I’m getting tired of having to keep crap for BM Nasty for the Skids because she’s too crappy to do it herself.

I have managed to talk SO into boxing up varied items which have been passed down to the Skids (mainly SD7) from Nasty’s family. Items such as hand-made quilts, stuffed animals and blankets are now put up on the top shelf of the closet for “safe keeping” until they are out on their own. I’m just wondering when Nasty’s family’s traditions & heirlooms are going to find their way out my door.

Please note that we have these items because Nasty can’t be bothered to keep her own children’s keepsakes…she threw away both Skids baby books for crying out loud…who does that?? There are hardly any baby pics of SD but loads of SS…I find the whole thing a little weird, but oh well.

Nasty’s family has a tradition of getting children ornaments every year & when they move out, they take their ornaments with them…some kind of tie to their childhood or something like that. For 2 years, we had Nasty’s childhood ornaments…they weren’t put up but rather kept in the ornament box with SO’s collection. But, I know that the ornaments SHE grew up with were ANGELS…her mother picked them out for her & gave them to her each year. She whined & cried about not having her ornaments (when I say whined, I mean 2 year old who had their sucker stolen, WHINED!)...SO got smart & traded her ornaments for his USMC Blues uniform (which she had told him she would trash)...seemed fair enough.

She decided with her children to let them pick their own…the Skids ornaments include characters such as Scooby, Spiderman, Care bears (picked out by BM Nasty when Skids were babies), princesses, Dora, Sponge Bob, Barbie, and freaking Hello Kitty! SS9 has 8 ugly tacky ornaments while SD7 has somewhere in the neighborhood of 20+ because she picked ornament SETS (ALL of the princesses, FOUR care bears, etc).

For Christmas, I like traditional decorations around the house and on the tree. Many friends of mine have a second tree for kiddie decorations and silly stuff that doesn’t need to be in the living room. SO made “you just killed my puppy” faces at me when I suggested a second tree. I personally find it tacky and hideous.

SO seems to be coming around to the idea of traditional versus cartoon tacky & has planned on getting Skids traditional ornaments this year. I collect Frosty ornaments so he thought Angels for SD, Santa for him & Frosty or Rudolf for SS would work nicely. He promised to gradually remove the ugly ornaments (1 per year per kid) meaning that by time they graduate, I will no longer have Sponge Bob gracing my Christmas tree…hell, I figured that at least it’s a start, right?).

Stockings will be replaced when we have the money for it...at present, SS has Scooby (it's HUGE & makes horrid noises), SD has Hello Kitty (which she hates...Hello Kitty is her BM's thing, NOT hers!) & SO has a Cowboys Stocking. All of them have pearl names written with love by none other than Nasty...nice! SO knows that when I replace them, the new ones will be traditional (possibly knit) with embroidered names so they don't look like eye sores in my effing living room! I told him he could use his Cowyboys stocking for Fathers day...figured we'd start our own tradition...the SKids can fill it with stuff on Father's Day rather than having "Santa" do it for Christmas.