2013 Year in Review

Best Of, Worst Of... what's the diff?  

This is An Aunt's Life's 2013 year in review!

(Click links for more)

IN MUSIC:

• Macklemore (and that guy he hangs out with) winning up a storm at this year's awards circuit. The music world was primed and ready for a fresh-voiced M.C. who treasures his thrift shop wares over the other guys' iced-out bling. (Did you catch the E! special featuring another peek at the rapper with the softer side?  In it, Mackelmore treats his future mother-in-law to a surprise home makeover. Adorable!)
• 2013 was my introduction to the always suave Robin Thicke (Also the world's introduction to Blurred Lines: Cosby Edition.) Hey hey hey!
• Miley Cyrus helped us all sharpen our comedy skills while she poked out our eyes with her tail bone. Simultaneously, she managed to leave a snail trail of saliva across the nation to which a large enough stockpile of Clorox wipes has not yet been found to reverse the effects. (Maybe they'll work on my eyes, though...)
• Justin Bieber finally jumped the shark. (Oh great! I just gave him another idea, didn't I?)
• Jared Leto's (sorry... Thirty Seconds to Mars') cover of Rihanna's "Stay".  A great way to listen to a good Rihanna song without having to actually listen to Rihanna. (Alright, you caught me. I liked her version too.)
• Will.i.am sues Pharrell Williams over his "i am Other" brand. I picture next year's turf battle to be Marshall Mathers vs the "My Name Is" badges at Office Max. Stickers, you're going DOWN!

ON TV:

• Always late to the party, I finally got into Breaking Bad during its final season. I thought it was on HBO! I don't have HBO! I finished up season five with the rest of the planet (leading into what was, arguably, the best series finale in television history) and I've enjoyed binge-watching its past seasons ever since.  Yes! I fit five seasons of TV-watching into one calendar year. What did you do?
• After a growing annoyance over the terms "granite countertops" and "stainless steel appliances", I finally managed to find a group of women snobbier than the young housewives on House Hunters. The middle-aged housewives buying vacation homes on House Hunters International! Quit looking for an American kitchen in a non-American home! Like you're really going to be cooking a full Thanksgiving dinner once a week in the Caribbean!
• Bates Motel was a perfect mesh of creepy, intrigue, drama and fabulous acting. And I don't even like scary stuff!  Catch up on season one before the next season begins in 2014. (P.S. Wahoo to Vera Farmiga and her Emmy nomination!)
• I got conned into watching David Blaine: Real or Magic? in which he pierced a knitting needle clean through his own tricep and threw up a belly full of water. Thus, answering the title's pressing question.
• Cell phone advertisers stepped it up a notch this year with hilarious bits from the kiddies pushing AT&T. (In my opinion, the red-headed kid from the turtle one and the young lass whom I'm deemed Werewolf Girl should start traveling with an entourage. Of adoption agents. Because I want to own them!) The James Earl Jones and Malcolm McDowell spots for Sprint also scored big with me. Totes magotes.
• Glee's farewell to Finn episode nearly killed me. Providing me with instant onset depression and a crying headache that lasted for days!

• I'm not much a fan of country music or soap operas, yet Nashville managed to still get me thoroughly hooked. Besides. Who can resist the real-life Stella sisters!
• Louie C.K.'s hilariously truthful rant on cell phones (and kids, and life, etc.) on Conan was worth staying up late for.
• Under the Dome won me over just in time for the Time Warner/CBS dispute that took it off the air. (Thanks to modern technology, we could still watch it here!) If you can't get into the plot, you can at least play my Spot the Killed Off/Canceled Actor game. (Head start: Hank from Breaking Bad, Deputy Shelby from Bates Motel, Lt. Mason from Detroit 187, the original Victoria from Twilight...)
• ABC Family canceled Bunheads, whose young dancers decided to handle it like the pros that they are.
• And, for the Detroit locals, Ben Bailey left the Fox 2 morning team. Leaving me still longing for my forecasts, handsome with a chance of dimples.

IN MOVIES:

• Frozen. So, I may be a little behind on my yearly Oscar nominee binge. Maybe, all the way behind.  As in, I haven't seen much (any) grown-up stuff (like, at all!) this year, but have caught plenty of cartoons with my nephews. Either way, I would still highly recommend Disney's newest animated film Frozen to anyone. I loved it. Little girls all fell in love with the newest princess characters. My nephews loved the humor and bits of action. It was a win-win-win all around. BEST Disney animated princess movie since Beauty and the Beast. I'll stand by that, too!

