Peaches Come From a Can...

...they were put there by a man. In a factory... downtown."
A friend on Facebook posted the other day about liking something called "Naked and Famous" and of course the 1st thing that popped in my head was The Presidents of the United States of America's song "Naked and Famous" ("Everybody wants to be just like me, I'm naked and famous!").

Can you believe that in 2015 it'll have been 20 years since their self-titled debut was released?!

I remember my childhood best friend got ahold of the CD and we used to listen to it the ridiculousness of it for a good while when we were in... 5th/6th grade! Eventually I got a copy myself.

Even now, I still enjoy it - the songs are fast, catchy and mostly upbeat. I still find myself singing along!

Everyone remembers their hits "Lump" (or its Weird Al parody "Gump") and "Peaches", but the whole album was pretty good! Other favorites of mine include "Kick Out the Jams," "We're Not Gonna Make It," "Backporch," and "Kitty."

Thanks to my brief obsession with the stupid song, Peaches became my nickname in Junior High and was eventually part of my 1st ever internet handle. I also incorporated it into my license plate for some dumb reason (I swear, one of these days I *will* change it... someday. Or so I keep telling myself).

These guys definitely come to mind when you think of mid-90s rockin' jam bands!

Angels in the Outfield - We're Always Watching!

 As I've mentioned time and time again, I am a bit of a TBS junkie when it comes to my default TV viewing habits (although nowadays, during the daytime the TV is usually turned to Sprout). I do just love it though when TBS plays old school movies from my childhood as their late-night movie!

This past week I got to take a walk down memory lane and watch once again:

Remember this one from 1994?

Young Roger lives in a segway foster home with another foster boy, JP, in a neighborhood within walking distance to the California Angel's stadium, where the boys spend most of their summer afternoons watching the games from the nearby trees. One day Roger's widowed deadbeat dad shows up and Roger asks when will they be a family again. "When the Angels win the Pennant" dad tells him, basically implying it'll never happen, as the Angels are in last place. But Roger, being a naive kid, doesn't realize that and prays that maybe God can send a little help to Angels to make it happen. Pretty soon Roger and JP get to go to a game in the stadium and lo and behold, Roger meets Al, an angel in charge, overseeing some angels that seem to be helping the ball team do the impossible! However, only Roger can see them. Pretty soon, desperate manager George Knox takes notice of Roger being a sort of a lucky charm and eventually starts to believe the boy's claims about there really being angels helping out the team.

As a good Christian girl in grade school, and a bit of a tomboy at the time, I LOVED this movie. It combined baseball as well as good clean family fun with a plot based around faith and angels.

In the center: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Neal McDonough, and Adrian Brody.
I think that's Matthew McConaughey on the far right.

Watching it now, it's amusing seeing all the now-famous stars. Sure, the big names in it at the time were Danny Glover, Tony Danza and Christopher Lloyd - all early/mid-90s golden actors, as well as Brenda Fricker (aka the Pigeon Lady from Home Alone 2) playing the foster mom Maggie. But it also stars a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the main character Roger. And there's a young Matthew McConaughey, Adrian Brody, and Neal McDonough all as supporting actors playing Angels players. Dermot Mulroney (best known for playing love interests in My Best Friend's Wedding and The Wedding Date) plays Roger's deadbeat dad. Oh, if only we knew the stars these guys would become years later!

I gotta say, watching it nearly 20 years later, it still is a pretty good family feel-good film! I think I might even pick this one up on DVD at some point to share it with Jay - we can do a 90s baseball double feature, pairing it with another one of mommy's childhood baseball favorites, The Sandlot!

Don't You Turn Your Back or You'll Become a Snack!

"Now we've crossed the line, fallen through time... LIVIN' IN THE LAND OF THE LOST!"

I've been meaning to make this Flashback Friday post for sometime now but knew it was going to take a bit longer to research than I've felt up to doing, but now I have 10 days straight to take easy at home and with family, so why not?

Anyways... trying to fall asleep one night, I came across TBS showing the end of the terribad Will Ferrell Land of the Lost movie that came out not too long ago (too bad it was so bad though - Pushing Daisies' Anna Friel was in it). And it got me wondering about the Land of the Lost show that I grew up watching Saturday mornings on ABC.

And no, no. Not this version:

That's an image from the original 1974 Land of the Lost with the Marshall family - that was 10 years before I was born.

THIS is the version of the show I grew up with:

Yep, that's the intro to the 1991 remake with the Porter family and the attractive jungle girl Christa.

One theory I've read on the purpose of Christa was that she was there for all the dad's who got up on Saturday mornings with their kids to oogle

According to Wiki, "because of the success in syndication of the cult 1974 series Land of the Lost, Sid and Marty Krofft created a remake. The new Land of the Lost saw advanced special effects and a lighter, less survivalist-oriented tone ... The series ran for 26 episodes spread over two seasons, with each season consisting of thirteen episodes. It featured the Porter family—father Tom, son Kevin and daughter Annie—trapped in a parallel universe after their Jeep Cherokee (referred to as a "truck" in the series) fell through a time portal while exploring the back country. They soon meet another human, a beautiful "jungle girl" named Christa who came from 1960s San Francisco. Christa became trapped in the Land of the Lost when she was very young and grew up alone. (An earlier concept would have featured an adult Holly Marshall as the "mystery girl" along with Cha-Ka but due to casting the characters were revisualized as Christa and Stink)."

And here's a few fun facts that kind of ties the 2 series together:
"Some fans speculate that Christa is actually Holly Marshall. That the Marshall family sailed away to find their way out of the Land of the Lost, and that Holly was left behind in the storm that took their raft out into the sea ...

 

Is Christa really a grown-up Holly? Hard to tell...

Scarface, Grumpy... he's an angry
T-Rex, so it's possible!

Some fans speculate that Scarface is actually Grumpy of the original series. In that series they often encouraged Grumpy to leave their cave by pushing a large sharpened log called the "flyswatter" out of the cave entrance and into Grumpy's open mouth. Some believe that one encounter with the "flyswatter" scarred Grumpy's eye. The Potter family, being new to the Land of the Lost, named the T-Rex for his facial feature, rather than his grumpy attitude ...

If this were true, it would make Christa and Scarface the only two characters that existed in both TV series.."

That kinda makes sense actually and is an interesting way to explain it for the older generation that grew up watching the original 1974 and got stuck watching the 1991 version with their kids on Saturday mornings.

Sadly, the show only lasted for 2 seasons with a total of 26 episodes spanning a year and a half (from September 1991 to December 1992), being replayed for awhile before being run in syndication later on Nickelodeon. I always wondered how they were going to get home, back to their normal time period.

