Allow me to kick off Festivus early with my airing of grievances

• If you don't know what Festivus is, that means you don't watch Seinfeld, and I'm not sure we can be friends.
• I told you the other day (or week) about my Christmas cards being horribly late. Let me elaborate for you because the story gets worse. I ordered these suckers the first week of November. I thought SURELY that is enough time to receive them, address them, and mail them back stateside so they would arrive in mailboxes during the first week of December (which is the imaginary, although, in my head, totally enforceable time frame in which Christmas cards should be delivered). Due to arrive at the end of November, they were nowhere to be found, and tracking showed that they had been shipped via tugboat. Maybe even paddle boat, I'm not sure of the details. Anyway, I messaged the company and let them know they were really late and they said they'd send another batch. They were STILL late in arriving and basically I got them 2 days ago and there is no time to get them back stateside by Christmas. Which defeats the purpose of sending a Christmas card. So I messaged the company again and after much persuading, was given a refund. This hardly takes away the sting for me because I LOVE SENDING CHRISTMAS CARDS. I'd say it's probably my favorite Christmas activity. (Until this year.) It's a way to give our new address out to family and friends and let them know we've moved, and to also let them see how big the kids are. I think photo cards are fun to display and I am one of those weird people that hangs them up all over her kitchen and then saves them all year after year. This year was kinda puny. No one sent us a Christmas card (outside of immediate family and Rachel) probably because no one knows our address. Hence my major disappointment over this Christmas card debacle. ANYWAYS. Let me finish whining about these cards. So I got this new printer at the Yongsan PX the other day. I plan on using it for photography contracts, etc. But I thought, oh I can use it to print return address labels! So Steve goes and finds address labels. I begin to set up the new printer. The computer asks me to connect the printer. Except..... they failed to include a USB cord to hook the frickin' thing up. All the curse words. I go ahead and address them all in the meantime, because surely we have one of these cords lying around here somewhere. (We do not.) After my early onset carpal tunnel sets in, I realize that I'm not licking all 100 envelopes shut (I don't wanna end up like Susan Ross, after all) so I start to tape them. Steve comments that it looks a bit sketchy, so then I find some Christmas stickers and begin to carefully (sort of) place stickers on the edges of the envelopes. I also got this stamp with our last name, and underneath that, our last name in Korean. So I thought that would be cool to use! I get going with the stamping (above the spot where I'd put our return address label). I stamp all 100 envelopes and then stack some up. Wait. The ink must not be dry yet. It's smearing! All over the other envelopes! I quickly arrange all the envelopes so they are receiving lots of air to help them dry. I admire my work. Hours later Steve touches an envelope and says that it is still smearing. @#$%^&*(^%$! Apparently this Korean inkpad is just a piece of shit. So I pick up every envelope and place a tiny piece of clear tape over the stamp. We go to the PX today to see if they sell a cord for the printer. They do. Amen. We go home and it doesn't fit. Because of course. So Steve tells me he will try a few Korean stores and no we don't have time for that. I set out to write our return address by hand on every envelope. It's sloppy, I apologize, but I got it done in record time. I also have full-blown carpal tunnel now. I get them all stacked up for Steve to take to the post office. It's already closed. Of course. All of this to say, if you get a Christmas card from me, just know that I'm well aware that it's late, it's crushing a piece of my soul, and more effort went into those damn cards than I put into all of the laundry this week. "Merry Christmas! Holy shit!"
• AFN, the only radio station we have over here, should not be playing crappy Christmas songs nonstop. Either play a classic Christmas song, or a contemporary Christmas song, or no Christmas songs. Do not play some 1970s unheard-of Christmas music. I cannot take it. I cannot. I only get out of the house alone so many times. When I get into the car, I wanna be able to jam out to some semi-recent music (in a nerdy, SAHM kind of way). I don't wanna suffer through some God-awful rendition of Frosty the Snowman from an "artist" that was popular a decade before I was born. Someone fix this please. AFN, if you're reading, I also don't appreciate you telling everyone the roads are SNOWCON LEVEL RED when they're not. These babies are plowed and salted. If someone from south Alabama can handle it, I'm thinking everyone else will be okay. We don't need to scare anyone else into driving 20 mph or whatever the hell that translates into for kilometers per hour. (Can you guess who can't convert? And who also unknowingly speeds a lot?)
• Sam has started doing this thing wherein he will wake up at 4am and then stand in our bedroom doorway, breathing heavily, until I notice his presence. Not only is this THE CREEPIEST THING EVER, but hello, it's also 4am. My heavenly offspring have suddenly plotted to start sleeping like infants again, waking up at all hours of the night and morning. Sometimes they need something (Sam gacked up something all over his bed a few times this morning), sometimes they don't (Molly just stands up and wails, and then doesn't seem to know how to get back down to the pillow).  I can only drink so much coffee before I start experiencing some unpleasant side effects, so if the earth could just tilt back a degree or two to wherever it was spinning before, that would be greatly appreciated.
• Ok, mostly I wanted to rant about the damn Christmas cards, so I think I'm done. At the rate I'm going with the blogging thing lately, I won't post again until the new year! Who knows though- I might get crazy and post something again before then (I am sure you will all be checking and refreshing your browsers like mad....). Either way, Merry Christmas, happy whatever-you-celebrate, be safe, be happy, and eat an extra helping for me of the most fattening thing on your dinner table Christmas day.

This "Merry Christmas" sign makes up about 1/3 of our Christmas decor. The Christmas books littered all over the floor make up the rest.