Good evening, everyone. Sidney and I are just about to head off to the Coastal Carolina University Christmas party so let’s get right to the Thursday Rundown…

The Best White Elephant Gift – I recently mentioned that scratch offs are the best option to bring to a Chinese gift exchange. However, we won an even better gift at Sidney’s work party. On Saturday night, we left the function with a case of books for Sloan. Called the The Great Big Storytime Collection, it contains 10 stories. As someone who wants as many books for our daughter as possible, this present is going to be very tough to beat. We have already started reading these stories to Sloan and she will patiently sit through one before she starts grabbing at the pages.

The Great Big Storytime comes in a case that opens up into 10 individual stories. This photo shows Sid reading one of them to Sloan.

Planning Babies Around Christmas – In Dear Abby this morning, readers responded to a past letter from someone who suggested parents should plan having their babies around the Christmas season. Doing so, according to the letter, will eliminate the awkward case of a child having both his birthday and Christmas celebrated so close together. Excuse me? Does anyone out there actually think that way? Of course readers responded by saying a December birthday is a blessing and offering up ways that both events can be celebrated in a creative and equal way. These rebuttal letters were great but I couldn’t get past the notion that someone would ever suggest such an obscure “planning” idea in the first place.

Too Much – Every now and then I like to feature an absurd dish/snack from my favorite food account on Twitter. Tonight you are looking at a doughnut ice cream sandwich. In my humble opinion, I think the textures and flavors are mismatched. I don’t think a Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut gels well with ice cream. Take a minute and visualize chomping down on a doughnut with ice cream in the middle. Weird, right? If you forced me to eat that combination, however, I would rather have a scoop of vanilla ice cream as opposed to chocolate. At least the vanilla would streamline the flavor of the odd combination to some degree. I just don’t think this was well thought out.

In my opinion, the Doughnut Sandwich has identity issues.

Christmas Specials – Tis the season for Christmas programming. This year, we are watching more of the one night specials as opposed to the countless Hallmark movies. Sid says that with no crazy pregnancy hormones this year, she just isn’t craving the heartwarming yet predictable (and corny) made-for-TV films. So, a couple nights ago we addressed Christmas cards and wrapped presents will watching the Gwen Stefani Christmas Special. The evening before that, we watched the “Great Christmas Light Fight.” Before that, we watched A Very Pentatonix Christmas Special. All of these shows have helped heighten our holiday spirit. By the way, how does Gwen Stefani continue to look so good?

Sloan at 39 Weeks – Tomorrow, Sloan will turn 39 weeks. Then, on Sunday, she will turn 9 months. After battling sickness last week, Sloan has enjoyed several days of health and happiness. She is still “army crawling” and rolling to get around. Last night I gave her just a tiny taste (well, maybe three tiny tastes) of my hot chocolate and she absolutely loved it. She smacked her lips for several minutes afterwards. She is pretty independent and will sometimes rip the bottle out of our hands and feed herself. She is counting down the days until Christmas morning.

This is Sloan’s 38 week photo collage.

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Like I said, we have a holiday party to get to! Have a wonderful weekend and don’t miss out on those Christmas specials. Don’t Blink.