an awesome place to have a DopeFest! I’d be there if’n I was close enough. I googled it and it does like a ton o’ fun and I’m not even all that thrilled about amusement parks anymore. That one, however, has a lot of the older cool stuff plus other things to do. I say go for it. I’m sure there’s enough Dopers in the area who’d be up for it.
Howdy STG! Good luck on the job interview.
Muppet only if it’s a female goat should a garter be worn. We must follow traditions and show some decorum after all! 
Sounds like a rather stressful weekend as well, LiLi.
Our house used to be somewhat child-unfriendly, until one of The Boy’s friends came over for dinner with his wife and his VERY energetic two-and-a-half-year-old (I swear, that kid could outlast the Energizer bunny). In the space of two hours, he managed to find every possible breakable, chewable or poke-an-eye-outable object that we’d forgotten to move outside of toddler grabbing height. :smack:
As a non-parent, it’s kind of hard to keep your house totally kid-proofed for the odd occasion that someone comes over with a wee one, but enough of our friends have them now that we try to make an effort. On the bright side, we don’t give a rat’s ass about our floors, the couch can sustain quite a bit of abuse as it’s dark leather, and we use an arrangement of boxes to prevent kidlets from taking a header down the basement stairs. So I suppose it could be worse. 
Also, since The Boy doesn’t believe in Christmas, we can conveniently do without the whole holiday decorating stuff… which is good, because I’m such a terrible procrastinator that we’d probably end up with a fully decorated tree in the living room year-round.
Welcome back, STG! Glad to hear all is well… and good luck on your interview!
GRRRRRRRRRRR! I just had a big post typed up and lost it. 
I think the goat should be involved in the cake-smashing-in-each-other’s-face part too… if anyone un-ironically suggests cake-smashing, the goat should smash the cake into their face!
Our wedding was a mix of traditional - wedding gown and tux - and non-traditional. The whole thing took place at an old inn in Lenox, MA, in December so the place was all decorated for Christmas. The ceremony was in the living room in front of the fireplace, which was surrounded with poinsettia. All 18 people, including the minister and a friend of KT’s family who played the violin, stood around for the 15-minute ceremony. Then we all moved in to the dining room for dinner. Since there were so few people, we were able to just order off the menu, which was great. My husband hates catered affairs. (Sorry, Pie… I’m sure your food is good, but catered wedding chicken is usually dry and overcooked. Keeping anything warm for 200 people just doesn’t work out well… so that’s a big part of the tradition that we ditched.) The choices included lamb, pork, beef tenderloin, salmon, etc. It was great. And then we had cheesecake for dessert. I haven’t been to a lot of weddings, but of the half-dozen or so that I have been to, we definitely had the best food.
Another non-traditional wedding that stands out was one of KT’s friends who got married in a park. The actual ceremony was on the deck of the park’s “discovery center” with the bride barefoot and wearing a blue feather boa. And it started when everyone was there, not really at any set time. It was as much fun as a wedding can be when the only person that you know is your husband.
As for non-traditional parties, my work Christmas party last Friday at the zoo was great! The food was pretty meh, but the setting was great. (We’ve had excellent food the last two years, but this year had to use the zoo’s caterer, which just wasn’t up to par.)
So then we went out on Saturday to a fantastic pasta place to make up for it. 
And I started making truffles over the weekend as Christmas presents. In addition to my usual ganache truffles, I’m trying Paula Deen’s cookie dough truffles and Bon Apetit’s gingerbread truffles. The cookie dough ones are great; I haven’t finished the gingerbread ones yet, but so far they smell great. Fun stuff.
Our house it also totally not kid proof, but then we a) don’t have any relatives with kids, b) don’t have too many friends with kids, and c) come up with alternate suggestions for getting together with people with kids like the zoo or a park or something.
Mostly I’ve been to family weddings, which were all kinda the same. None stood out one way or another. I recall one friend’s wedding only because I got sick at the reception, so we had to leave early. My daughter’s wedding was too stressful for me to enjoy - no flowers, late cake, idiot DJ… Frankly, I think **FCD **and I were the only smart ones - elope. Quick, cheap, simple. Like I like my men… 
**kopek **- the amusement park sounds like lots of fun, but apart from living 2 hours south of Baltimore, I have a terrible time dragging my spousal unit to Dope functions. He thinks Dopers are weird - can you imagine?? 
We’re running to Michael’s tonight - our prints are all framed and ready to be picked up. I also need to stop at Lowe’s to get a 3-way bulb for the new floor lamp that came today. As soon as I finish my supper.
My sweetie called - he’ll be coming home tomorrow. Turns out he was able to do just about all he needed to do today. Just a little more in the morning, then he’ll come back. So yay!
Oh, and our Commander in Chief gave the whole gov’t 4 hours of leave on Christmas Eve, so I only have to work half a day. Yay for that too!
Happy Monday. I can has weekend??
LiLi your fil and step-mil should be invaded by a hoarde of barbaric toddlers bent on destroying all breakables within reach. Plus Hoarde of Barbaric Toddlers would be a great band name!