CAST REUNIONS THAT MADE US FEEL OLD:

School of Rock (10 years! Really?!)

Mystic Pizza

Boy Meets World

Freaks and Geeks

The Sandlot 

Wayne's World

Full House.  Not just here, but...

...Kimmy Gibler and D.J. Tanner were also spotted at a NKOTB concert together!

And then there's also the complete possibility that this is going to happen!

ON THE WEB

• This year I quit Candy Crush. Cold turkey.  (But, may find myself in need of a Papa Pear Saga support group in 2014.)
• Pinterest. Where had you been all my life while I busied myself on Facebook? Sorry to have ignored you for so long. Equally inspiring and enabling. I demand that you all now follow me here.
• Two words. Christmas Jammies. Love it or hate it, it happened and it's stuck in your head now, isn't it? Mwah-ha-ha-HA!!!

• Dance battle in Detroit. 
• Dinovember. Read it. Live it. Be it!
• Best reasons for detention. They really are.
• What did the fox say? Certainly not that!
• This blog brought in new readership with the continuously curious mix of search words including "Charlie Brown Violet Brat", "Fancy Comforters", "Garfield Halloween Cartoon Scary" and the ever popular "Meth Mouth" still being used. (I also hit over 7,600 page views and counting this year. Thank you muchly!)

LET'S LEAVE IT BEHIND IN 2013:

• Hot Dog Leg pics. Let's pretend these never happened.
• Twerking.  Saying it, watching it on YouTube and, for heaven's sake, actually doing it! Let's just stop all of the above in 2014.
• Michael Bolton hustling for Honda. At first, I was like "Awww... I didn't realize that I'd missed Michael Bolton." Then after hearing it air every 20 minutes or so, non-stop, I decided that maybe I was just thinking about Office Space.  (Okay, fine. This one is better than that one if I have to choose.)
• Real Housewives. All of them!  Bravo has created a monster and now that monster must be slain.
• The Harlem Shake. It doesn't even have moves! C'mon on now. Learn to dance a little bit next year. Especially if you're going to record yourself doing it and post it everywhere. Even if it's just a little left-together, right-together. If that's the best you can muster, I'll take it over a Harlem Shake!
• Celebrating train wrecks. Miley, Lindsey, Amanda Bynes, Kardshian marriages... let's stop looking at them. Let's revere the nice people instead of the shallow, and encourage the struggling instead gawking at them.
• Kardashian overload. Take your Kanye and go!
• Saying "totes" instead of "totally", unless you're a distinguished man over the age of 70.
• Every word that my spellcheck did not accept from this post: "bling", "twerking", "Miley", "Bieber", "Kanye", "countertops"... huh?... wait, "Macklemore", "Facebook", "NKOTB". Maybe I should rethink this last bulletpoint.

Have a happy, healthy and safe New Year!  If you need a ride home tonight CLICK HERE and request one. Please don't drink and drive! It's just not cool.

Melting Snowmen Cookies

The most fun I've had so far this holiday season was making the melting snowmen cookies that I found on Pinterest. (Sorry family, that not a slam to any gathering we've had so far...)

I made up instructions based on Pinterest pics I'd seen of the finished product.  Since others have been looking for the "recipe", I figured I'd write out the instructions for you all here today:

What you'll need: 1.) Sugar cookie dough (or ingredients if you're showing off), 2.) White cookie icing, 3.) Colored decorating frosting. I used red and green for the scarves and black for the face, buttons and arms. Most important is that you choose a black frosting that comes with a fine tip; 4.) Large s'more-sized marshmellows.  That's it!

Step One: Make your favorite sugar cookies. From scratch, break-off, cut-off, doesn't matter. You're going to impress people with your hilarity here, not your baking skills. I used the Pillsbury break-off kind. If you go that route, please realize that the cookies, as they're packaged, will be too small to accomodate the giant marshmellow. My pack came with 24 cookies. I cut 8 in half and rolled together 1.5 precut cookies to form a new, larger, dough ball for each. (Rolling the dough in a ball will also make the finished product nice and round.) For those fractionally impared, that will give you 16 finished cookies.

