<p>^^Of course it is! But it’s still a tradition! (“You think you had a lousy contractor(or doctor or mechanic or [substitute profession of choice]?? Just you wait till you hear my story!!”)</p>
<p>regrout the shower or does it need a new pan and hot mop (?). If it is leaking…they contractor may have neglected that step. When we redid one bathroom (the contractor went out of business because someone else sued him) they hired a special guy to come in to do that step. Evidently it is a smelly, tedious job that has to be done correctly or the shower has to be redone.</p>
<p>And to quote Norma Ray, “Keh…vatch…Keh …vath!” Or comparing war stories…</p>
<p>JHS what an interesting snapshot of family history! Nobody had to count 6 hours between the meat dish and the eggnog.</p>
<p>I have a good friend who is Jewish and married to a Catholic gal. His elderly uncle died shortly before Christmas and because it made logistical sense the family asked if they could use his house for sitting Shiva. He said everybody got a kick of observing the tradition in a house full of Christmas trees, wreaths other Christmas themed decorations. No, they didnt play any music.</p>
<p>Ahh, misery loves company Chedva!! </p>
<p>Don’t think the shower was constructed wrong-- just a crappy tile guy.</p>
<p>I am reviving this thread I started last year at this time!
As usual we will be spending Christmas eating Chinese food and going to the movie (yet to be determined which one). How about my fellow Jews?</p>
<p>some is being discussed here <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/931514-colleges-jewish-b-student-111.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/931514-colleges-jewish-b-student-111.html</a> start reading around post 4424</p>
<p>We are having a special “favorite foods” Chrismukkah. Everyone is picking their favorite dish or food and we are having a special food orgy. Let’s see…Ribs and mashed potatoes, pumpkin and apple pie, crab legs, smoked cheeses and crackers, red licorice/peanut m&ms/twix bars, bagels/cream cheese/lox…let the Festivus begin!</p>
<p>So…in honor of Chedva’s comment re: kvetching I offer the following:</p>
<p>We don’t have to go and spend Christmas day with the “family” eating a super formal, awkward and strained dinner. I regretted the invitation. Straight out said the unsayable, “We don’t want to be at your home and you don’t want us there.” Yeah me.</p>
<p>Kvetch: Oh sure…now I have to make dinner!</p>
<p>We don’t have to eat their tough meat barbequed with seven sauces (none of which is edible.)</p>
<p>Kvetch: DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH PRIME COSTS NOW!!! And since my children feel free to invite everyone (because I always do) I bought 14 pounds of prime prime rib!!!</p>
<p>We can spend the day relaxing.</p>
<p>Kvetch: Are you crazy? I have to plan tomorrow going to the sales. AND since we have seen all the movies we don’t have anything to do!!!</p>
<p>Wow, that felt good.</p>
<p>Oh…and Monday the contractor is coming to start the redo on the front. Kvetch!</p>
<p>Haha…showers…when we recently had our shower replaced with a new enclosure the plumber discovered why the old one leaked into the basement…the gasket that was supposed to be part of the drain was just sitting there leaning against a stud. DUH.</p>
<p>Since tonight is Shabbat, we’re having Chinese dinner at home. Most of the kids are in town (including the grandbaby) so it will be nice. 
