Tis' The Season

If I'm really honest with myself, my Christmas wish is to have a home that resembles a magazine cover or a holiday Pinterest photo. My snarky remarks about Martha and any other broad who has homemade ornaments and coordinated place settings hides a deeper issue....I'm jealous that I don't have a house that looks like Better Homes and Gardens at Christmastime. You would be more likely to see my humble abode featured on Hoarders or some slap stick website poking fun at crooked trees and BBQ's covered in Christmas lights. My husband wasn't born with style either, so I can't depend on his keen eye to spruce up the yard or take any interest in matching bows on the tree. His idea of hanging Christmas lights includes a fifteen minute session on the front porch where he clumsily ties white lights to the handrail and then forces us all to stand in the street for fifteen minutes complimenting his handiwork. It's pretty fucking impressive. Almost as impressive as my attempts at hosting a Christmas party, which I am scheduled to do in two days. My house looks like a tornado swept through and smells like a vet's office on a hot afternoon. "What's that dead fish smell, Mom?" I explain that the dog chewed up a baby bird while they were at school and that he could really use a Tic Tac. I have mismatched plates, broken ornaments and a punch bowl that I found at the thrift store for two bucks, which takes on an even classier feel when I place the plastic ladle inside of it.

I want the secrets of these hostesses who greet you at the door holding a crystal mug filled with homemade eggnog, dressed to the nines in a shimmery shift dress, smells of pine trees wafting from inside. They smile, there is an air of ease as they show you to the kitchen where they have matching Santa bowls filled to brim with homemade every-fucking-thing you could ever want to snack on. There is Christmas music playing in the background, people laughing and her husband floats into the room wearing a suit coat and asks if he can whip me up something to drink. Yes, I'd like to sip on a cup full of your life.

On Saturday, my house will still look like people live in it, people who leave smashed Doritos between the couch cushions and snot rags on the counter. The smell will have improved, but only slightly and only because one of the guests wore too much cologne. We will drink out of plastic cups and they will be filled with shots of liquor that I found an hour before the party started, stuck behind the Play Doh in my kitchen cupboard. If I am wearing anything, it will be yoga pants, a hoodie and my slippers, which still smell like corn chips. My husband will make you a drink, but he will also make an inappropriate joke and I promise he won't be in a suit. We can only hope he's in clean pants, but I'm not making any promises. Forget about the decorations all together, we have a puppy who eats dead birds and dirty underwear, so pine cone wreaths are out of the fucking question. Tis' the season where my inability to host a party really shines through. Jealous yet?

Turkey Fail: A Story of Giblets & Penises

Did you enjoy all the food porn from Thanksgiving? The beautifully browned turkeys, plump and shiny sitting on a tasteful serving platter filled to brim with stuffing. Props to all of you amazing chefs and photographers out there, I hope it tasted as good as it looked. The photo you see above is what my turkey looked like. What is that shit bag that looks like a bowel movement coming out of the turkey? Those are the giblets. Apparently they are not meant to be baked inside the turkey.

Before the baking process began, I stuck my hand as far as possible up that turkey's ass without being arrested and all I found were a turkey neck (looked like a penis) and something that resembled a heart with straw valves coming out of it. No giblet bag. There was no way I was going in for a third round of ass searching, so I massaged some oil on that bird and shoved him in the oven, fairly confident I was baking a plastic bag of giblets in the process. My house smelled weird all day. At no time did I walk in my house and think "MMM, I am one talented cook and my house smells amazing." Nope. It smelled like a Little Tykes slide sitting in the sun and all I could do was hope that the turkey didn't taste like Saran Wrap. I prayed to Baby Jesus that my kitchen wouldn't explode while I was enjoying lunch at my mother's house, where it actually smelled like Thanksgiving.