To be honest, I wasn't big on this show until after my childhood best friend started watching it and was telling me about it. While I'm sure I've seen all the episodes, I didn't watch it religiously... but boy did that theme song get stuck in my head at times - LIVING IN THE LAND OF THE LOST!

Did you grow up watching Land of the Lost?

Flashback Friday: My Baby's Turning 1!

Since Jay's 1st birthday is tomorrow I thought I would dedicate Flashback Friday to him, looking back at this past year.

Jay's 1st picture, just 10 weeks old inside mommy

Can't believe it's been a year already since we got the call to go to the hospital, as Jay would be making his debut! Where has this last year gone?!

Happy Birthday, Jaydran!

My 1st Ever Post

Bored, I got to wondering if I could find the 1st blog I ever made back in my freshman year of college, and sure enough... it still exists!

A friend had an online diary/journal and I decided to make one of my own on Diaryland.com. Eventually I made a Livejournal and hung out there for years, making long rambling detailed posts of my day or posting meme after meme, quiz result after quiz result... but then everyone jumped on Myspace and I continued blogging over there before posting regular "notes" on Facebook and then creating this baby here in late 2009.


Anyway, here's my 1st post ever (with the names shortened to their initials):

2003-03-26 - 1:20 a.m.

"today is the greatest... day ive ever known..." in the words of billy corgan... but yea, today was awesome! nothing could have ruined my day. 1st, i only went to one class (journalism) and we got out early cuz it was just a review for the test on thursday. L. and i went to room sign up and we got the room we wanted - suite, no bathroom - and we're roomin together too. then i drove to target and bought the new LiNkiN PArK cd "METEORA" - one of the best CD's ever! after journalism E. came up and we ate dinner together and then later that night we went to the papa roach/nonpoint concert at otto's. that was an awesome concert. D. couldnt go at the last min so B. sold his ticket to his buddy K.. L. and P. went w/ us also. die tryin and reach 454 were the opening bands... they were okay and nonpoint was okay live... during papa roach i got to be about 3 ppl from the stage/barriers, coby dick (the lead singer of papa roach) crowd surfed over my head and later he almost touched my hand... and i got half of his water bottle dumped on me... it was great. i ran into goose and mav (my next door neighbors) goose caught a drumstick... B. caught a free cd from reach454... but yea, today was awesome..."

I was quite the rocker chick back then! And as usual, I rambled on and on... yeah, that hasn't changed! And OMG, lack of paragraphs and capitalization... yes, I went through a phase where I thought it was cool not to capitalize the 1st letter of a sentence and there was time where I was intent on making it "my thing" where I would be known for not capitalizing my "i"'s... oh dear, young college self...

But be glad I'm not still making daily posts similar to this one that my college roommate once humorously posted on her Livejournal, mimicking me:

"Yesterday I woke up at 10:53. I took exactly 25 steps to the bathroom and peed. Then I realized I had morning breath so I brushed my teeth. Then I looked in the mirror and realized I had a fro and I should straighten it, so I did."

Yeah... she hit it pretty spot on! LOL....

Hard to believe it's been almost 9 years ago since I joined the blogworld!

Do you remember your 1st post or your 1st blog? How have you changed since then?

Flashback Friday: Rockin' At USA High

It's been awhile, but here's another addition of Flashback Friday!!!

Anyone aside from me remember the late 90s high school sitcom USA High?

Does this intro (and theme song) help refresh your memory?



If you're still having trouble, let me refresh your memory!

Created by Peter Engel and the same group that produced Saved By the Bell and all other Teen NBC Saturday morning shows, this gem didn't make it onto NBC Saturday mornings as the network opted for City Guys instead, however USA Network picked up and aired it regularly in the afternoons from 1997-2001 (despite there only being 2 seasons).

The series is about 6 teens studying at an American high school boarding school set in Paris, their doofus of a headmaster and the hot French American teacher that seemed to teach everything. The boys and the girls lived in a dorm suite that looks to be the exact same dorm suite used in Saved By the Bell: The College Years.

Meet the Girls - Lauren, the brunette whom all the guys seem to pine over; Winnie, the sassy black chick; and Ashley, the naive headmaster's daughter.

And the Guys - Jackson, the hot surfer guy who just moved there from California; Christian, the cute German athlete with a sexy accent who pined over Winnie like a puppy dog for some time (no idea why though - I always thought she was too sassy for him! lol...); and Lazzarini (aka Laz) who was the scrawny little guy from Brooklyn.

And the adults:
Headmaster Patrick Elliot who was a bit clueless as to what was going on and hopelessly in love with the adult in the show - Ms. Dupre, the hot blonde with a there and gone French accent.

Yeah, that's right, you have various versions of Saved By the Bell characters:
Lauren = Kelly
Winnie = Lisa
Jackson = Zack
Laz = Screech
Headmaster Elliot = Mr. Belding
Ms. Dupre = Sort of an updated Miss Bliss

I was a bit confused watching this in Junior High though, as the characters acted more like they were in college than in high school.

It was still a cute, entertaining series (that is, if you like Saved By the Bell, California Dreams, City Guys, Hangtime, etc).

Tell me I'm not the only one who watched this gem of a teen sitcom weekday afternoons on USA!

You can find episodes, in parts, on Youtube =)

Flashback Friday: My favorite music videos in the mid 80s-early 90s

In attempt to remove "unnecessary" photos from my Google+ account, a lot of my custom made icons, such as the Flashback Friday logo got deleted as well and sadly I haven't had much time to try and find the originals!

Jessi recently posted about the Beatles and it got me thinking and watching my favorite George Harrison video from his solo days. This then led to me finding a bunch of old music videos VH1 would play in the mid-late 80s and early 90s that I LOVED as a kid and would spend hours with the TV turned to VH1 in the background as I played with my toys hoping I would get to see my favorite music videos that day!

"I Got My Mind Set On You" by George Harrison


This one came out in 1987 and as a 3 year old, I LOVED it and with all the dancing furniture and animal heads/skins I'm sure it's pretty easy to say why. Even now, 24 years later, it still made me crack up!

"You Can Call Me Al" by Paul Simon


Chevy Chase and his antics in the video are pretty much why I loved it. I saw Christmas Vacation when I was like 5 and for the longest time I associated Chevy Chase as Clark Griswold.

"Cold Hearted Snake" by Paula Abdul


Watching this now, this video was quite racy for being the late-80s and I have no idea why my 5-year old self was allowed to watch it as it wreaks sexuality. I loved the song back though and gotta admit, it's still pretty catchy!

"Opposites Attract" by Paula Abdul


What kid didn't love this video - it had a talking, singing, dancing cartoon cat in it! 'Nuff said.