And tomorrow should be a nice quiet day…no traffic…the malls will be CLOSED! :D</p>
<p>And we have a few movies to see over the weekend. Last night it was Temple Grandin, which I recommend highly. Before that I got persuaded to see The Big Lebowski by my sons. I could have lived without that one. Alice in Wonderland (Johnny Depp! Helena Bonham Carter!) is up next.</p>
<p>Last year it was “It’s Complicated.” This year, it’s “Black Swan.” Can’t wait!! I don’t think we’re doing Chinese food, though! :)</p>
<p>We have reservations at the “really good” Chinese restaurant for supper as usual but we haven’t yet decided on the afternoon movie. Problem is our family has so many different tastes these days in cinema. DH only wants to see movies that are critic approved and “worth while”, preferably non-fiction, so he votes for The King’s Speech. Daughters like action and silly comedy so they vote for Gulliver’s Travels or Tron. DS would probably go for Tron too. I would really love to see How do you Know? since I am a sucker for romantic comedies. The debate goes on. The girls already saw The Black Swan and LOVED it but told me I would hate it. It is a very sexual psycho thriller and I hate suspense movies of any type.</p>
<p>We celebrate Christmas, for fun and have Chinese food and a movie.</p>
<p>Christmas eve: traditional foods and guests. This year it’s one of my students: an impressive young man from Kenya who speaks on international human rights issues as a paid speaker; he’s even spoken at the UN. The meal will include corn chowder and finish with buche de noel – French cake shaped as yule log – that I make every year.</p>
<p>Tomorrow we’ll chocolate chip pancakes (not for me), open presents (lots – what was I thinking?) and then Chinese food and then The King’s Speech.</p>
<p>My mom, once a fiercely chauvinist Jewish lady, loves to come and celebrate Christmas, but then she grew up in Bennington VT, and like JHS, did caroling and decorating.</p>
<p>My current H is also Jewish, but my ex-H is Methodist, so I had 13 years of celebrating Christmas like I had always wanted to when I was a child. </p>
<p>I longed for a Christmas tree, and now I have one.</p>
<p>My D is semi-engaged to a southern WASP who is 1/4 Jewish, and they are planning to blend Christmas and Jewish holidays. Tree will be kept.</p>
<p>Hmm, Christmas eve will be spent at home having a Shabbat chicken dinner and I am making potato latkes (hand grated, of course ;)) because I still don’t want to concede that Chanukah is over. 
We are all in agreement that we need to go see Little Fokkers, which we know will be a terrible movie, but just needs to be seen…On Christmas Day, there’s a pro basketball game on tap, followed by Chinese food. Seems like a couple of perfect days to me.</p>
<p>We usually go to an Indian restaurant on Christmas Eve, but this year I have decided to make a traditional Thanksgiving dinner at home. We had such a brief time with our 2 college-aged sons over Thanksgiving and we went to a relative’s house for Thanksgiving dinner, that I wanted to do it all over again at our own home my way. And it didn’t influence me at all when my sons told me that liked my stuffing, etc better than what the relative made. :)</p>
<p>Chinese shabbat dinner at home. D2 is away, D1 is recovering from getting her wisdom teeth out, but maybe my parents will come over. We are all waiting to see “The King’s Speech” when D2 returns home on Sunday. </p>
<p>D1, anticipating the wisdom tooth thing, had some friends over earlier in the week for an early Jewish Christmas. We ordered Chinese food from a place that does lots of fake meat veggie stuff; the girls were thrilled with the illicit pleasure of ordering “shrimp” in “lobster” sauce for a kosher home. </p>
<p>momof3sons, hand-grated latkes? In this day and age? I’d have a food processor for latke season alone!</p>
<p>mythmom, I will be by for a slice of that buche de noel.</p>
<p>seiclan, I’m told by D1 that she wants to see Black Swan, but absolutely not with her parents.</p>
<p>The kids have voted to do this just as a family, turning down a couple of invites. Although plans with the kids are typically fluid and ever-changing, the current plan is to try a highly rated Chinese restaurant (Zagat’s) to which we’ve never been. We’ll have to negotiate a mutually acceptable movie. Are there any good action / relationship movies out there? </p>
<p>Apparently Tangle is very good. ShawWife and ShawD just saw it because we will be seeing a friend who produced (?) it. He’d been working on it for years.</p>
<p>In the last week we have seen: True Grit (not so much), The Fighter (cliche story done very well with excellent performances by Melissa Leo and Christian Bale), The King’s Speech (wonderful) and, for the social activists/lovers of English cinema, Made in Dagenham, which was really good.</p>
<p>shawbridge: Have you seen Fair Game? Not exactly an action movie, but the discussions of the workings of the CIA were really fascinating. Tiny peak of action as I recall. Serious relationship movie, as in the survival of a marriage at stake, but no romantic stuff. I thought it excellent. Sean Penn’s performance was really great, though I don’t understand why Naomi Watts gets cast so much. She’s pleasant enough but she always strikes me as bland.</p>
<p>There’s the less than stellar The Tourist.</p>
<p>SlitheyTove: Please <em>do</em> come. I would love it!</p>
<p>I saw Tangled 3D with my girls. It was very entertaining (but predictable). I always love a Disney love story! I don’t think that DH or DS could sit through it though.</p>
<p>We also saw Burlesque a few weeks ago and LOVED it. If you like Cher and Christina Aguilara and like movies like Chicago (singing and dancing style) you would also love Burlesque.</p>