Author: Jen Rios

O, Holy Night

I turned the Hallmark channel on in the middle of a holiday movie and I see Pat Monahan talking to the main character. They were talking about I guess he is a singer or something but undiscovered. I don’t know how much of the movie ls left but I know that he will save the day and sing in the movie.

As the main character is dancing with some guy, O, holy night is playing, Train’s O, holy night which I had never heard before:

I’m watching the movie and Pat Monahan is talking so it’s weird that he is a Hallmark Channel actor now? So, I dig this song but I am afraid that Jon Secada put him to shame! I got nothing but love for you Pat but Jon is excellent here!!!

I think it’s strange that I have been listening to Jon cicada numerous times today and I’m only half into this Hallmark movie but I like that I heard a different version of this song that I will never forget even though it’s not my favorite version I deliberated and it solidified my love for Jon Secada! I just watched more of the movie and George Lopez is in it?! And then, Pat samg, “Shake up Christmas” with the guy who was dancing with the main character. I guess I will have to watch this movie from the beginning to see what is really going on!

“Stand-Up Hugs”

Yesterday, after the lights were on the tree, my Mom asked Sean to transfer me. It is one of my favorite things and the world to have Sean transfer me. We get to hug each other! At least, that’s how I look at it!

What I realized yesterday is that Sean has grown since the last time he helped me transfer! We stood there and just hugged. My Mom got impatient with us and kind of tried to hurry it’s a long and Sean said, “Hold on, I’m hugging my mom right now. stand up cogs don’t come along very often!” That made me laugh because he has heard me talk about standup hugs with longing for all of his life!

While he was putting up the lights, I told him that I used to just tell guys to, ”Squeeze my head!” I told him that it sounded too needy to ask for a hug but if I told them to squeeze my head, it was the same thing!

Early this morning, I was having difficulty sleeping so I looked at previous posts from my blog and I’ve read and shared this one from last year. I thought it interesting because I was just talking about this with Sean! I really do LOVE hearing his heartbeat when he hugs me.

Phase 2 2021 Completed.

Sean came over yesterday and started phase 2 of putting up the Christmas tree. I was able to snap this picture from my wheel hair:

Once he started putting the lights on, I HAD to put my song on!:

We talked as he was putting the lights up and I told him about posting my ALL-TIME Christmas Faves and adding the last song which is NOT my fave but it’s my cousinT’s so intern, I love it too:

As we continued to talk, he told me his favorite. I like that song as well! I KNOW that I have had that in my Christmas Faves list before but now I love this one even more now because Sean likes it!!!:

After he laughed and just before I went to bed, I took this picture of my tree. My Mom was impressed that for his first time, he did really well!




Phase 2 2021 is now completed.

“My Mom” OR “Crisis Averted”

I was super excited yesterday that today was going to be the day that I could start using my, ”Ginger Spice” Chapstick. I thought about what I was going to write about when writing about it! When my brother, Ray, came over to make the pies, I laughed and reminded him that he and our cousin Alex commented a couple years ago when I originally wrote about it that they thought it was disgusting because it reminds me of the candy she always had in her house.

I showed my Mom this picture on my phone yesterday to tell her about the post I was going to write. She looked at my phone and her eyes softened and she just said in the most tender voice, “My mom.” I enjoyed seeing her reaction to the picture and I told her that it’s her (my Abuela’s) time because it’s ginger spice time.

It wasn’t even Christmas when we took this picture and we were at my aunt Rita’s house but I love it! It makes me think of the jar of candy she had on the entranceway table around Christmas time.

This was the candy she had:

They didn’t especially taste good but if that was the only candy there, with them. So this morning, I was super excited because I was going to put some on for the first time in a year. I carefully peeled the steel off of the chapstick to release the smell of Christmas at my Abuela‘s house! Once I peeled it all the way off, I was surprised to NOT be immediately flooded with smells that remind me of my Abuela’s house was confused! I looked down at the tube this and I saw that it was not Ginger Spice but my LEAST favorite Halloween flavor! It was Salted Caramel.

I talked to Sean today and I told him about the, “Terribleness.” Then I told him that, luckily, I had already placed a Target order for a Shortbread Cookie chapstick that I can use in conjunction with the Cocoa Mint and the Vanilla Bean one. I put the vanilla bean on today. Sean was amused at how much of a big deal I make all of this but what I told him about the order coming from Target, he said, “Oh good, crisis averted.” I replied with, “I know!” and then, he started to laugh because he was just joking but I WAS and AM totally serious

It’s a little bit of a risky move but I hope that I like the shortbread cookie one end it really has gotten me thinking about pitching the idea to them that they should have a BYOC kits! it’s a build your own chapstick grouping!

