Daddy, I want another pony.

Remember when you were ten years old and there was that one thing that everyone just had to collect or be branded a loser forever?

Pogs are the first thing that springs to mind. I think I was like 9 or 10 when those exploded into popularity. (I had an amazing collection, too. It included a slammer made of steel that probably would have killed someone if thrown at them. Good times.)

And everyone remembers how hard it was to get a Tamagotchi when they first got popular. 

When I was twelve, the girls in my school collected digital pets to the point where you were a social pariah if you didn't have at least one each of a Tamagotchi, Giga Pet, Nano Baby, Raku Raku Dinokun, and a Digimon.

I had sort of forgotten these weird little fads existed until my niece gave us her Christmas wish list. Know what the big fad is currently amongst the middle schoolers in the tri-state area?

Hand sanitizer.

Frigging HAND SANITIZER.

Specifically, mini hand sanitizers from Bath & Body Works.

The kids collect these now. And the little holders you can get to clip them onto your backpack. 

you can fight other people for them on ebay

Lil Sis says the kids she babysits have like hundreds of them, with bunches attached to every zipper on their school bags. And it's pretty much all they want for Christmas.

Weirdos.

What trends do you guys remember? And what are the kids around you collecting now? Have they, too, fallen victim to the hand sanitizer fad?

Have happy Christmas y'all. I start cooking tomorrow, beginning with the mince pies. I'm mixing it up a bit this year and replacing the brandy with expensive whiskey, so we shall see how they turn out........

God rest ye merry hippogriffs

The Christmas season is upon us once again. We all know what that means.

My old cat, Callisto used to knock the tree down every year. (She always waited until the day after Christmas though, which was very considerate.)

As soon as the fake tree makes its appearance, Harleyquinn goes into permanent Crazy Time Mode. There is actually a flattened spot in the middle of the fake tree from her sleeping in it.

Ivy only tried climbing it once.

 Ivy, the simple cat does not like Christmas. She does not like anything that deviates from Normal. As in, the same people being in the house and the same daily routine for 2 days or more, 2 days being the limit of Ivy's memory. Currently, with me going up to stay at my Dad's from Friday to Sunday night, Ivy is having meltdowns all over the place. First on Saturday morning, when I have not returned. After a full day, she accepts that Mich is gone and never coming back, and thus accepts Mumsy as her new primary caretaker. When Mich returns from the dead on Sunday night, Ivy's whole world is shattered again, and it takes her another day and a half to recover.

So despite the fact that Ivy has experienced 2 Christmases before, she has no memory of it. On top of the decorations, Christmas means more people in the house. Ivy hides under my bed when strangers arrive. Even Lil Sis--when she comes home from college, it takes Ivy 2 days of hiding under the bed before she remembers that Lil Sis lives here.

As a result of all of this chaos, when I'm home (and once Ivy has remembered who I am), she follows me around the house at all times. She will cry if I shut her out of the bathroom. She will cry if she discovers I left the room and she didn't notice. And she will hover around my ankles and I'll forget she does that and

and I look down to see Ivy, extremely concerned.

On Tuesday night, I got drunk and decorated the living room. I think I may have gone a *tad* overboard.

I still cannot find the office decorations. I definitely remember, after taking all the decorations down last year, that I had this *~*BRILLIANT*~* notion with regard to the office decorations: I decided to put them away somewhere separate from the house decorations, so that I would have an easy time finding them this year instead of digging through all the boxes of household decorations. 

Guess what.

I totally forgot where I put them. I have searched the entire house.