"I'm Your Baby Tonight" by Whitney Houston


Took me forever to find this one, as all I could remember from the video was a woman (who I coulda sworn was Tina Turner until I thought it could possibly be Whitney) in a leather jacket magically getting on a motorcycle near the end of it! Not sure why I liked this one but something about the motorcycle stood out to me!

"Live for Loving You" by Gloria Estefan


My mom listened to a lot of Gloria in the 80s and for some reason I LOVED this video and the animation in it (totally 80s, btw!). I remember getting furious at my 2nd cousin over this video when I was little too - we were visiting my grandparents and I learned their TV in the basement had cable and so, like usual, I was watching VH1, waiting for my favorite videos to come on. This one *finally* came on and I was rockin' out to it when my older teenage 2nd cousin came in and tried to take over the TV to watch a New Kids on the Block video she had bought. I was screaming and in tears when she took over the TV while my jam was on, despite her telling me that what she was putting on was better and I would like it (I didn't - as all it was was them trying to get on a tour bus while hundreds of girls were screaming and attacking the bus, which I thought was dumb, lol...)

"Just Leave Me Alone" by Michael Jackson


I know it was the stop-motion and claymation/animation in this video that made me love it, on top of the fact I decided when I was 4 I wanted to marry MJ after seeing the Captain EO movie at Disney World's Epcot Center.

"Thriller" by Michael Jackson


I was fascinated by this song and video so much that my parents confiscated my cassette of the album, I listened it to so much, lol...

"Black or White" by Michael Jackson


I remember when this one was premiered world-wide in the early 90s on Fox (I want to say it was after the Simpsons). MJ, Macaulay Culkin (whom everyone my age knew as Kevin from Home Alone) and people morphing into each other... LOVED IT!

(*note* I think mid-80s to early 90s Michael was the best!)

"Escapade" by Janet Jackson


During this period I used to confuse her with Paula Abdul soooo much, as they had a similar hairstyle and were both great performers!

"Always" by Bon Jovi


Another "racy" (for its time) video that my friend and I probably shouldn't dave watched when we were kids but we did, and we LOVED this song and video because of the story it told. It's fun watching it now, as I recognize Keri Russell, Carla Gugino (from Son-in-Law with Pauly Shore and Entourage), the blonde bully neighbor from The Brady Bunch Movie and the artist guy was Joe in NBC's short-lived series Persons Unknown.

"Wild Night" by John Mellencamp & Me'Shell Ndegeocello


A video that follows a night in the life of a female New York taxi driver who's rocking out to John Mellencamp and the chick with the last night we could never seem to pronounce as kids, lol...

"Jack and Diane" by John Cougar Mellencamp


So it came out before I was born but this song was big throughout the 80s and still played on the radio in the 90s. You know you loved clapping along with this one!

"Forever Young" by Rod Stewart


My favorite thing about this video was the whole father/son aspect - I thought it was soooo cute (and still do, despite the kid looking a bit scared of riding on his dad's lap of a the back of a truck the 1st half of the video! lol...)

"Don't Come Around Here No More" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers


The creepy, twist Alice in Wonderland aspect of the video was what always caught my attention, lol...

"Last Dance With Mary Jane" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers


Tom Petty made some pretty creepy videos in the 80s and 90s!

My brief affair with Soaps

 

It seems the age of Soap Operas is finally coming to a close as ABC announced it would not be renewing their remaining soaps this fall due to decline in ratings.

Believe it or not, I was briefly hooked on a soap one summer - All My Children to be exact, which will be ending its 41 year run this September.

It was the summer of 1994, I had just finished the 4th grade and was on summer vacation. My mom regularly watched All My Children, however due to running me around from one thing to another she got in the habit of recording the day's episode and watching it later at night (usually after my sister and I were in bed). But there was going to be a tornado on an upcoming episode and since we live in Illinois where tornadoes sometimes occur in the warmer months, mom wanted me to see the episode just to get some idea how serious a tornado can be and the destruction it can cause.

Of course the actual tornado happened at the end of the episode and in order to see the aftermath I had to watch the next one too...

...and see how it affected the lives of everyone on the show so drastically, I had to keep watching to see how everyone eventually came out the destruction and moved on in their lives.

Plus, one storyline had a girl (Julia) who had a chandelier fall on her during the tornado, badly scarring her face and she ran away soon after. I recall a guy she met on the street (Noah) found her and took her in and they started to fall in love. This was quite controversial though as Noah was a black man and Julia's family would be appalled at her for being in an inter-racial relationship.

This was also one of the seasons where Sarah Michelle Gellar (in her pre-Buffy days) played Erica Kane's long-lost daughter Kendall Hart, who during the tornado got trapped under a fallen beam.

Looking back, I don't remember too much, just that that summer I was hooked following the plotlines that resulted due to the tornado that shook Pine Valley, Pennsylvania.

I think my mom was glad when school started back up in the fall - I don't think she wasn't too thrilled that her 9 year old daughter was hooked on a daytime soap opera, lol...

Flashback to First Kisses, the conclusion

 
For the past few weeks, after having seen the new Dentyne Ice campaign stating that the average person has 28 first kisses I decided to started a Flashback series, flashing back to my own "first kisses." This is the series conclusion - hope you enjoyed it!

The 3 remaining "first kisses" I've had... well, not gonna lie - I drink alcohol from time to time (save for these last 9 months of course!), and I did drink a bit in college and while I lived down in school...

Just to be clear, I'm not a lesbian or even bi, but I did have a few "first kisses" with the fairer sex.

The first was with my high school best friend. We were at a party, having a good time (it was quite a crazy fun night, despite me getting really sick at the end of it) and we were sitting around on the stairs between the 1st and 2nd floors of the townhouse. I don't remember why and I was drunk, but I got the urge to be silly and kiss her, so I did. It caught her off guard at first and apparently one of the guys that lived there (who liked me a lot and always let me drink there for free) came around the upstairs corner and caught it too. He had a typical guy reaction and just for fun, we kissed again just to get a rise out of him as we thought his reaction was hilarious! And that was that - nothing more happened. Just drunk and being silly with a friend.

Another female "first kiss" was shared with my long-term roommate on New Years one year. We went to a New Years party with some friends and our boyfriends (which for me was with hubby at the time). Midnight came and went, I didn't remember how it happened, but I think one of our boyfriends dared us to kiss, so we were like "okay, whatever" and did. Again, completely innocent and just us being silly as most guys always seem to have the most hilarious reactions to it - hubby included (he's the type that pulls out the camera! lol...).

And the third... the girl from Walmart.