I had the flu at my next to oldest brother’s second wedding. My big worry that day was that I’d throw up on somebody. As it turned out, I didn’t, unless you count pullin’ over and throwin’ up on the side of the road on my way back home, but that was just on asphalt which is inanimate so I guess that didn’t count.
Now that I’ve thoroughly grossed everybody else, I think I’ll go pounce OYKW. I have some “appreciation” comin’ my way.
Both of those weddings look awesome, Mahna. I don’t think I’ve been to a fun wedding yet - only one of my close friends has gotten married (Capt. Cheekbones, the guy who got married in England this pas summer) and I only knew two people there and they were saving the reception for later and the ceremony was in the middle of NOWHERE so it was a pain in the ass to get to . . . yeah, not that much fun.
Irish Boyfriend left yesterday to visit his parents. He’ll be gone for two weeks. It was weird trying to fall asleep in an empty bed last night. On the other hand, we just bought a PS3, so I have something to keep me occupied. 
LOOK at this crab! It was our friend’s birthday this weekend and we stuffed ourselves with seafood . . . it was disguesting, hah.
Hope HRH gets better soon Dotty!
I don’t remember if, after Thanksgiving dinner at our friend’s house, I told the MMP that I discovered that I really like brussels sprouts. I’d never had them before so I didn’t know. I’ve made them myself twice since then… and I’ve also discovered why swampy calls them fart blossoms.
Great pics of the weddings, Muppet, I too am intrigued by the traditional Lithuanian wedding cake. And I must have been having psychic sympathetic itching, because before I even opened the post, the back of my legs was itching to the point I had to scratch! :eek:
Healing (and cooling!) thoughts being sent HRH’s way, Dotty; hope she feels better soon. And hope you continue to heal yourself!
I can’t remember the last wedding I went to … maybe my brother’s back in '96 … when my son (9 at the time!) got a bit of the champagne! :eek: It was a great wedding, although I didn’t dream of anyone when I slept with a piece of wedding cake under my pillow that night.
I am in the process of planning my Vegas wedding and I think I might in fact be the anti-bride. I’ve got everything pretty much in order and I’m not worried about anything* at all. I’ve been to a couple of weddings and so far they’ve been fun but nothing to write home about. I am hoping my wedding will be awesomely kick-ass and people will enjoy it quite a bit, but even if they don’t at the end I will be married and that is all that matters.
*The only issue we had was when I picked my matron of honor my fiance’s sister got really sad that it wouldn’t be her (my matron of honor is a family friend of theirs so I can see why she would have thought I should have gone to her first but she lives in freaking Africa and is too far away to help with much) and they got a sobbing conference call going with my future MIL, SIL and my fiance. I looked at him while he goggled at the phone about people being ticked off about nothing and I said to him, “I swear to god if this turns into a big thing we will elope and then none of them will get to be any part of the wedding!” He then laughed and gave my message to them and suddenly they all quieted down and stopped being freaked out about nothing.
I have been to only a handful of weddings, and was a bridesmaid only once (and that marriage ended within five years). But the most fun I ever had was a my friends’ wedding where I knew fully half the guests - it was like a Mensa party at that wedding. I danced every dance, I don’t think I sat for more than 10 minutes because of all the table hopping we all did.
eta - swampy - did you see these links?
Nice pics and OP, **Mahna. ** That cake looks cool.
My wedding was a very simple affair. We had it at my in-laws house, ordered the cake from a grocery store, flowers from a very small and local florist, and it was potluck. We rented a champagne fountain and chairs from a rental place. I ordered my invitations from some local print place and they weren’t all that expensive.
My wedding dress came from Penneys. Mainly because my mother couldn’t afford much and neither could I. My maid of honor and bridesmaid wore dresses they already owned, and my husband and his best man rented tuxes.
The judge came to to the house to marry us, and then we partied until the wee hours of the night.
My wedding was actually on Superbowl Sunday. This was back when the Superbowl was still played in January. We lucked out and had gorgeous weather and it wasn’t cold for January at all.
The next morning, we got up and drove down to the Oregon coast for our three day honeymoon. The day we were to return from our honeymoon was the day the Challenger blew up. The owners of the hotel knocked on our door to tell us and stood in our room, with several other guests, to watch it with us on the television.
We threw the wedding together in about a month’s time. Simple, no muss, no fuss and people did enjoy themselves.
I’ve been to bunches of weddings. Most were big affairs, and frankly, people looked stressed beyond belief. My youngest sister’s wedding was great fun, but was pretty formal. We danced most of the night at that wedding.
I took my son in for an eye exam today and ordered glasses for him. I wish he could have waited until after Christmas, but his glasses were pretty trashed. The nice tech there fixed the old glasses up until the glasses come in, but they’re pretty fragile.
I suppose I should get dinner started.
Hugs and smooches to all.
My best friend got married in Hawaii and had a reception when she came back home. I guess this is the most memorable for me because I was, of course, the caterer and I was so completely ill at the time that all I could do was to either sit and smile while my crew was working or stand, grasping a chair and smile. Thank goodness for my awesome helpers!
