Monthly Archives: December 2016

Secret Santa Millennials…….

There’s a post going around Facebook that basically says when my grown kids ask me what I want for Christmas, let them know I just want TIME with them.

This is the mantra of all the empty-nesters out there. So I have a proposition. Instead of a cookie exchange, or a Secret Santa gift exchange, I propose we do a kid exchange.

My kids live in cities far away from me. I can’t go Christmas shopping with them. We don’t have time to bake cookies together. We don’t go to the local Christmas Symphony concert anymore. We can’t play that game at the Mall where we would watch the young mothers gingerly place their toddlers and infants, all dressed up in their Christmas finery, onto the lap of a big scary guy with a white beard and a crimson red suit and guess which child is going to be delighted or scream their bloody head off. Good times.  My husband and I don’t listen to missed notes of flute practice for the school concert, wondering how it will all come together to actually sound like Christmas carols.

So enough with the melancholy. Let’s put all our millennials’ names and addresses out there to each other! Let’s find out where they live and whoever lives the closest to you, you get to have them for the Advent Season.

You can bake those cookies now! You stopped baking because all you were doing was eating them for breakfast. Now….you can get rid of them. Take them to your Secret Santa Millennial. Better yet, take them to their job! Everyone at their workplace will be thrilled to see you, especially with those home-baked cookies.

You can make plans to take your borrowed millennial ice-skating, Christmas shopping for their Mom (who knows better what their Mom would like than another Mom?). Your millennial will come to your house for hot chocolate and help you with the Christmas decorations! You can take selfies and send them to their real Mom and post them on Facebook, so everyone knows you have a Secret Santa Millennial. Think of all the other Millennials who will be so jealous when they see your “Insta” postings.

Your Secret Santa Millennial will probably teach you how to Snapchat! Then, everyone can  see all the fun you’re having, like you used to with your own kids…but only for 10 seconds!!! How cGIPHY Studios Originals nice santa santa claus naughtyomforting is that? In case, you do something naughty instead of nice!

And I feel very certain the millennials will love this. We all know they are hungering for another Mom to send them texts, call them, Facebook comment, and show up at their work and apartments with Christmas cheer, suggestions, plans for their weekends. It will be like they never left home! What could be a better Christmas present than that?

Since I just saw that Facebook post and came up with this idea, I’m going to have to concede that it’s too late for this Christmas. But don’t worry, I never forget any of my amazing ideas, so I’ll be contacting all of you for your Millennial’s “deets” next year!

Can’t wait for my kids to read this and comment!!

Merry Christmas and all the Best in the New Year to each and every one of you!

“You Just have to Laugh……”

©Cathy Sikorski 2016

The True Meaning of Christmas………………..

This has become the Christmas of boycotting….everyone is telling everyone else where they can shop and where they can’t shop.

It doesn’t matter why or what  you’re protesting. You can’t buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks, underwear, ties, beer, vodka, cereal, cookies, soda, anything in Target, anything on Amazon, gift cards for anywhere, coats, shoes, take out food, and some of these things and places are being boycotted on both sides because no one can seem to get their facts straight.

So we are all going to have a Christmas where we go “commando”,  can’t get drunk, can’t have coffee to help with our hangover,  have no presents to complain about, can’t go out with those restaurant gift cards to those places we would never go without a gift card, won’t have a warm coat to wear or a tie to wear to church, no cereal for breakfast, so somebody better be cooking Christmas breakfast AND dinner….like that would ever happen. And think of all those  people who don’t even celebrate Christmas  who can’t call for take-out on Christmas Day?

And no cookies for Santa, unless you’re one of those crazy people who still bake, are there still people like that? I sure hope so cause those elves who make cookies are probably out of work right now.

This was not well thought out, people. It’s Christmas, for heaven’s sake. How are we supposed to buy a bunch of crap for others that they don’t want or need if we are boycotting all things capitalistic?

Yes, I am inspired by this. I think we will all come to find the true meaning of Christmas.

See how nice our underwear is, George?
See how nice our underwear is, George?

To paraphrase Clarence in It’s a Wonderful Life…… You see, George, you’ve really had a wonderful life and some wonderful underwear. Don’t you see what a mistake it would be to throw it away?

The true meaning of Christmas….is about not throwing out your old underwear until you have new ones….otherwise, the term “Jesus!” takes on a whole different meaning.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Wonderful New Year to all my amazing readers. I wish you joy, happiness and clean underwear wherever you go!

“You Just have to Laugh………….”

©2016 Cathy Sikorski

Where’s the fire?

Two weeks ago, I wrote a tale about my mother-in-law needing to move to assisted living because the fire department had been called one too many times when she left things on the stove.

I thought that was the end of my fireman stories. Until yesterday.

I went to visit my friend, Lisa, at her brand new Senior Living apartment. As hip young seniors we keep trying to turn this experience into a fun-loving event, rather than a crystal ball into our future as we look down the hallway at the walkers and scooters sitting outside apartment doors.

Every time I go there, Lisa has a new story that most assuredly will provide material for our sitcom about TBIs (Traumatic Brain Injuries) combined with Senior Housing. It’ll be a  hoot, based on our initial research!

She’s been in this newly built apartment building for about a month, as has everyone, so the glitches are still being worked out. The biggest challenge is cooking, not because these people don’t know how to cook, but as I suspect based on my mother-in-law’s experience, because the designers of senior housing were forewarned that seniors leave things on the stove.

In response to that, the smoke alarms have been set to super-very-sensitive. So that if your tea kettle steam starts to sing, off goes the smoke alarm for the entire building. If you’ve burnt your toast, because you LIKE burnt toast (yes, there are some of us out there), the smoke alarm goes off. If you have a few items on the top of the stove that are boiling, the smoke alarm will likely accompany your potatoes, carrots and green beans.

This alarm is not just in your apartment. The entire building goes off with blinking lights and shrill clanging that does not stop until the fire department arrives and shuts it off.

And remember, this is senior housing. These aren’t sprinters who live here. They have to find their keys, get their coats and purses. Don’t even think of telling them to go outside without their purse. Sometimes they are napping and are jolted out of their beds. This has danger, broken hips and fear-of-cooking written all over it.

Lisa told me this has happened at least a half a dozen times in just the first month. I, of course, think she is prone to exaggeration.

Until we come home from our shopping trip, and everyone is out in the parking lot, lights are blaring, we can hear the fire engine several blocks away, the clanging alarm is assaulting our conversation, and I notice that there are half-naked people standing in the parking lot.

aka "Silver Lining"
aka “Silver Lining”

No, they are not Seniors. Sorry, but nobody wants to see that. They are lifeguards from the YMCA, which is attached to the senior housing building. So every time the alarm goes off, they have to clear the YMCA, which includes the pool, in November, when it’s 40 degrees outside and raining. And yes, there is always a silver lining.

Lisa’s 85-year-old neighbor approaches us with:

“Why don’t they just take out all the stoves in our apartments?”

To which another replies:

“I made chili yesterday and didn’t move from the stove until it was completely done. I was afraid to even go to the bathroom, in case it set off the fire alarm. And it wasn’t even five-alarm chili.”

Yep, this sitcom is gonna’ be a hoot!

“You Just have to Laugh……”

©2016 Cathy Sikorski