The Presents

Remember the Cabbage Patch Kids Christmas rush twenty years ago? How every kid in America WAS GOING TO DIE unless they got a doll with Xavier Roberts' signature across the butt? And how parents mobbed the stores, ripping them off the shelves and out of the hands of other, wimpier parents? This year's Cabbage Patch Kid was the Big Babyz Bratz Doll and let me tell you, I couldn't find one of those little fuckers anywhere. I hit every store in Chicago, Josh checked the suburbs, I tried ordering it online but they were GONE. Sure, some opportunists had them on ebay for like a $100 but we're talking about a $20 doll here, and shipping time was growing short. So I gave up and bought the mini version of the doll and a Toys R Us gift card. A few days before Christmas, I tried to prepare Liv for the fact that she wasn't going to find a Big Babyz Bratz Doll under the tree.

"Don't worry, Mom," she said with supreme confidence. "Santa will bring me one."

And what do you know.


Livvy with the doll that Santa Clause (aka "Dad") tracked down at a Wal-Mart two hours outside of the city in the town where we used to live around midnight of the day before Christmas Eve. It was the last one on the shelf, natch.
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The rest of us didn't do too badly either. I got a sweet digital camera from my fantasmic boyfriend, and a fancy color printer from my ex-husband. Here is Concert Josh with his favorite gift:



Other Hollyday Highlights include:

• a great Cougars show last Thursday, followed by nine solid hours of drinking
• getting up the next day and taking the kids to Josh's parents' house for a Christmas party
• my boyfriend accidentally spilling red wine down the front of my pink shirt at his parents' Christmas party
• Christmas night shenanigans that started out as "a couple of drinks" and turned into us closing down the Beachwood and Nick's six hours later
• a 6am text message on Concert Josh's phone from his friends telling him he has an "awesome chick"
• the 13 hours of sleep I got last night
• still wearing my pajamas at 4 pm

Coming up next: my trip back to the homestead, where there are babies to kiss and more presents to open, and my sister has promised to introduce me to her new best friend, legendary Notre Dame quarterback Tony Rice. Yeah!

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You'll Shoot Your Eye Out

MOM: I still need to get Dylan a Christmas present. You don't want to know what Dad wants to buy him.
TEQUILA RED: Oh god. What?
MOM: A BB gun.
TEQUILA RED: NO.
MOM: I told him.
TEQUILA RED: NO. The last thing that kid needs is a BB gun.
MOM: I know it.
TEQUILA RED: There will be no guns in this house, ever.
MOM [TO DAD]: Kari says no. No guns in the house.
DAD: But the guys upstairs have guns!
TEQUILA RED: Um, the COPS who live upstairs?
MOM: I think we'll go with the iPod Shuffle.
TEQUILA RED: Good idea.


Dylan, who also did not get a giant bunny suit.