Valentine’s Day has been canceled according to Boots’ school, which should save a few relationships that normally would shatter in the “I don’t want to buy a present” pre-holiday breakup rush.
Don’t breathe that sigh of …

I’m not a New Year’s Resolution-type person, though heaven knows there are plenty I could make this year.
Shed those extra pounds added due to recent weeks of baking cookies and making fudge – which Boots …

Warning to anyone who bought the guys Moon Sand for Christmas: Take it back. Take it back right now and no one will get hurt.
Admittedly, I have no actual experience with Moon Sand, but I …

I’m a fairly safety-conscious parent who pays attention to the product recalls and knows all the traditional advice: Don’t use lights with frayed cords, keep candles away from flammable objects, etc.
But never did I imagine …

For a few years, I did Christmas dinner right: Appetizers, followed by prime rib, salad potatoes, fresh green beans and homemade rolls with two different cheesecakes for dessert. We used the Christmas china that had …

So you know all that blah, blah, blah about the best gifts being free?
It’s true. And the proof is in what landed at our house this afternoon fresh from the East Coast – as fresh …

An inflatable snowman and Santa stand guard outside, and the tree lights up  the living room. The gifts are wrapped, and the guys have seen Santa twice. We’ve made gingerbread houses, and the Christmas programs …

You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen. Comet and Cupid and Donder and Blitzen …
But do you know how scary it is up here? Even when the audience is all mommies and daddies …

Somewhere, there’s a”Max and Ruby” episode that involves gingerbread. I haven’t seen it but Boots has, and it set him clamoring to make houses. Foolishly, I promised him last week that we would over the …

Maybe it’s because the guys ask every year, but for me “how did Santa get here” is a far more predictable question than “what do you feed the reindeer.”
It’s also far more likely to cause …

It was my mistake, I suppose. I let the guys watch “The Polar Express” and “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” in the same day.
Big Guy being Big Guy, he immediately picked up on certain …

When it comes to shopping I’m not quite in the mainstream, but the other side doesn’t have a majority either.
According to a Rasmussen Report poll released over the weekend, 39 percent of Americans consider holiday …

Damn you, Juan Pablo Montoya.
No, I’m not talking about that little hoo-ha at the end of the last race that led NASCAR officials to tell you to park it for two laps. That was as …

We thought he’d be gone by now based on the word at the end of July: Deployment in August.
That plan quickly fell apart due to a boatload of paperwork and tasks Dad still needed to …

You know retailers are starting to get obnoxious about rushing the Christmas shopping season when even a 6-year-old picks up on it.
“Look at that Christmas tree,” Big Guy said, gesturing at the display front and …

Times like this, I am so glad Al Gore invented the Internet. How else would I know that, as the parent of an allergic child, I should find a large closet and hide there until …

Hey, Martha! See what we can do with 90 seconds and a Sharpie.
Only problem is, I don’t know what to fix for dinner tomorrow night now.
Copyright 2009 Debra Legg. All rights reserved.

I get nervous about birthday cakes – stomach-cramping, sweaty-palmed jittery, and the more important the birthday person, the higher the anxiety level.
Then it gets even worse when a bout of “I’m going to screw this …

Much to my surprise, Big Guy was a Fourth of July-type person from the start.
His first celebration came at a local college when he was just shy of his first birthday but already walking. Walking …

Life would be so much easier if Boots had just stuck to the plan four years ago.
He wasn’t supposed to be born until early July. I dreamed of a little Yankee Doodle  baby and smiled …

The problem with lying is keeping your tales straight.
Or, in this case, keeping your tails straight. All day today, Big Guy kept asking  and I kept ad-libbing about the Easter Bunny. It led to one …

I’d screwed up, and Big Guy let me know it.
“Mom!” he exclaimed, pawing through a grocery bag of Valentine bling collected at school. “Look at this. Lollipops and candies. And all I gave the people …

First thing Big Guy wanted to know after he came home with a coveted party invitation in his backpack was what we were going to buy Birthday Girl.
“It says not to bring presents,” I told  …

Feeling myself flailing about a week ago, I sat down and made my anal little lists. Three, which shows exactly how anal I am.

Christmas Day menu
Grocery shopping list
To-do list, with tasks parsed out between Friday …

Dear Santa,
I’m sending this via email because of course I kept procrastinating and never got the letter in the mail. I’m hoping you have your Blackberry, though please don’t check it now. NORAD tells me …

It took Big Guy all of 3.6 seconds to get the truth out of Boots the night after the guys had gone on separate Christmas shopping trips for each other.
There was no need for beating, …

I have lost all deniability in the Claus conspiracy, and if the feds come calling I’m toast. My only hope is they’ll find it in their hearts to delay my arraignment until after Christmas.
Even a …

The New York Times headline last week gave me hope for the holidays: Use statistical analysis to buy presents, it said.
I love statistics, and I love databases. My little geeky heart skipped a beat at …

His name is Rigo, and we ran into him while shopping.
Technically, Big Guy ran into a tree decorated with snowman-shaped tags, and nothing gets a 5-year-old’s attention quicker at Christmas than colored lights and a …

Once in a while, I flat miss it.
I’m so tin-earred about what’s really important in the guys’ world that I blow past something crucial.
And that’s why Boots and I spent Sunday afternoon going from one …

I was 9 when I found out about Santa.
My parents sat the three of us down one summer day and matter-of-factly explained it. I was stunned. Later, I felt sorry for my brother and sister, …

It’s another lesson in “everything old is new again.”
Or maybe it’s another reminder that I have way too much old junk gunking up the house. Cooking junk in particular, an area where my obsessive-compulsive disorder …

It’s grotesquely commercial and no doubt considered a sacrilege in some denominations. I’m just religious enough to fear a lightening strike each year when I bring it out of the garage.
It’s also the first Christmas …

Caramel corn is a good gift with a bad reputation spawned by the turbo tins you see everywhere this time of year. I suspect some of them were manufactured when I was in high school.
People …

I went to Wal-Mart yesterday on an unsuccessful mission to avoid ruining Big Guy’s Christmas.
No one died there, though an associate looked like he was ready to kill me when I asked where to find …

I’m flashing back about 16 years, to when my brother’s youngest was 3 and all she wanted for Christmas was a Mickey Mouse riding toy and a bottle of Pepsi.
Her mom had seen the toy …

I started the Simple Gifts concept last year, on another blog under another name for another reason.
Last year, it was inspired by a fellow blogger on a site I moderated and her post venting …

That Big Guy actually likes me. Sometimes: Even though he frequently flies at me with a boatload of bluff, bluster and bravado — how early that starts — the look on his face when I …