This happened just post-college. Hubby and I were invited by high school ex to a friend's birthday party. High school ex's good friend and former roommate (whom I knew from our freshman year there as they were neighbors in the dorms that year) was telling me about how he liked this girl that was there, but didn't know if she was single or if she liked him. I told him I'd try to find out and see if I could get her to spend some time with him. I got to talking with her and learned she worked at Walmart (we both thought the other looked familiar - she had recognized me coming in there late nights during the week with my fellow theater managers, picking up snacks for our screenings). After a few minutes, she said she knew I was trying to get info for my friend, as she was aware he liked her, but that she had a boyfriend and just wasn't interested.

I don't remember how we ended up kissing - some match maker, I am, right? Tried to hook her up with a friend and well, I'm the one that ended up kissing her! Ooops! It wasn't really a big deal though and yeah... we were both drunk - like Jaime Foxx and the song goes, I blame it on the alcohol - and I'm someone probably dared us to it.

And no, it's not like I do everything I'm "dared" to do - I just don't see a simple kiss with another female, especially when I'm clearly straight, to be that big a deal, I just think the reactions from the guys (hubby included) are pretty amusing and hilarious!

So that concludes our Flashback to First Kisses series and brings my total to 8 - not really sure where Dentyne Ice is getting their statistics from, but 28 "first kisses" seems like quite a bit!

What do you think about that claim?

How many "first kisses" have you had?

Flashback to First Kisses, part 5

 
For the past few weeks, after having seen the new Dentyne Ice campaign stating that the average person has 28 first kisses I decided to started a Flashback series, flashing back to my own "first kisses." 


The next I guy I've spent kisses on... if you guessed hubby you would be correct!

I've mentioned in the past our long history together, but for you newer readers, here's the "condensed" version.

We met right before Christmas 1997 when we were in 8th grade, as he approached me after Sunday School one morning, handing me a piece of paper (which turned out to be a love poem he wrote for me) before running off. We had an up-and-down rollercoaster friendship throughout high school. He had a crush on me for most of it, yet at the time I had a 2-week crush on him he claimed to be over me. We ran in the same circle of friends up at church and he was hurt when I started dating my first boyfriend, as it turns out they were friends from the church basketball league (which I didn't know til after the fact). After high school, when most of us went off to college, he was one of the few friends of mine from back home that actually bothered to stay in touch with me, via AIM and email - I thought I had a good sized set of friends from high school, but I guess when you go off to college and have to make more of an effort to keep in touch with people you learn who your real friends are. Anyways, we kept in touch online over the years, occasionally meeting up for lunch or sitting together at church on Sundays when I was back in town. Halfway through college, when I was with my college ex, he started coming down to visit once a month for a weekend, joining us for weekend-long stretches of mostly just playing WoW during the day and evening and drinking at night.

Around this time he had finally broken up for good with his psycho ex-girlfriend after her "baby's daddy" got out of jail and she promptly cheated on him (which we all knew was going to happen) and part of the reason for his frequent monthly visits was just to get away from it all, despite her still giving him hell. I felt bad for him, as he took it kind of hard. I went to a cousin's wedding that June though and had an epiphany - I hate the 80s movie Pretty in Pink.

In the movie, Molly Ringwald's character has her best guy friend Duckie in front of her the whole time - Duckie obviously is in love with her and is willing to do anything for her, yet she still wants the jock after he dumps her because of his popular friends. Knowing she still wants to go the prom to show the popular kids they didn't break her, Duckie offers to take her so she doesn't have to go alone, however once they get to the dance, the jock apologizes and she quickly blows off Duckie to get back together with him. I realized, hubby had always been like my version of Duckie, being a good friend throughout the years to me, always wishing deep down I'd give him a chance as he had to suffer watching me date other guys. I thought, he deserved a chance - why not?

And I'll admit, I started developing a bit of a crush on him that summer, looking forward to his monthly weekend visits. I was still with my ex though and at the time didn't have a good, valid reason to break-up with him though, so nothing came of us until the weeks before Christmas when I finally severed the tie with my ex. My ex and I took a 2 week break before the end of the semester so he could focus on his finals and I gave him the ultimatum to make an effort to find a job or else I was leaving as I was tired of his laziness. He did nothing the entire first week and didn't start to even go look for jobs or fill out applications until almost the end of the 2nd week. That was it. I was done. During the break, hubby and I started hanging out more, one on one, just as friends. He took me out for dinner a few times and we went to a few events in my hometown together too.

One night he kissed me.

We had just saw his younger brothers band play that night and drove through Taco Bell for a late dinner before he dropped me off. We were sitting in my parent's driveway, the radio playing in the background and we said goodnight. I went to go get out of the car when I felt him pull on my left arm and heard him say "wait." I turned back around to see what he wanted and he pulled me in for a kiss. It didn't last long, and I don't remember if I kissed back or not, but I remember it felt great. We both smiled, said goodnight, and said we'd see each other at church in the morning. I went into the house and my mom was there, sitting in the front room as I guess she had been watching out the front window, spying, after she heard my sister (who was spying from her window upstairs) let out a shriek "THEY'RE KISSING!!!" lol...

Things were over with my ex by this point and hubby and I officially started dating 2 days before Christmas 2006. Originally, we had talked about waiting a few months to start dating, so it didn't look like I was jumping from 1 relationship to the next nor did we want to hurt my ex's feelings as he considered hubby to be a friend of his (hubby didn't reciprocate the feeling though - he always thought my ex was a jerk and simply put up with him for my sake), but after a few weeks of acting like "friends with benefits" and spending time together, we both decided that neither of us really wanted to be single for the holidays when we didn't have to be. I texted him on my way to work (before texting while driving was illegal in our state, mind you!), asking him "Can I be yours forever?" He responded, "Forever and ever." And we spent our first Christmas together the next day, celebrating Christmas Eve with my family and then Christmas Day with his.

Now, that's been 5 "first kisses" I've had so far - remember I said I had 8?

The next 3 might come of a bit of a surprise to some of you... so I'll save it for our "surprising" conclusion - next week!

Flashback to First Kisses, part 4

 
For the past few weeks, after having seen the new Dentyne Ice campaign stating that the average person has 28 first kisses I decided to started a Flashback series, flashing back to my own "first kisses." 


After being home for the summer from my first year of college for a few weeks, Joe wasn't calling me back and things weren't going so well with the ex - he was confused about our relationship/friendship and said he was going to his mom's house for the weekend to think things over, as I wanted to get back together and he honestly wasn't sure what he wanted, if he ever wanted to see me again. He said he'd call me when got back at the end of the weekend, but he never did.

