Rock-a-Bye Sweet Baby Jesus

Dang! I was all set to come on here and share a couple nuggets from the homefront, but then I discovered that my profile pic (Michaelangelo's David, slightly more discreet) had been hijacked by Photobucket! Instead of the pic, there was a lovely note saying I hadn't signed on to Photobucket in 90 days and they had removed my image. Granted, I hadn't actually been on Photobucket in more than 730 days, but still...

Well, I signed on, ignored some ads, and my pic has reappeared. Guess I'll be doing that every 90 days or so. Hmph.

So, where was I?

Traveled home to NJ on Tuesday to spend the holidays with my mother and great aunt. Coming 'home' here is a little strange since it's not where I actually grew up. I had hoped to see some high school friends while I was up here, but it became too much of a production to pull that off. I'm seeing another aunt and cousins for the first time in ages and also my bff who I missed last Christmas, so that's good...

My elderly Irish Catholic great aunt lives with my mother and while she has gotten much more subdued in her old age, she's still mighty entertaining at times. Yesterday she provided us with two new Christmas traditions...

Seems she wrapped her hearing aids up in some facial tissue and placed them on the bathroom vanity before taking her shower -- and then apparently tossed the tissues into the bathroom trash when she was done. Then she emptied the bathroom trash into the kitchen trash bag -- which unfortunately had just become the dumping ground for the turkey packaging and the 10 paper towels my mother used to sop up the turkey juice that had fallen on the floor.

My aunt went through each and every piece of trash in that bag twice yesterday looking for her hearing aids. Yes, I offered help, but she declined. Mom finally got in there on the second pass. My favorite part was overhearing this exchange from the other room:

Aunt Jean: "I found one!"
Mom: "Are you sure that's a hearing aid and not a giblet??"

Aunt Jean did in fact find one in the trash (and popped that bad boy right back in her ear) and then strangely discovered the other one in her bedroom, near the cat toys. I didn't have the heart to ask how that had happened....

Not too long after, I was in the living room and the nativity caught my eye. I remembered that we had lost baby Jesus quite some time ago and wondered if a substitute had been obtained. Sure enough, something was wrapped up in swaddling facial tissue -- a Werther's Original!

Yes, my aunt substituted a butterscotch candy for the Son of God. My friend Colleen remarked on Facebook, "Oh sweet, sweet delicious baby Jesus."

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas (if you're so inclined)!