The first no "L"

One of our most treasured Christmas decorations is a set of angels that used to belong to L's grandmother. She had many grandchildren (26, to be exact), so to have anything of hers is an honor, and especially these angels, which were a favorite of L's dad as a child.

There are four angels, and they each hold a letter of NOEL. However, when they came to us, the angel from the "L" was missing, and we did the best we could to display it, but most of the time it ended up looking like there was no "L" in "Noel." Really, I can't make this up.

Each year, as we unpacked our Christmas decorations, I was a little sad that we didn't have an angel for our "L." But, what we did have was the original packaging. So finally, last year, I made it my mission to locate L's angel (bet you didn't think I had another pun, did you?).

I scoured eBay and Craigslist and the rest of the Internet. I found quite a few sets of these angels, despite their age (60+ years), which was remarkable. But I kept getting in touch with people too late or losing auction bids. Finally, I found someone who only had an "E" and an "L." Sold! (Come "L" or high water.)

You'll see in the picture that our "L" is a bit smaller than the others, but he still matches perfectly. A major upgrade from the previous version nonetheless.

You'll also see in the picture that the tradition with the angels is to display them a bit nontraditionally.

Sar-chasm

I enjoy being sarcastic at times -- sometimes it's the only thing that gets me through an ugly situation. But, with my kids, I try to be careful about it. They're way to young to understand it, and I don't think it's fair to exploit their lack of comprehension. Some people find it funny, and there's a time and a place for that, but not very often in my opinion.

We have a CD that Jellybean (and consequently Peanut) loves, called Broadway Kids. As you can imagine, it consists of professional Broadway juveniles belting out showtunes. It's great fun, but after hearing it repeatedly, the high-pitched voices can grate on my nerves ever so slightly.

My husband, on the other hand, recoils every time we play that music. He's all about kid's music, but he much prefers the new Barenaked Ladies kids album, among others.

So today, my husband says to Jellybean, "I LOVE the Broadway kids! It's my favorite music you have." *read with sarcastic intonation*

I thought that was just mean, uncharacteristic for him. Jellybean adores every song on that CD and has gone so far as to say she loves the kids/singers themselves. She didn't get the sarcasm, of course, and those comments were just left hanging in the air. Not only was he sarcastic, but it comes across as dishonesty -- it is not true that he loves that music.

I prefer to pick my battles (with husband and children), so I just told him I thought that wasn't fair and left it at that. In the meantime, I'm going to be very conscious of my own use of sarcasm to avoid the unintentional dishonesty it can convey.