I was hurt and upset and started chatting online with the only person who was around at the time - a guy a friend of mine had introduced me a few months prior whom I met in person at an anime convention a few weeks prior. He talked with me a bit as I gushed my feelings, helping calm me down a bit. A few days later he said he had a good friend of his who had also come off a long-term relationship a few months prior and that we had quite a bit of interests - especially rock music - in common and he was wondering if he could give him my screenname. I figured it couldn't hurt and said sure, why not. Turns out, he had showed his friend my photo and his friend thought I was cute. We chatted online for a good week or so, staying up til all hours of the night/morning getting to know each other and "watching" late night music videos together as we chatted.

These guys lived about an hour and a half away though, even though the guy I had been talking to went to my college, and they decided to make a visit into town to take me and my friend (who had introduced me to the first guy) swing dancing one night, as my friend and I made a weekly effort to go that summer. It was a little awkward at first - I mean our only prior interaction really was chatting online - but we warmed up to each other. He came into town to visit at least once a week for the next few weeks and when I was spending my Monday evenings over at school working on the weekly summer newspaper he would drive over and meet me for my dinner break.

The 4 of us planned a trip to Six Flags near the end of the month and that was when he asked me to be his girlfriend - on their way over to pick us up, they stopped by school and grabbed a copy of my newspaper, as I had requested since I really wanted to see how it turned out. Flipping through it, a piece of printer paper with roses on it fell out, with the words "Will You Be My Girlfriend?" on it. He grinned, I smiled and that was that.

I'd like to say our first kiss happened later in the week - he had come into town for the day and we spent the majority of it watching movies and anime in my parent's basement. It was starting to get dark and he had to head home so I walked out to his car with him to give him a hug goodbye. It was then he asked if he could kiss me, which I said yes, and he did.

We spent 3 and a half years together (only the first 2 years were enjoyable though, as he got too sucked into WoW and became a lazyass, never wanting to go anywhere or do anything that required him to be away from his computer) before I came to my senses and eventually broke up with him. One of the things we both agreed on when we first started chatting online at the beginning was that neither of us saw the point in dating someone you couldn't see yourself eventually ending up with. Somewhere during our time together, I lost that vision and the one I had of a future with us together wasn't one that was too appealing to me.

The next I guy I've spent kisses on is well... I'm sure you can guess this one! But check in next week to see if you're right!

Flashback to First Kisses, part 3

 
For the past few weeks, after having seen the new Dentyne Ice campaign stating that the average person has 28 first kisses I decided to started a Flashback series, flashing back to my own "first kisses."


The next "first kiss" I had came from a sort of weekend fling I had with a guy at the end of my 1st year of college.

It was near the end of the spring semester and everyone on my floor was going out for 1 last weekend of fun before finals. My ex, while we were more like "friends with benefits" by this point (basically acting like a couple taking things slow, but we weren't actually together), he was doing the guy thing of playing his video games and my roommate invited me to go out with her and some of her friends on our floor.

We went to a frat party that night where a lot of dancing was going on. While there, I ran into this guy named Joe whom I had met a few times at our usual weekend party-spot (where I frequented with some of the guys that lived on my ex's floor). He was single, I was technically single, and so we danced for a bit.

It started getting late and people were clearing out of the party. I had to get back to my dorm and get to bed as I had to be up early the next day for an end of the year BBQ the newspaper staff I was on was having. My roommate wasn't ready to go back though and was planning on finding another party with her guy friend that came with us. Turns out, Joe lived in our building, in the all guys wing, and had to get back as well since he had his first final in the morning and offered to walk back with me, as well, I'm a cute female and really didn't want to make the trek from Greek Row to the dorms by myself at 1/2am. He walked me to my wing, which was on the way to his wing. I thanked him, we traded numbers just in case either of us was up for hanging out again, and we said goodnight. Before he left though, I decided to be a bit bold and gave him a kiss goodnight, with a flirty smile before heading upstairs to my floor.

Not having any finals until later in the week, I was up for hanging out with Joe again the next night and gave him a call earlier in the evening to see if he had any plans. He hadn't and so we agreed to meet up later that night and find a party. We ended up going to 1 and then crashing another on the walk back to the dorms. We kissed a lot throughout the night and it was really nice - he was a really good kisser! Eventually we said goodnight and talked about meeting up over the summer as he too was from my hometown and going home for the summer.

That never happened though.

I'm not entirely sure what happened - we had spent a fun weekend together. I ran into him downstairs in the lobby a few days later, after finals, when he was moving his stuff out, however I had my glasses on as I had gotten a sty in my eye and couldn't wear my contacts until it went away. Maybe it was because I wasn't going to "put out" and he knew/realized that? (a friend of mine from back home went to high school with him and said he was quite the player back then). He gave me his home number and I called it several times throughout the summer trying to meet up with him or see if he wanted to go some local event or whatever, but I always got stuck leaving messages with various siblings of his and never heard back from him.

While living in the dorms the next few years, I did occasionally run into him while walking back and forth to class - we'd stop to say "hi" or chat for a moment as we passed each other, but that was the extent of anything more. Curious as to whatever happened to him, I looked him up on Facebook last week - he's apparently married with a young kid. Still looks the same too!

The next guy I shared kisses with... well, that turned into my 3 and a half year mistake... but that will have to wait until next week!

Flashback to First Kisses, part 2

 
Last week, after having seen the new Dentyne Ice campaign stating that the average person has 28 first kisses I decided to started a Flashback series, flashing back to my own "first kisses."


Continuing from last week,  the next guy I had a "first kiss" with ended up being my high school sweetheart and we dated for just over 3 years.

It was still sophomore year of high school and it was coming up on springtime. I had never been to a school dance before as well, I never had a date for them and didn't see the point in going to a dance solo. My best friend went to public school and said that I just had to go to her school's spring formal with her, however my date had to be someone from her school in order to get in.

At the time she was having trouble in Chemistry class and was meeting a fellow classmate of hers at church youth group each week about an hour prior to start time to work on the assignments together as he seemed to get it. I forget who suggested it, but knowing that he went our youth group as well as her school, we decided to see if he'd be willing to take me to the upcoming dance. Apparently he never went to the dances before either but decided it couldn't hurt, plus after we met he thought I was cute and agreed to take me. We spent the weeks prior to the dance just chatting on the phone and hanging out up at church, getting to know each other a little better so it wouldn't be awkward or anything at the dance. I guess we both developed a crush on each other too, as the week before the dance - on St. Patrick's Day - he asked me to be his girlfriend, and of course I said yes.

We went to the dance the next week as a couple and had a fun time. At one point during some song he leaned in and kissed me. With the stereotypical teenage dance atmosphere going on, it kinda felt like something you see in the movies - romantic music playing, us dancing, dim lighting, high school dance decorations, the works. We kissed quite a bit more throughout the night. At one point he said he loved me - I don't know if he was just caught up in the moment of everything or what, but it caught me a bit off guard as we had only been dating for like a week at this point - it took me about another 2 weeks or so to be able to say it back, after I went on a week-long school trip and realized how much I missed talking with him and hanging out.