ALL-TIME Christmas Faves 2021: Top 20; The Basics

I think this list was getting too long so I have decided to just include the basics. Songs that I have heard my whole life! Let’s start with a Christmas that I decided this was my favorite song, I think it was seven, I was climbing into the backseat of our station wagon just as mass finished:

Wham! “Last Christmas”

This year, Sean put my tree up before Thanksgiving and I put Wham! on as he was fluffing the branches. He requested this song that has been part of my Christmases for my entire life:

Jose Feliciano “Feliz Navidad”

Gayla Peevey “I want a hippopotamus for Christmas”

Judy Garland “Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas”

Karen Carpenter “Merry Christmas, Darling”

Mariah Carey ”All I want for Christmas is you”

Alabama ”The Christmas shoes”

Train ”Shake up Christmas”

Jon Bon Jovi “Please come home for Christmas”

John Secada “Oh Holy Night”

Sarah McLachlan ”River”

U2 “Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)”

oops!!!

Cee-Lo Green “Mary, Did you know?1

Kelly Clarkson ”Underneath the Tree”

Band Aid “Do they know it’s Christmas?”

Barenaked Ladies ”God Rest Ye, Merry Gentleman

Andy Williams ”It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”

James Taylor “Have Yourself a Merry little Christmas”

Bing Crosby & David Bowie “The Little Drummer Boy (Peace on Earth)”

Added in 2021:

Stevie Wonder ”This Christmas”

And this one for my cousinT, Shannon! I don’t like this song but because she does and I am putting it in Because I love her and I ALWAYS have to listen!

Bruce Springsteen ”Santa Claus is Coming to Town”

#ChronicallyIllAndNotSoFestive…

I woke up this late morning to the smell of my Mom‘s apple pie. Mornings are always difficult for me and as I was trying to wake up I had a big coughing fit. I cough and choke on nothing now. It’s a little bit alarming but I’ve been doing it so long that my Mom knows just to let me, “Choke it out.” Sean would always say, “Hands up” (which is what I always used to tell him when he was young). My Mom told me that today as I choked and Leia got up and out of her warm bed by the heater vent to report for duty see if I was okay!

Seeing this, made both my Mom and me laugh as I finished choking. Choking on nothing takes a lot out of you! I am still sitting in my wheelchair trying to wake up. It seems that MS does not care if it is Thanksgiving! The sides have always been my favorite part of a Thanksgiving meal. But I am a little bit concerned that and during Thanksgiving dinner will be difficult. I’m #ChronicallyIllAndNotSoFestive.

Yesterday, I had a piece of my Mom’s, “Reject” pumpkin pie and I didn’t seem to have a problem with that because I’ve been eating it my whole life! I’m just going to be positive about this and chew very slowly!

🍁Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! 🍁

“OUR Music”

It was interesting for me to watch the, ”Changing of the Guard” with Sean putting our Christmas tree up but one thing I really didn’t think about was a, “Changing of the Guard” with the pie making in my family. My Mom has already told me that she is getting tired and I am so sad that I can’t carry on the torch for her!

ENTER: my big brother, Ray. It looks like he will be learning from my Mom how to make her pies.

I learned last year during the holiday pie making that my thermostat has to be set lower because the house gets really warm when the oven is on all day. But, my disease is progressing and therefore, my temperature control is being lost. My house was set at a lower temperature but I couldn’t handle it so I went over to the doorway of my kitchen. I took in a scene that I will never forget for the rest of my life!

My brother put on some music and a song that I had never heard before was playing but I turned the corner to see both my Mom and my brother, with their backs to each other, singing their hearts out because they both knew the song! I started to laugh and I commented that I didn’t know that song. My Mom could NOT believe that I didn’t know it and my brother looked at his playlist and said, in my defense, that it came out 13 years before I was born. When my Mom listens to music, I have to constantly remind her that I was born in 1982! They sat on the couch has the final pies were in the oven and started singing a different song that I didn’t know and my mom told my brother, “She doesn’t know our music!” I laughed at that statement but I do not know, “Their music.”

My brother posted this picture of him and my Mom and I need to explain it. My Mom meant business yesterday and it continues today. My Mom is not used to being picture ready and staging pictures and I explained to her that’s how it goes now. I could feel the tension when I got out of bed yesterday like static or some thing because I knew that my Mom would soon turn into being obsessed! she gets that way when she’s baking a large amount of things! Baking pies for my immediate family is a large amount of things!

Phase 1 2021 Completed.

So, things are a little topsy-turvy this holiday season but I am smelling pumpkin pies made by my brother and my Mom and my son told me that he completed phase 1 as he walked out of the door today. it’s a really good thing that I am wearing my festive, Thanksgiving shirt to properly be ready for the season!