Today has been long and strange.
I am currently in the midst of modifying and repairing my old cellphone case with pink and purple duct tape!
I understand about not having kids and not being sure about how to childproof, I really do. I just think it was a weekend-long exercise in frustration, because they refused to childproof at all. With three small kids!
Our wedding was small (about 75 people), I made my dress and headpiece (I couldn’t find anything that didn’t look princess-wannabe), got the cake from the grocery store, a friend did the music, and we had the reception at Quasi-Daughter’s house. Post-rehersal, we had all our friends who’d flown or driven in over for pizza and conversation.
QD and my maid of honour slept over, and QD woke up freaking out, which saved us from having to do anything but lounge around drinking champagne and eating breakfast. They did my face and hair, they wore their own sort-of coordinated dresses.
We have some awesome pictures of QD freaking out. The panic in her face is really funny.
We had a small, fast service at our church, spent the afternoon at the reception, found out our fun-loving friends had stolen our keys, redecorated our apartment, and gotten hideously lost. They finally got back, Mr. Lissar and I eventually went out for dinner, crashed at home, and left for our twelve-person honeymoon the next day.
It was not formal. It was not stressful. It’s also almost our seven year anniversary- we were married on December 28th.
Fun OP, Muppet! Looks like it was a lot of fun.
Hope HRH is doing better, Dotty.
Funny links, rosie. Archie McPhee is quite dependable.
I’ve been lucky enough to attend quite a few fun weddings. Mexican weddings are pretty dependably fun. Lots of dancing and good food and hanging out with my cousins.
German weddings are fun, too, although I haven’t been to one in a while. There are skits at the reception and, at least in the families I know, again lots of dancing.
Just watched a movie on German TV and am considering what else to do tonight.
Back later, maybe.
Hugs.
GT
pbbth, I think you’re my hero.
I keep threatening that if and when The Boy and I get around to making things official, we’ll elope to Vegas and get married by a midget Elvis impersonator. I’m sure I’ll eventually settle on something slightly more traditional, but I’ve seen for myself that the bigger and more traditional the wedding becomes, the more likely it is that the bride and groom will have a miserable time (I guess sometimes it pays off to be one of the last unmarried ones, because you can test-drive everyone else’s weddings)
Sending good thoughts to HRH. How’s she doing, Dotty?
Haze, that is one hell of a crab. I find it rather amusing that even with that humongous crab, you still decided you needed a small one as backup. (at least, I assume that’s the source of extra crab legs in the edge of the pic)
Hey Ruble, I forgot to mention that your Dopefest idea sounds great! It would be a bit of a drive for us (TVMan lives in Eastern Ohio) but it sounds like a good time and somehow we never made it to any amusement parks this year.
ETA: Yes, we did make it to Conneaut Lake Park, but they’re really working on rebuilding so we didn’t actually ride any rides.
I haven’t finished reading, and I’m getting sleepy.
I just thought I’d tell you that my company has decided that The Straight Dope is not a “job-related site.” I’m blocked at work. 
Assholes.
It’s not like I post in the MMP that much - but I do lurk all over the place. This withdrawal will be mighty difficult. And my Feudies will miss me.
I’ll be around when I can. And I start vacation on Friday!!! Thank goodness.
I’ll miss you guys.
Oh - yeah - Beautiful wedding (except for the skeeters!
Why did nobody tell me about that park when I was in Philly, is what I want to know? Sounds like a real neat place, kopek!
LiLi, your post made me appreciate my paternal grandmother’s “children’s room.” Her flat was huge, I think something like 180m[sup]2[/sup] (about 1800 sqft), which is not that large by Amurkin house standards but take into account that the “standard” 5-6 person Spanish flat is 90m[sup]2[/sup]. After Abuelito’s death and the marriage of her last child, and not having had a live-in servant for yoinks, she was living alone in a home twice as large as the average family’s. There was a small room beside the HUGE kitchen which was set up with a lower-than-usual bed, a children-sized table with two children-sized chairs and little more. There were a few toys, my favorite was the wooden construction set. She’d kept all of her childrens’ books, so those of us who enjoyed reading were able to get hold of Verne and Salgari way before our parents would have thought of handing them to us. She had TWO bathrooms, one with a shower and the other one with a bathtub your average NBA player could have lied flat in.
It was a tiny room and I didn’t like being sent away from “where the action was,” but it sure beat the heck out of your in-laws’ setup.
Wife has been sprung from hospital, 13 scripts later. I think Walgreen’s has declared a dividend. It kind of stops you when you read the fine print and it says “Co-pay: $20.00, you saved $1124+”
Our fine neighbors to the north are quite willing to sell the same box o stuff for $90.00.
Mind you, the 13 scripts are not everything she should of had—it seems that there are two or three more that are missing. :smack:
Of course, this has caused a game of Hot Potato—each MD thinks another MD should be writeing the scripts. Hope they make up their collective minds soon, or the wife is going to want to rent a backhoe.