We dated for the rest of high school and about halfway through our 2nd semester of college before breaking up. It was a rough break-up, but at the time it was for the best as we both wanted different things at the time - I wanted to go out and experience new things at college, he wanted to sit around in his dorm room and play first person shooters with the guys on his floor all the time. We almost got back together a few months later - I know I really wanted to - but due to him trying to be the "macho" guy (he admitted this to me later, regretting it) and blowing me off it never happened. We tried to be friends at first, but there was too much hurt at the time and it wasn't until years later that we were able to be civil and friendly towards each other.

Part 3 to come next week!

Flashback to First Kisses, part 1

Dentyne Ice gum has a new commercial out, stating that the average person has "28 first kisses."



Now I'm assuming they're talking about first kisses, mouth to mouth, as why would you need to have amazingly fresh breath to kiss someone on the check or forehead, am I right?

When I first saw this commercial I turned to hubby and responded "28 for an average?! That's kind of a lot, isn't it?"

He shrugged and then we both took a moment to sit and count how many first mouth-to-mouth kisses we've each had. Hubby, being a guy, couldn't remember all his, but figured it was a number definitely under 28. Me? I can count mine with the fingers on both hands.

I figured for the next few weeks, this could be a bit of a fun series and have a Flashback to all my "first kisses."


My first kiss was in high school, the fall of my sophomore year.

My friends and I had just gotten back in town from a rather amazing time at our youth group's annual Fall Retreat weekend getaway up near Lake Geneva and some of us didn't want the fun time to end quite yet so we went over to this one girl's house to continue hanging out.

There was me, the girl who's house it was, my best friend, the guy friend I had an obvious crush on (he had been flirting with me all weekend too), and his best friend who was dating the girl who's house it was. Her parents had a trampoline in their backyard so we all went and jumped around on it for a bit before someone suggested we play truth or dare. I was a little nervous, as knowing the company I was in and my obvious crush on the one guy, I just knew someone going to dare either of us to kiss.

And I was right.

Someone dared me to french kiss him, however, having never had a kiss before, let alone a french kiss, I shyly responded "I... don't know how - I've never done that before."

He crawled across the trampoline towards me, saying "Here, I'll show you" and pulled his face in towards mine.

As soon as our lips were locked I felt his tongue slide into my mouth and immediately pulled back, falling backwards onto the trampoline, declaring "Whoa! That felt... weird..."

Everyone busted out laughing at my response, save for my crush, who just kinda blushed and I think felt a little embarrassed! I apologized, as I didn't mean to hurt his feelings or anything - it was just something new that I hadn't experienced before and didn't know what to expect!

In the next week or so we shared a few more kisses, usually achieved by using the excuse of "truth or dare" and each time it was a better, more comfortable experience, however we never ended up dating. He ended up asking out this other girl I went to school with (who knew I liked him and wanted to date him), citing that he had gone to Jr. High with her and they reconnected over Fall Retreat and he didn't want to risk us dating and messing up the friendship we had. I was hurt and upset and didn't really talk to him much the next few months, but we eventually made up and started talking and being friendly again.

Since that first kiss, I've had a handful of others - 7 more to be exact.

Stay tuned for next week!

RIP Myspace

I was drawing a bit of a blank on what to post for this week's Flashback Friday until I was going through my Google Reader and read Simone's post, reminicising of Myspace, on her blog Skinny Dip and it got me thinking about the old days of the now defunct social-networking site.

In her post regarding Myspace, Simone asks:

Was it a space for connecting with old friends? A open forum to perv on random strangers? A dating site? A music site? A platform to connect scantily clad teens with future Dateline predators? ALL OF THE ABOVE?!

I'll admit, with my own experiences on the site as well as that of others, I often wondered the same things!

I want to say it was sometime during spring semester 2004 or fall  (during my Sophomore year of college). At the time I was living in the "upperclassmen" dorms which was a more quite environment than the dorm I lived in my Freshman year, save for our little corner of the floor. Each floor had 4 suites - 2 with bathrooms in them, 2 without, and 1 set of each in the 2 corners of floors triangular layout. I lived with 2 other girls in our 4 person suite and the 1 often went home to work on the weekends so it was mostly just me and the 1 other roommate there on the weekends. In the suite next to us (the one with the bathroom in it), lived a few guys that we got along with pretty well and would often hang out with.

The guys moved into an apartment together the follow fall while me and the one girl moved into a suite on the floor above us. We kept in touch with the guys and that fall one of them introduced me to Myspace, insisting I make a profile on it too.

I didn't really see the appeal - I was already on a few smaller college networking sites (one of which I met my long-term college roomie through, as learned we had classes together!), but whatever. He wouldn't leave it alone so I made one... and kinda forgot about it.

NIU got added to the Facebook directory a few months later (back when it was known as www.thecollegefacebook.com) and I enjoyed that one much better as it more exclusive, I could easily find and connect with people I went to high school with as well as connect with people that were in my current classes. It was pretty neat!

I would occasionally login to Myspace but half the time my inbox would be flooded with messages and friend requests from creepy looking people or spams from random bands that I really had no interest in checking out. What made Myspace all the more amusing were the random messages and friend requests my long-term roomie would get from some really strange people! She'd get some long messages from this guy that claimed to be her dream man... he also claimed to have some mental issues too (as in being mentally handicapped), although who knows how much of what he said was true and how much of it was just someone playing around online - they were really strange!

There was a time from around late 2006 through 2008 that I was somewhat active on Myspace.

I started dating hubby and all his siblings were on Myspace, mostly utilizing it for their band's stuff, but I thought it'd be nice to connect with them a little bit since I was finally dating their brother. Also, I was able to reconnect with some actual friends from high school who started using the site as well and we all started blogging more over there as a way to share our day to day life experiences and whatnot. I also got in touch with some cousins and relatives who I hadn't seen or connected with in years as we don't live near each other.

Thankfully 99% of them migrated over to Facebook in the years after it became less exclusive and became open to anyone with a valid email address.

Looking back though, Myspace was always a bit creepy compared to Facebook. On Facebook I've been able to find people I actually know much more easier than I had on Myspace and interact/connect with them better while I've rarely been contacted by random strangers wanting to be friends on Facebook compared to the tons and tons of requests from strangers I'd get on Myspace!

