7 Quick Takes about Dream Vacations, Santa Confusion, and Some Good Old Puns about Pears

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

I don't want to make you jealous, but I just got back from the best vacation of my life.

I went along with Phillip on a business trip, and it was awesome.

Of course, three nights of uninterrupted sleep and four days of showering with no need to yell several times through the bathroom door "WHAT IS GOING ON  OUT THERE?!" would've been magical enough, but his business trip was in Florida, which meant I went from this:

to this:

Sigh.

Even now I can enter into a Zen state while washing the dishes if I think about how this was my life 72 hours ago...

—2—

By the way, I highly recommend tagging along when your husband's business trip is a multi-day conference at a swanky resort.

Phillip was in talks and workshops from 8 to 5:30 every day, during which time I walked on the beach (I may have been levitating) and laid by the pool (I may have been having an ecstatic out-of-body experience.)

After his workday was over we'd meet up and he'd ask how my day was. I'd try not to rub it in by saying dismissively, "Oh, I just watched the sun set from the hot tub. How was your meeting?"

I guess I wasn't very successful at not rubbing it in.

—3—

I came home a day before Phillip did, so when his flight got in I went to go pick him up.

Despite my best efforts I was, of course, late.

"I'm so sorry!" I said when I pulled up to the curb, where Phillip was freezing in his sweatshirt waiting for me. "There wasn't any gas in the van so I tried to take your car, but the wipers were frozen to the windshield so I needed to scrape the ice off, but I couldn't find the scraper and by the time I found it in the kids' ball bin I was so late I just ended up taking the van anyway, and when I tried to call and tell you my phone died in my hand."

Phillip just laughed and said, "Welcome back to your life."

—4—

In our family we "do" Santa, but Christmas is primarily a religious holiday for us so we don't emphasize him very much. Anyway, I realized this past week that my 3-year-old didn't even realize that Santa is a person/character.

We were at toddler morning at the roller skating place, when an employee dressed as Santa stepped out on the rink. Surprise!

"Look!" I said to my 3-year-old. "It's Santa!"

He looked in the direction I was pointing and said, "He's hanging."

I had no idea what he was talking about so I said, "Santa is right there! Do you see him?"

"Yeah, he's hanging."

Then I realized he was talking about the Santa decorations dangling from the ceiling overhead, and he was looking right through the random guy wearing a red suit on the skating floor.

You guys, he had no concept of Santa as an actual humanoid figure that walks around and talks. He just assumed Santa was a Christmas decoration we put up in December.

So whoops, I guess we never really explained to the 3-year-old how Santa works. I gave him a barebones primer and we approached Santa, and do you know what he asked for? A "wrapped-up toy."

Well, that one should be easy.

—5—

Because Phillip is in the bishopric and they work together at church, the bishop (the leader of our congregation) gives our family a gift at Christmas.

Phillip and I were still in Florida when he dropped off a fancily-packaged box of pears, so when we came back my 8-year-old pointed to them and told us, "Apparently these are from the bishop."

I laughed and repeated, "A-pear-ently?"

Which turned out to be a mistake because she then told that joke about 97 more times.

—6—

My 13-year-old's violin lessons are a half-hour drive, but we got stuck in an accident slowdown on the freeway this week. We sat there for so long I finally had to just call the teacher and say we weren't coming.

It was pretty fun to sit in traffic for 30 more minutes until we reached the next exit and turned around for home.

Maybe it was actually a good thing, though, because my daughter's bow wrist has been giving her a little trouble.

Her teacher suggested resting it until Christmas, which seems like a long time for someone as dedicated to the violin as my daughter, but it could be worse. She said she hurt her wrist when she was earning her master's in violin performance and had to delay graduation so she could rest it for 6 weeks.

—7—

Okay, I'm going to voice what may be an unpopular opinion here. Or maybe everyone secretly agrees with me: The Polar Express is creepy as heck.

I'd always heard was a cute movie about the magic of Christmas, and was sad that my older kids wouldn't watch it. Every time I suggested it they'd moan, "No, not The Polar Express! I watched that in school and I hate it!"

I should have listened.

I watched it with my younger kids and about 10 seconds in when the main character opened his eyes, I heard my 5-year-old whisper, "Creepy..." That should have been my first clue.

Why did every scene look like a clip The Sims? What's with the hobo? What's with the 12-year-old taking coffee from a hobo? Why all the horror movie marionettes? And most importantly, why was every single character a clicinally depressed store mannequin possessed by the spirit of Tom Hanks?

Seriously, I just can't with the animation. Those people were dead inside and their faces will haunt my dreams. (Strangely, this trailer of The Polar Express redone as a horror movie actually made me feel a little better.)

Just to clarify, when I asked last week for Christmas movie suggestions on the blog and Facebook, no one suggested The Polar Express. You guys are too nice to have done something like that.

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