My Yule Blog

I snuck away from my crazy family so I can write you a special Christmas edition of my blog. Things are crazy around my house this time of year. Imagine my entire family in a snow globe. Now start shaking it vigorously on Thanksgiving and don't stop until New Years. Get the picture? Dad is like Clark Griswold putting up trees and trains and exterior illumination all while grumbling and complaining even though he secretly loves it. Mom makes sure everyone and everything is taken care of and that all gifts are procured and delivered on time. Big Sis baked hundreds of cookies and is still baking. She eats lots of them to keep the inventory manageable. And Big Bro is making sure the couches aren't stolen before our big party. Sometimes he leaves his post to watch me or go buy gifts :-) Truthfully, he too is in the spirit. Even though there is lots of stress and yelling and hard work, I wouldn't have it any other way. These people are MY Santa. Santa isn't some stagnant image created by marketers who want to sell product, Santa is real and he's the people around you who make you feel loved this time of year. Santa is you! It's the spirit you have, to make the lives of others a little better even if it's one day a year. You can be a holiday hero like Santa. Just for fun, below are my top 3 fictional holiday heroes who embody the spirit this time of year.

Clark Griswold


Clark never gives up in doing whatever it takes to make the holidays perfect in their very own dysfunctional way. Just like my family, except I'm the squirrel in our house that disrupts the whole event...





George Bailey

Selfless George impacts everyone in town, loses everything because of his dufus Uncle Billy and mean Mr. Potter, only to be redeemed in the end by all of the friends whose lives he touched. This movie makes dad cry even though he would have put Uncle Billy on Mr. Potter's lap and wheeled them both off the bridge.






Yukon Cornelius

Yukon accepted and helped out the misfit toys. Plus, he was the Rankin and Bass bad ass who took on the Abominable Snowman long before Luke Skywalker killed him in the Empire Strikes Back.

The Ghost of Christmas Present

Since it's a few days before Christmas, I want to ensure that I don't get any coal in my stocking. In an effort to be completely honest, I need to confess something to a few of my readers. It has been brought to my attention that some of my readers who don't know me too well, think that I actually write all of my own posts. You can't imagine how flattered I am that people think this considering just how "special" I am. I hope to meet you someday so you truly understand what that means. While I am pretty amazing, I am also pretty low on the IQ scale.

My confession is that my dad ghost-writes my posts for me because I don't know how....yet.  He takes my inspiration, and writes just how I would think about things and helps me achieve my goal of making people smile which is one skill I was definitely blessed with. Hopefully more people will end their week with a smile as a result. 

So, I hope this revelation doesn't stop you from reading and sharing my blog. It truly represents me and my point of view, not my Dad's. If my Dad wrote what he thinks about, we would need a coal shoot in our house...

Who Is Your Person Of The Year?

Pope takes a selfie....

This week, Time Magazine selected Pope Francis as their Person of the Year. This blogger could't agree more with the selection. As Time stated, the Pope, aka Jorge Mario Bergolio was selected, "For pulling the papacy out of the palace and into the streets, for committing the world's largest church to confronting its deepest needs, and for balancing judgement with mercy" Finally, a Pope who seems to follow WWJD. Congratulations Jorge! 

Time selects the winner based upon candidates being the most influential, good OR bad. I suppose that's why Miley Cyrus twerked her way into the top five finalists. Wonder what the Pope would have said behind closed doors if he lost to her. Maybe he would have learned to twerk :-)  The Pope's selection got me thinking about all of the people we know who are our "Person of the Year" for being the most influential in our lives...Not everyone has the same stage as Time's winners but they are still stand-outs for us. So, I plan on naming my Person of the Year every year at the same time Time names theirs and I suggest all of my blog followers do the same for that person in your lives who stood out and influenced you the most throughout the year. 

My selection this year is none other than my Big Bro Stevo. He had quite a year dealing with his immune condition and a sobering cancer scare while nailing his college entrance exams. He fought hard to keep his grades up to mom and dad's expectations and kicked-butt in the college application and essay process. At the time of this blog post, he has been accepted into Pitt, Penn State main and GMU. No turn downs yet, with more acceptances to come I am sure. He also turned his senior service project into an amazing tennis program for special needs kids like me. He could have "mailed it in", but didn't. He and my friend and neighbor Julia made a difference in the lives of lots of my friends who are challenged and an even bigger difference in the lives of their parents and the people who came out to volunteer each week. Even though he complains about me a lot, I look up to him every day and he is my hero. I'm going to miss him when he goes to college, but know he will always be someone who makes a difference in my life and the lives of others. Congratulations Big Bro for winning my first POTY award.

Who wins your Person of the Year award for 2013? Please comment on my blog or Facebook with your winner so they know how important they are to you. 

Oddballs

Mom and Dad "celebrated" their 20th wedding anniversary this week. They are oddballs. Yup, considering the divorce rate is roughly 65 percent, and slightly higher for parents of children with special needs, they are not the norm. Now while the oft-quoted 80% divorce rate for parents of special needs children is not supported by facts and most likely untrue, I understand why people use that number when praising themselves for still being married when they have little buggers like me draining most of their energy. I think they just assume the number is 80% or higher because of how stressed they feel. They want to say the number is closer to 100%, but they know that would be breaking the truth rather than just bending it a little. I give them a pass on their white lie since they are probably trying to hang their hat on something in their lives that is positively against the odds rather than negatively against the odds like having a kid with special needs. Well, the truth is, every relationship is difficult and the addition of a child with special needs or a child with health issues just magnifies the difficulty. In the end, they are not really odd, they are just great parents like the majority of parents. The oddballs are the parents who don't love their children, and I'm hopefully confident that that population is a small minority. So while we should still celebrate wedding anniversaries as a testament of two people's love for one another, I think we should start celebrating parenting anniversaries starting with the birth date or adoption date of someone's first child. Since I am a champion of inclusiveness, this gives all my friends who have divorced parents or have two moms or two dads or one mom or one dad a chance to congratulate their parents for being awesome. So, happy "wedding" anniversary Mom and Dad. And when Big Bro turns 18 in June, I look forward to wishing you a happy 18th Parenting Anniversary! (message to Hallmark who have created numerous holidays and anniversaries just to sell more corny cards, I own this one)