vw-- My extended family did the Jesus Birthday Cake! I don't think we actually sang happy birthday but we had a Jesus Birthday Cake.

Thanks for the ~ma, guys. I'm pretty depressed about this. When he first went into the hospital, the doctors were all "Oh, gall bladders are routine! He'll be playing tennis tomorrow!" And then he didn't get scheduled for surgery for another 3 days due to a totally inexcusable series of fuckups, and then when he was out of surgery he wasn't able to be extubated for another 2 days but the nurses were all saying "Oh, this is totally normal for a man his age, he'll be fine" and now he has pneumonia and we've had to start talking about DNR plans. Happy fucking Thanksgiving.

On a lighter topic, we always had gifts from Santa at my (Catholic) grandmother's house, but were never encouraged to "believe" in him as such because, well, Jewish. The gifts from Golo (the giant who lives in Granddaddy's head - different grandfather from the one above) were always much more special, because Golo is real. Golo's Norweigen rat friends Sven and Olaf are also real, but we never got presents from them because they are cheap bastards.

And Tep, good luck with the move! So exciting!

{{Jessica}} and much health~ma to your grandfather.

Universe, you are once again on notice.

{{{{{{{Jess}}}}}}}}

Jessica, so sorry to hear that things are not going smoothly at the hospital, so more ~ma.

Ooof, the Santa thing. I remember feeling humiliated when I found out--like I was the butt of an elaborate joke played at my expense, the lone dupe, and God, how dumb was I to fall for it? (Why, no, I don't have a persecution complex, why do you ask?)

This was me, I think helped along by the fact I believed for longer than most of my classmates--I was in 4th or 5th grade, and I think most of the others figured it out by 2nd or 3rd. I remember feeling like the most stupid, uncool, and left-out kid ever when I found out, because in the weeks before I'd argued in favor of Santa when classmates discussed whether or not he was real.

As a parent, I'm torn. I don't want to be a curmudgeon denying my child the Magic of Christmas, but OTOH I don't want her remembering her discovery of the truth as painful and embarrassing almost 20 years after the fact! We haven't talked up Santa much, but Annabel has picked up the belief from the kids at daycare and from her grandmothers talking him up. So I'm sort of planning to have some of our gifts be Santa gifts waiting under the tree Christmas morning...but I don't want to work as hard at maintaining the illusion as my parents did. I'd rather leave a lot of clues so she'll figure it out herself in a few years.

On the Santa debate ... pending actual discussion with the father of any future children... I think I'll tell the kid(s) that it is a fun legend, but not actively foster a real belief in Santa beyond a few anonymous prezzies mysteriously showing up.

Hi Emily! I owe you a return phone call. *hangs head*

No problem! So long as it isn't because you've decided that I'm really an awful person because I've been out of contact for so long and listened to my call and thought, "Cha, whatever" and were just hoping you'd never see or talk to me again so you wouldn't have to pretend that you meant to call me back and...

no, I have no paranoia or personal insecurity, why do you ask?

I still believe in Santa. So there.

Happy Birthday to Em! Wow, I can't believe she's three already.

Jess, health~ma to your grandfather. Comfort~ma to you and your grandfather's loved ones.

A friend of mine had a breast reduction on Monday so a couple of us are going to visit with her today. She's not really a book reader so I figure we'll stop and pick up some magazines on the way. I'm really curious to see how she's feeling since I would LOVE to get a reduction, but I'm a big baby when it comes to pain.

My grandmother used to organize a "Happy Birthday Jesus" party for the neighborhood kids each year. I had forgotten about that. Wow.