Let me start by saying how wonderful Target is and how no mother could live without its giant red carts, crazy good deals, and endless home goods cuteness. However, I witnessed a conversation the other day that Target and Elf on the Shelf folks might want to know about. I dropped all of my kiddos […]
Carrie On the Holidays: In Every Single Thing
Years ago at church, our pastor showed a video during his sermon that a simple 8-note scale contained the best news in the world. That image has stuck with me, a piano-dropout myself from years ago. The narrator ignores his mother’s gentle attempt to bring him into the world of piano, and like every piano dropout […]
Carrie On the Holidays: Make Like Elsa and ‘Let It Go’
My family has a million Christmas traditions, dating as far back as I can remember. There are holiday traditions that I treasure and will always perpetuate, and there are traditions that, because of necessity, geography, having small children, and…time, have subsided a bit. It’s not that these traditions aren’t important to me, or that I’ll […]
Carrie On the Holidays: Bring On the Cheesy Christmas Movies, Hallmark.
Ellen: You set standards that no family activity can live up to. Clark: When have I ever done that? Ellen: Parties, weddings, anniversaries, funerals, holidays, vacations, graduations… –National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989) So the Christmas spirit has caught me a little early this year. We’ve been to a Christmas event at church, had hot chocolate, pulled […]
Santa Baby: The Mom Version
Okay, y’all. There is a radio station in Little Rock that starts playing Christmas carols on November 1. Naturally, I’ve been listening since then. I have heard Eartha Kitt’s “Santa Baby” approximately two million times, and I’m pretty sure she has it wrong. I don’t need a yacht. Or the deed to a platinum mine. […]
Smart Mouths and Big Hearts
I used to be a teacher. I jokingly refer to myself as a “recovering high school English teacher,” but the truth is, I miss the classroom. I miss the students. I miss the self-discovery of the teenage years and helping young people realize who and what they’d like to be someday. (I don’t miss the grading.) […]
Carrie On the Holidays: Great Expectations…Thwarted
I heard a great sermon this weekend about expecting the unexpected. You’ve probably heard me wax poetic about the Clark Griswold-esque expectations we often put on the holidays, but this sermon really brought it home to me. My main takeaway from it is that, instead of being disappointed when the 12-foot tree doesn’t fit in […]