MISSING: Mama Bear

Welcome back, dear readers. I hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving. I'm pretty sure you will all be thankful for the many excellent blog posts to come here at the tudor house the rest of this year, but since Thanksgiving has come and gone, we can all quit worrying about what we already have and are thankful for and start focusing on what we WANT for Christmas, the most joyful time of the year. I'm pretty sure that's the meaning of the holiday season....right?

I can only imagine your joy on Thanksgiving week was dampened a bit by my infrequent posting, but as I tried to explain on Thursday, my illness (self-diagnosed cat scratch fever, courtesy of the cat) slowed me down a bit prior to Turkey Day. I would have been back to posting on Friday, had a precious member of my family not gone missing.

Yes, Mama Bear, the giant teddy who lives with my parents, appears to have been kidnapped from her home on Thanksgiving night. She was last seen sitting in her favorite armchair, having devoured an entire pumpkin pie. I guess none of us saw the crime in our turkey comas. We are not supposed to involve the police, but the ransom note didn't say anything about blogging, so I think this is okay. (I'm a bit offended at how the kidnappers have referred to her as "it." Don't they know she's a real part of our family?)

Mama Bear, if your kidnappers let you have Internet access, I'm sure you're reading this post. We miss you, and we will do whatever it takes to get you back home where you belong. Just don't fall into the whole Stockholm Syndrome thing.

I suspect my cousins. Which cousins, I'm not sure - there were a bunch of them at the house on Thursday night. But kidnappings are something of a family tradition in my life, you see. Your family has a secret recipe for pecan pie, maybe, but mine has a strong tradition of low-level crime. It all started years ago when Mama Bear was taken from our house and sent us photos of herself kayaking, climbing trees, and generally having a ball. She eventually returned, but then one of those Taco Bell bobble-head dogs showed up in our Christmas white elephant exchange...only to be stolen at the end of the night. Our families went back and forth for years, kidnapping various toys and sending each other ransom notes. One of the high points (low points?) was when one family brought a bowling ball to the white elephant exchange and it ended up in  our toilet when everyone left the house. This is normal, right?

Anyway, we all thought the fun was over until this summer, when Mama Bear snuck out and came to my wedding:

She is such a party animal. Of course she'd be in the photo booth.

And now she's gone again. Mama Bear, come home to us. Then help my family plan our revenge.

I hope you all had a Thanksgiving just as eventful as mine. Other than dealing with the kidnapping, mine mainly involved watching movies from the Redbox, watching movies at the theater, catching up on a bit of TV on the old DVR and doing a teensy bit of Black Friday shopping from the comfort of my couch. I could really get used to four-day weekends.

Today, I'm Thankful For...

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all! I've spent the morning slaving away over a corn pudding recipe (by the way, multiplying a recipe that serves eight by three is a little difficult at 8 am, in case you haven't tried that yet), and now I've got to find the perfect pair of stretch pants to head over to my parents' house to gobble gobble. I'm afraid I haven't followed the trend of listing everything I'm grateful for for the last 27 days, so in hopes of making up for that, here are the top three things I'm thankful for this year:

1. I'm thankful for the millions of dollars I have in the bank.
2. I'm thankful for my mansion.
3. I'm thankful that I have a Lexus, because they are the safest cars ever made, and it's important to be safe at this time of year.

... Just kidding. I don't have any of those things. But don't some of the "I'm thankful for..." statuses you see on Facebook make you feel jealous like those three did? Well stop your worrying, folks, because the three things I'm truly thankful for won't make you jealous at all.

1. Robitussen PM, Robitussen daytime, Tylenol Cold pills, and cough drops. This time last week I was just coming down with the self-diagnosed cat scratch fever.

Probably caught it from Mabes. I was worried I'd be banished from this year's festivities because of my gross cough and runny nose. But thanks to the miracle drugs listed above, the fangs have gone away and I am healthy as a horse. Plus I have a nice healthy appetite to stuff myself with as many mashed potatoes as possible. I hope whoever made the taters this year bought in bulk.

2. Evanshine's beard is starting to itch. Haha! Evanshine's version of No-shave November may just be coming to a close.

3. Mabel doesn't seem to have peed on anything for the last two months. That's what it's all about, folks.

Well, I hope you are all with your families, friends or dear pets, packing on the pounds today. If you don't over-indulge on Thanksgiving, how are you going to resolve to lose weight in January? 

I hope by the time you read this, you're all looking like this:

And in honor of this joyous occasion, I leave you with some poetry:

I'm happy on Thanksgiving Day,

I've eaten till I'm sore! 

I wish I were an elephant, 

So I could eat some more!

Kids These Days

I am worried that kids these days are being taught scary things in school. Frightening. Let me explain. My friend’s almost-three-year-old, Little Allison, came over to my house the other night to watch Sweet Home Alabama with me. Not the movie, but the new slice of TV heaven on CMT Friday nights that is basically a low-budget rip-off of the Bachelorette where one lucky lady gets to choose her lifelong mate from 11 country boys (read: Good Ole Boys) and 11 city folk (aka guys with serious egos and cheetah print tank tops). Ahem. Back to my story.

Little Allison looks a little like this:

(OK, that is my face as a child slapped on Little Allison’s body. Privacy is key here at the tudor house blog. Also, don't be jealous of my bangs.) Can we just take a moment and look at how cute her jeggings and boots are? She is a stylish grown up trapped in a teeny tiny body!

Little Allison also takes dance lessons and has learned some seriously sweet moves:

I should probably also mention that Little Allison is not technically this little girl’s real name. I have changed her name to make sure that all you child molesters out there reading my blog don’t try to track down Baby Allison and kidnap her after you read this post. But it’s pretty fair to say that most of my friends have named or plan to name their children after me, so this “alias” is not too far from the truth.

Anyway, during a commercial break, Baby Allison sung us a little Thanksgiving Song that she has been taught in preschool. The lyrics are as follows, to the tune of “Frere Jacques:”

Mr. Turkey, Mr. Turkey,

Big and Fat, Big and Fat,

I AM GOING TO EAT YOU, I AM GOING TO EAT YOU,

Just like that. Just like that.

When you sing “I AM GOING TO EAT YOU,” you’re supposed to make a shoveling motion into your mouth, as if you’re eating turkey by the actual handful. This is terrifying, even for brave grown-ups like myself.

So parents, beware. If your children come home with nightmares and the desire to become vegetarians, consider requesting that their teachers don’t teach them such freaky songs. You are welcome for this very timely public service announcement.

Don't worry. I'll be back to my regularly scheduled cat posts next week. I just felt the need to warn the parents of the world about a new danger facing their children.

EDITED:  I must apologize to my dear friend Anna. You may remember her as baby Mabel's godmother. It somehow slipped my mind that Anna was also watching Sweet Home Alabama with me, and also regaled me with a turkey-themed song. This viewing party sounds like it was a pretty wild time, huh? I cannot tell you the tune to Anna's song, but the lyrics are as follows:

One fat turkey I'll beeeeeeee
Spent all night in a treeeeeee
Cook came around
Couldn't be found
That's why I'm here you see!

Now, this is a little old-school, perhaps, because no one gets eaten by the handful, but I somehow feel it's a bit less terrifying than Little Allison's song.