And while it was nice to be able to customize your Myspace page with a music playlist and change the colors/layout of your profile, some people (or rather A LOT of people) would go overboard with their customization. Some would make it so you were forced to listen to their bad taste in (sometimes embarrassing) music as they'd embed a separate music player that you couldn't pause or silence while viewing their page. Others would have pages that would nearly crash your web browser upon visiting their page as they had SO MUCH glitz and glam and flash going on - those usually made me close their page and never go back to it as it just took waaaaay too long to load on a normal internet connection!

I just logged into Myspace for first time in forever just now... it's lagging up my browser. I also find it hilarious that it gives you the option to login/create a profile by connecting via your Facebook profile! Compared to Facebook, the "newsfeed"/status feature they added just looks messy.

I haven't gotten any "creepy" messages or friend requests from strangers in awhile it seems - the last one I got was from a guy named "Mike."

Mike writes:

-----subject: Hi Sweety-----
Hello im mike lookin 4 someone special. If single i hope 2 hear from u. Take care.

Clearly, Mike can't stop to read the "basic" info my limited/private profile has displayed to the public, one of which piece of info states that I'm married. I point this bit of info out to him and he apologizes, never messaging me again.

I also loved (note the sarcasm) getting messages/friend requests from unknown bands, especially ones where the subject/message states that I seem like their target demographic... yet when I go to their band page, um... yeah - their music IS NOT the type of music I listen to AT ALL. Those that know me or have followed this blog for awhile know what type of music I like and am into - it's not that hard to figure out (especially when on Myspace I have listed my favorite bands and specific genres I'm into).

Did you ever have a Myspace page? 

Do you still use Myspace?

Things Our Kids Will Be Clueless About

Last week, a friend on Facebook posted a highly amusing status that got a bunch of us reminiscing about old school video games and gaming consoles.

His original status:

3 kids in a used game store yesterday:

Kid 1: holds up NES cartridge "HAHA, what system is THIS for? Like... P.S.? Like before the PS1?"

Clerk: "No man, thats for NES, you've never heard on an NES?"

Kid 2: "Well, does it have good graphics?"

Clerk: "Well, it has good graphics for an NES game."

Kid 3: holds up N64 cartridge "They had NBA games in 1998!?"

All 3 kids: COD:BLOPS COD:BLOPS COD:BLOPS COD:BLOPS

Some of the comments to the status included:

I don't walk around picking up Commodore 64s all like "Hey man wtf is this like a Windows 0? Like Before Windows XP!? They had computers in the PAST!?"

or "A joystick? What's that?"

I'd have been all like "Yeah, and you have to blow on it to make it work too! Even though it wasn't even ever proved whether blowing on it helped or not."

I told hubby about it too and he had a good laugh!

Hubby and I often stop and think sometimes about how certain things we remember and grew up with are going to be completely foreign to Jay and our other future kids.

Some of these things include:

• DOS
• Floppy Disks
• Cassette tapes
• Walkmans
• VHS tapes (although we still have a few as well as a DVD/VCR combo player)
• Vinyl records
• Having to manually turn a knob to change the channel on the TV
• Telephone's with the circular dial to dial numbers (I hated those!)
• Laser discs
• How "rare" and special it was to see a 3D movie
• Phone books and yellow pages - most places have a website to look up that info or you can get a number from someone's Facebook profile
• Writing a letter by hand and sending it via "snail mail"
• Disposable cameras and the joy of waiting for the film to develop only to realize you forgot to use the flash in half the photos!
• Pay phones
• Physically going to a video store to rent a movie or video game
• Polaroids
• Waiting all afternoon, listening to the radio just to hear your favorite song so you could record it on a cassette
• A wristwatch (all phones have a clock on them, making wristwatches just a piece of jewelry these days)
• Going to the library and checking out books for research papers
• Dial-Up internet

Can you think of any others?

Christmas Favorites and Not So Favorites

Since Christmas is tomorrow and today is Christmas Eve, I figured I would post this fun survey/meme that Caroline from So Caroline Says posted on her blog last week, as it's all about your Christmas favorites/dislikes.

Favorite Christmas Song:
"O Holy Night" by pretty much anyone or "Gloria" by Michael W. Smith. My church used to host a huge Christmas production with 5-7 shows in one weekend (it was a big city-wide affair) and they would ALWAYS perform this one near the end of the production. They stopped for several years due to cutbacks and other stuff and have recently started a Christmas production again (being a production of "A Christmas Carol" for the past 2 years now) and sadly don't include this one anyone... I really miss it as I always found it moving and inspirational!





Least Favorite Christmas Song:
That "Wonderful Christmastime" song. I think it's by Paul McCartney, you know, the one with the annoying 80's synthesizer and electronics in it and it's all "simp-ly, haaaaaaaving a wonderful Christmastime!" That song makes me nearly go ape as I CAN'T STAND the synthesizer and electronic noises in it, lol...

Favorite Christmas Movie: 
A Christmas Story, How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the classic animated one, not the horrible live-action Jim Carrey one), National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Elf

Least Favorite Christmas Movie:
The Grinch (the horrible live-action one), a lot of the older "classic" movies from back in the day - no offense, but I've never really been a fan of most "old" movies.

Favorite Part Of Christmas Eve/Day: 
Christmas Eve - getting together with my family and attending the Candles and Carols service up at church and then dinner and presents with my family.
Christmas Day - seeing how many times of 24hrs of A Christmas Story we can watch, getting together with my inlaws for presents and Christmas dinner.

Least Favorite Part of Christmas Day/Eve: 
Waiting around for the food on Christmas Eve lol... and the drive out to my inlaws on Christmas day and that their house always seems cold to me.

Favorite Christmas Tradition: 
The decorating and just the whole regular schedule/plan we have every year. And the shopping and wrapping of presents too!

Least Favorite Christmas Tradition: 
Setting up the tree when it comes to fluffing it out and putting the lights and garland on - putting the ornaments on though is fun!

Wishes for this Christmas: 
Decent weather (ie: not too cold with good drive-able conditions), that everyone likes what we've gotten them.

Memorable Christmas Gifts of the Past

Since Christmas is right around the corner, this week's Flashback Friday post is devoted to memorable Christmas toys/gifts.

One of the first Christmases I can remember I got quite a bit of toys, including a red tricycle that I road around the house that first morning as well as my brown Fischer Price cassette recorder.

Another memorable gift was the year we got a Nintendo game system. I've mentioned it before in various posts on here - my childhood best friend and her older brothers had a Nintendo at their house that we would play often and since I had an interest in video games, when an older cousin got a Nintendo he sent us his older Atari system, but it just wasn't the same. The Nintendo system we got came with 3 games - Super Mario Bros., Duck Hunt (with the gun controller) and a track and field game that worked with the Nintendo trackpad.