For an entire week prior to D-Day, I had asked my mom approximately 6,000 questions regarding cooking my turkey and I also Googled "roasting turkey" and "finding giblets" apparently to no avail. Every website I came upon gave me some simplified version of cooking a turkey that in no way described just how disturbing preparing a turkey really is. They were all super swell instructions on seasoning, browning at 400 degrees and making stuffing from only 324 ingredients. No one covered molesting a half thawed turkey, slimy neck penises or heart straws. My food porn could have been actual porn and I am not proud of that. I didn't post pretty pictures of my turkey because there were none. There were these two pictures, which are nothing to write home about. Where was the giblet bag? To my surprise, there was an orifice that I didn't corrupt on the other side of this poor turkey, so my giblet bag stayed inside the turkey and inside my oven for six hours. If you care, the turkey was edible. I threw away the neck penis and I now have a carcass in my fridge causing me a massive amount of guilt. According to my mother and every food blog, I am supposed to make soup stock out of it, but as of today it's just busy scaring people from eating anything in our fridge. My daughter proclaimed it "the nastiest thing I have ever seen". Once she has to pull a turkey neck out of a turkey's ass, I am fairly confident she will change her mind.

Mommy Fail

This was my parent failure moment of the weekend. My youngest turned seven on Mother's Day and he had one big request for mom...a Lego cake. We sat together on the couch and researched cakes on Pinterest, I became more and more insecure about my abilities. Most of these monstrosities were the size of a smart car and covered in a mortgage payment worth of fondant. I kept scrolling. "I love that one," he grinned as he lay his head on my shoulder. Try saying no to that, you heartless bastard. "Okay, buddy, I'll make that one." It was the least intimidating cake we had seen, two large square Lego blocks with real frosting and marshmallows for the nobs. I could do this. I found a YouTube video that showed me step by step how not to fuck up this cake. I watched and laughed and imagined what a hero I would be when we served up a cake in the shape of plastic blocks. Mom Of The Year.

Growing up, my mom designed cakes for us every year and in every possible shape. She was ahead of her time with Cake Boss style chainsaw cakes, mouse cakes and my one true love, the Cabbage Patch doll cake. Every beauty was made with a cheap box cake, basic pans and creativity that would put 21st century blogger moms to shame. Our birthday snapshots are filled with cheesy grins and professional looking desserts whipped up by a woman who made me believe it was nothing special. Didn't every mom bake professional style cakes every quarter of every year for two decades? It's what makes my failure feel even more like a kick to the baby maker.

The day of my son's party, I woke up early with excitement and anticipation. I eagerly searched online for how to make box cake taste like homemade and got to work. The cake came out of the oven looking beautiful, that would be the first and last time it would. As I wielded my butcher knife it became clear that I was in over my head. The more I cut, the more it fell apart. "I'll fix it with frosting" I thought. I started mixing the red and after draining the mini bottle of dye, I realized I had enough coloring for hot pink, not red. I was out of frosting except for the container that someone had opened, eaten out of and placed back in the pantry. It smell like belly button lint. Frosting the squares brought me to tears and I was hoping it would get better when my mom walked in to witness my sham of a life.
"You okay, hon?"
"I've ruined his birthday. I can't make red frosting, it's all falling apart and I can't fix it." I cried.
"It happens, just go buy a cake and let it go."
Easy for her to say, she hadn't ruined my 7th birthday and I still turned out to be a fucking mess of an adult. How much therapy would my little man need?

My husband took him to the store to pick out a cake and they returned while I was showering off my disappointment. I only saw the cake as we were leaving for the sweaty foot pizza parlor. This $20 cake was covered in bright colored daisies and butterflies with Happy Birthday!!! chicken scrawled in red frosting. My jaw ached as I held back tears and the thought of hiding under the dining table crossed my mind, as did pulling out the boxed wine and suckling straight from the nozzle. My hubby saw the look of horror on my face and said "Let it go. He liked it and the options were slim. No one is going to care."

He was right, no one cared except me. I wanted to be my mom, I wanted to be a Pinterest mom, I wanted to be a perfect mom but instead I was a me mom.  Maybe one day my son can blog about how his mommy ruined his 7th birthday cake and he loves her anyway.