On the way to pick up lunch, head-banger music is pouring out of the car stereos, making each individual cell of my body cry out in pain.

Me: Could we maybe listen to something else?

My husband: Sure. I guess we could listen to some Christmas music, since it is still the Christmas season.

Me: Right. Until Epiphany.

My husband (at the same time): Until the end of all the bowl games.

My husband: When the three kings come home with…(a long pause, while he struggles to remember what the Wise Men brought with them.)

Me (trying to help him out): A bowl trophy?

My husband: Exactly.

My husband and I are both very much word people. We love to read, and we often make up our own words and phrases when we talk to each other. And now that he is having to learn Spanish for his job, we often throw in some foreign words to give our conversation a little international flair.

But sometimes I forget this fact, like today when we were opening Christmas gifts with his family.

It is their tradition that we all sit in a circle and open gifts one person at a time, so everyone can admire what everyone else receives. This means that before each round of gift opening, one person is assigned to retrieve gifts from under the tree, making sure that everyone has something to open.

This time it was my mother-in-law’s turn to play Santa, and she was having trouble finding a present for me.

“Oh wait,” she said finally, “this one might be for you, Jenny.”

She held the gift out at arm’s length, squinted at the tag, and then asked, “Are you…’queasy’?”

“Um, no,” I replied, thinking that she was asking about my illness. Then I had an idea.

“Do you mean ‘queso’?” I asked.

“Oh yes, ‘queso’,” agreed my mother-in-law.

“Yep,” I said, holding out my hand. “That one is definitely for me.”

First of all, I have to say that my support system of amazing friends and family TOTALLY ROCKS!

On Tuesday when I found out I have temporary arthritis as a result of that stomach infection, I had a major meltdown. I just reached the absolute end of my ability to deal with life.

And then, when I could not do one more thing on my own, that is when everyone else swung into action for me.

When I could not move any more, they came to carry me.

I am not invincible. I can not do it all myself. I had to ask for help.

And surprisingly, the world did not end. I’m still okay.

Thank you.

(Sticky Post until Valentine’s Day. Scroll down for new posts.)

One of the few things I actually miss from elementary school are the Valentine’s Day celebrations. Everyone had some kind of homemade “mailbox”, and we all got to give and receive fun Valentine’s Day notes from everyone in the class (or everyone in the grade if, as I did, you attended a school that once had a graduating class boasting all of 4 students.)

Well thankfully technology has come up with a similar solution for the Information Age:

Get your own valentinr

That’s right-a snazzy cyber-mailbox where, with one easy click of your mouse, you can send a little love someone’s way (hint hint. I’m really not above shameless begging, in case you were wondering )

when this story that you’ve heard for years from a relative around the holiday dinner table

“…So they were sitting on the couch, smoking, and then they would turn around and blow smoke at the cat who was sitting on the back of the couch, and then eventually the cat just fell on the floor…”

is finally told in its “adult” version in front of you at Christmas dinner.

“…So they were sitting on the couch rolling joints, and then they would turn around and blow the smoke at the cat who was sitting on the back of the couch, and then eventually the cat fell off the couch because it was stoned.”

As you may recall, the reigning “Best Christmas Present Ever” on my side of the family is the fart machine my brother received a couple of years ago. So clearly, the gift giving bar has been set very high here.

However this year I believe the title will be passed on, as evidenced by the following presents given and received this morning.

First, we have “Rudy, the Tiki-headed tissue box cover”.

Next up was Peter Petri, the egg separator.

He comes complete with directions on how to make your eggs more or less disgusting, depending on the look you’re going for (the egg whites come out his nose).

But the piece de resistance absolutely has to be this gift given to my brother. You will probably not be surprised to know that it came from the same person who was responsible for the fart machine.

(In case the picture is covered up by the sidebar the box says, “Mr Moose: A flick of the tail brings a treat”.)

Of course Christmas had to come to a screeching halt so that we could immediately test out the moose. My dad volunteered to sample the first candy, and because the humor gods were smiling kindly on us today, the first piece that came out? Was. Completely. Black.

My Grandmother (to my uncle): Do I have all of these figures in the right place?

My Uncle: Um, I don’t know. I wasn’t there.

My husband and I are in charge of cooking the turkey this year for Christmas. We brine it before we bake it, so I emailed the recipe to my mom so that she could buy the brine ingredients ahead of time.

When we arrived at my parents’ house yesterday they took us out to lunch, and in the car on the way home the talk turned to turkey.

“I got a 10-pound bag of ice. Is that enough?” asked my mom.

“Well let’s see. It’s a math problem,” responded my husband.

“Aaarrrggghhh!!!” I yelled, grabbing my head in agony.