I also remember getting quite a bit of Play-Doh sets over the years - I LOVED Play-Doh and back in the late 80s/early 90s there were plenty of sets you could get to make all sorts of crazy Play-Doh creations! I remember one of the sets I had was Burger King set - it came with a Play-Doh "grill" to make burger patties and fries and there were the stamps to create lettuce and tomatoes... I had too much fun with Play-Doh!

I loved coloring books too so every year Santa would bring me some. One year he really confused me though as he brought me a whole stack of new coloring books, however some were duplicates! I didn't understand why Santa would do that and then I started to feel bad, thinking that some little kid out there was some of their coloring books because Santa accidentally gave me multiples! Oops!

One big gift I got in grade school was my American Girl doll Samantha. As I've mentioned before, at one point in school, American Girl dolls were all the rage at school. Us girl were always checking the books out of the library and reading them together in our freetime. Some would bring their dolls to school... at the time there were the original 3 - Kirsten, Samantha, and Molly - and they had just added Felicity. Kirsten was the more popular one at school and me always having to be a little different, I wanted Samantha instead - I loved her Victorian style and stories! My parents got her for me for Christmas one year and I was thrilled!

Another memorable gift was the year I got my stereo in 5th grade. We actually have amusing video footage of this one as my dad (or "Santa" to my sister) played a prank on me with it. I had opened all my gifts and it wasn't there, despite me not having opened a "big" present yet (my parents would get us 1 big, more expensive present that we really wanted each year). As we opened presents in the living room, my parents told me to go retrieve the stockings that hung on the mantle between the kitchen and family room. I didn't really want to, but I did anyway and I think my sis followed. As we went to go get them, we both noticed a big large box wrapped in the middle of the family room. I knew that had to be my big present, but my sis, being the little 3 year old she was at the time, insisted it was hers. My dad, who wrapped it, had forgotten to put a gift tag on it, which only led to the feud as my sister insisted it was her present despite what anyone told her. She then began to fight with me over opening it, getting all upset when my parents told her to let me do it. I unwrapped it and sure enough, it was a box with the stereo I wanted on it. I opened it up though and there was an older junk radio in the box! My dad thought it was funny - turns out he hid the actual stereo somewhere else in the house! lol...

What memorable Christmas gifts have you gotten over the years?

Classic Christmas Movie Favorites

Now that the Christmas season is upon, I thought I would take a look back and share our "must-see/must-have" Christmas movies!

Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas

And by this one, I mean the original classic animated Chuck Jones version narrated by Boris Karloff and NOT the horrible live action version starring Jim Carrey. Growing up, this was always one of my favorites and I LOVED watching it on TV every year. When I first started buying Christmas movies, this was one of the first ones I got, as it's a must have for any Christmas collection.

A Christmas Story

This is a classic family favorite, as my parents and grandparents can relate to a lot of the trends and time period stuff from the movie, and as kids we just enjoyed the humor and situations the characters got into as Christmastime approaches. For those not familiar with this one, it follows young Ralphie in the last weeks leading up to Christmas and all he wants for Christmas is a shiny Red Ryder BB Gun, despite his parents, teachers and even Santa telling him "You'll shoot your eye out, kid!" Released in the early 80s, it's assumed to take place sometime during the 1940s. If you like good ol' fashioned Christmas comedies, be sure to check this one, as it's a great film for all ages! Each year TBS airs "24 hours of A Christmas Story" starting during Christmas Eve evening and lasting well into Christmas day - hubby and I always try to see how many times we can catch it, as really, it never gets old for us!

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

I first saw this one when I was little at my grandparent's house and we watched it as a family. While there is some adult humor in it (it is rated PG13), some of the situations Clark Griswold and family get into are pretty hilarious even for a little kid! Family patron Clark wants to have a perfect Griswold family Christmas in their Chicago suburb home, however his parents and his in-laws don't seem to get along too well and his wife's crazy cousin Eddie randomly shows up adding to the funny. Clark is also anxiously awaiting a nice Christmas bonus from work to fund a pool he already put a down payment on. The Griswold family Christmas antics are also annoying the yuppie next door neighbors. While some National Lampoon films over the years have gotten quite dumb, this is definitely a classic one and a great addition to the "Vacation" series ( while it's the 3rd one in the series, it works well as a stand alone film). This one stars Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Randy Quaid, a young Juliette Lewis, Doris Roberts, Brian Doyle-Murray and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

Elf

I remember skipping this one in theaters when it first came out as it looked like just another dumb Will Ferrell movie. It wasn't until years later we watched it with my family after Thanksgiving dinner one year and I was surprised at how good it was and what a cute, sweet and funny family Christmas movie it is. We've made a point to catch this one on TV at least once a year and just recent picked up the DVD for $3.99 at a Black Friday sale. This one stars Will Ferrell as Buddy, a human who as an orphaned baby climbed into Santa's sack one Christmas Eve and was raised among the elves, thinking himself to be one. Over the years though, Buddy grew to be bigger than all the others and after 30 years, Papa Elf tells him the truth about his origins which prompts Buddy to leave the North Pole and search for his biological father in New York City. Hilarity ensues as Buddy tries to adapt to life among everyday people and help get his father off of Santa's "naughty list" and spread holiday cheer with everyone he meets.

The Christmas Toy

This was another one I LOVED when I was really little. Created in the mid-80s by Jim Hensen and company, this one (which is believed to have inspired the Toy Story series) combines real people with classic Hensen puppets and shows us what our toys are doing when we're not around. Taking place on Christmas Eve, Rugby the tiger, who was the "new, favorite toy" last Christmas, realizes and struggles to accept that his child playmate Jaime will be getting new toys in the morning, including one that replace him as the new favorite. Remembering how he felt when Jaime opened his box a year prior, Rugby decides he will relive it again, by sneaking downstairs and into the box of the shiny new toy (a galactic space Queen doll called Meteora). All the other toys in the playroom though try to stop him as it's just too risky - if any of the humans see a toy alive, that toy will become frozen and never "awake" again, a fate all the toys are terrified of.

The Original Christmas Classics box set

I mentioned this one last week when it arrived in the mail, but it's worth mentioning again as it has some must-have classics, including the claymation "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," "The Little Drummer Boy," and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" as well as the animated classic "Frosty the Snowman." Growing up they used to show these 4 on TV all the time at Christmas and I LOVED watching them as a kid - Frosty was always my favorite of these.

Other Christmas DVDs we own are Pee-Wee's Christmas Special and this Buster and Chauncey's Silent Night DVD my aunt and cousin got us for Christmas one year. Both are a bit silly, and given to us as gifts (Pee-Wee was from my dad), but they're still Christmas movies nonetheless.

What Christmas movies do you own or watch at Christmastime?