“A pint’s a pound the word around,” began my husband.

“Yep, there went my frontal lobe,” I announced.

Eventually-and a long and painful eventually it was-they reached the point in their conversions that they’d been aiming for all along: how many ounces are in a gallon?

“I thought there were 16 ounces in a gallon,” said the accountant.

“No, there are 64 ounces in a gallon,” said the math teacher.

“No-oo,” there are 128 ounces in a gallon,” said the engineer.

“And there goes the temporal lobe. Damn math!”

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Whatever my husband wants to use! He is an engineer, and his wrapping is precise and beautiful. I am a creative liberal arts major, and anything I wrap always ends up looking like ass.

2. Real tree or artificial? Real tree. Unless you live with my cat Tigger, who is a one-feline destruction team. Then your only viable option becomes a Pine Scented Candle.

3. When do you put up the tree? You mean “candle”, right? We put up the candle whenever one of our friends comes over, roots around in our drawers for something to light on fire, and discovers the candle which we’ve completely forgotten about.

4. When do you take the tree down? Whenever Jenny gets bored with the arrangement of things in the living room and wants to put up something new.

5. Do you like eggnog? Mmm, tasty!

6. Favorite gift received as a child? Any gift, EVER.

7. Do you have a nativity scene? No. See answer to question #2.

8. Hardest person to buy for? My brother, who apparently has eschewed all attachment to material possessions. Which is fine, because I’ve just gone ahead and picked up all of his slack.

9. Easiest person to buy for? Me, of course. Which is why my husband was forced to institute the “Jenny is not allowed to buy herself anything that could possibly be a Christmas gift idea for someone else starting on November 1^st” rule.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Year-in-review update on your blog.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Apparently I’ve blocked this out. But we did get a few doozies for wedding gifts.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Diehard 1 and 2.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Whenever the panic of, “Holy Cow, I’m not ready!!!!!” panic sets in.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? I’m sure I have at some point. I know I did this with a few wedding gifts we received, so clearly the practice doesn’t bother me.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Sugar cookies!

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Colored. Preferably the huge, ceramic, highly flammable bulbs prevalent in the 1970’s. Yet another piece of my childhood which the powers-that-be have decided to use to make me feel old, as there is now a Christmas commercial for a fake tree decorated with these bulbs and labeled as “Retro”. (Not that I’m bitter.)

17. Favorite Christmas song? O Holy Night, Joy To The World, Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree

17b. Christmas Song That, When You Hear It, Makes Your Eyes Bleed And Your Brains Start To Leak Out Your Ears, Because That Is Less Painful Than Having To Listen To That *&%^&$# Song One More Time! “Let’s Give A Christmas Present To Santa Claus”, and “[random words sung in Hawaiian] Is The Thing To Say On This Bright Hawaiian Christmas Day”.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? We don’t have any children, which I think is the universally accepted way you get to have Christmas in your own home, so we always go to one or the other set of parents for Christmas.

19. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeers? Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Donner, Cupid, Comet, Blitzen, Rudolph. Do I win a prize? Or get a gift?

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Dude, enough with the tree questions already! I keep telling you, it’s a CANDLE!

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Christmas morning. And let me tell you something, when you marry an engineer whose father is also an engineer, apparently you also agree to the Entire Ass-Load of “Unwritten But Must Be Perfectly Observed Or Else The Earth Will Crash Into The Sun” Rules About Opening Christmas Gifts. I guess that’s the price you pay for having beautifully wrapped gifts.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? “Should-ing” all over myself, as in, “I really SHOULD send out Christmas cards”, or, “I really SHOULD hand make all my gifts.”

24. Favorite Christmas Tradition? Making fudge on Christmas Eve and eating Texas Pizzas on Christmas morning.

25. Outdoor decorations? Icicle lights.

Yesterday, despite having what the doctor at the Urgent Care Center later described as, “possibly early pneumonia”, I went with my husband to vote. Our polling place is a local elementary school, and as we walked down the main corridor we saw a bulletin board celebrating the upcoming holidays.

This particular layout was dedicated to Thanksgiving. It was covered in traditional browns and oranges with a three-dimensional turkey in the center surrounded by paper plates, as if to resemble a table set for the big holiday meal. All of the paper plates had words written on them, instead of representations of food. Three of the plates had words you’d expect to find on a elementary school’s holiday bulletin board, things like “food”, “family”, and “fun”. But the fourth plate? The fourth plate was what made me stop dead in my tracks because on it was written the word, (and I swear I am not making this up), “DIABETES”.

Because nothing brings families together or says “Happy Thanksgiving!” like a shared fear that enjoying your favorite holiday meal will lead to an irreversible destruction of your body’s ability to produce and manage its own insulin.