Step Two: Heat up the cookie icing following the directions on the back.  I used Wilton's 10 oz white cookie icing tube, which was exactly enough for my 16 cookies. Once cookies have cooled, start squirting! I went haphazard style on my first few, but then realized that crossing back and forth in a flower-like or star pattern caused the glaze to melt as nicely as melting snow. You don't have to overdo it either. Don't try to cover every inch of the cookie. Once you've drawn your pattern, the blank spaces fill in quite nicely since this is more of a glaze medium we're working with. You'll see the spots you'll need to fill in within seconds. Don't waste your glaze! And, for heaven's sake, don't just frost the cookies all the way across like you normally do. These snowmen are dying and it has to be hilarious! If they don't carry the Wilton's (or a similar product) in your area, I'd recommend making your own glaze and using a pastry bag for application. If you use cake frosting from the can, you won't get the same effect. Don't say I didn't warn you!

Step Three: Add the marshmellow quickly, before the glaze sets. The glaze serves as the adhesive to keep your marshmellow on.  These snowmen may be dying, but let them die with the diginity of having their heads attached.  Don't place the marshmellow in the center, either. Put it more toward one edge so you can draw the body later on.

Step Four: Go to town!  Wait, put the car keys down. Stay in the kitchen. That was just an expression meaning "Start having fun!" Draw the scarves on first. I used Wilton's icing in red and green that comes in the aerosol cans. I used the leaf tip for a more scarfy effect. Next draw the face, buttons and arms. (Don't forget the expressiveness of eyebrows!) I used some sort of black sparkle gel frosting that came in a little tube for this. It was the only kind of black icing I could find this time of year. Think ahead at Halloween time if you'd like more black decorative frosting options and buy early.

Step Five:  Think of the children. I was having a grand ol' time make devastated-looking Frosties, but then I remember Frosty.  And, all the kids that will be at the party I'm bringing these to. And, how they might begin to cry when they see I've baked Frosty after he'd already escaped from that evil magician. So I added a few smiley faces. Some snowmen like the sun! (See the movie Frozen for reference.) They think melting is quite ticklish. Smiling cookies are for the children. (Except maybe the one above on on the right. He appears to have suffered a gunshot wound to the head, due to icing not being my best medium.)

Step Six: Have a jolly holiday!

Christmas Confessions

It's finally that time of year where we can begin to enjoy our yearly Christmas traditions.

However, since ours are quite typical, I thought I'd talk about some Christmas annoyances/confessions today instead:

• As touching as "The Christmas Shoes" song is supposed to be, I just find it depressing and have to quickly plug my ears and run anytime I encounter it in public.
• Whenever I hear the Jackson 5's version of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" I can't help but picture Joe Jackson open-hand slapping Katherine on mere speculation.
• I've never seen It's a Wonderful Life, never plan too. Sorry, it looks boring. Double-sorry, James Stewart's voice can only be stood in few sentence intervals.
• Despite its catchy the melody, "Baby It's Cold Outside" is really quite rapey in lyric. And, a tad hostagey too. (Men, no matter how cold it is outside; if your date asks to leave, you are not permitted by law to hold her against her will.)
• The more technologically advanced the world becomes, the more archaic Santa's methods begin to seem to me. Sleigh travel is so old school. (Can reindeer-power really compare to jet-power?) Toy-making elves seems a little bit sweat-shoppy. And, with all the world-wide courier services available online, there just seems to be no need for all that breaking and entering.
• "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" is quite possibly the rudest song ever composed.
• I watch Meet Me in St. Louis every Christmas Eve, even though I enjoy the Halloween scenes much more than the hallmark scene of Judy singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas".
• Everyone goes mad for Black Friday sales, that have the same price cuts as Cyber Monday, whose deals are quite comparable to the Two-Weeks-To-Go! sales, which are basically the same as the Christmas Eve, last minute closeouts. Bah, Christmas shopping!
• There were two too many installments of The Santa Clause movies made.
• White Elephant gift exchanges: Make it stop. Nobody wants to find a place for this crap once they get home!
• I always found Ralphie's dad in A Christmas Story to be totally creepy and could never understand how his wife can bring herself to sleep in the same bed as him.
• When I saw little Ralphie all grown up in Vince Vaughan's Wild West Comedy Tour film, I developed a little crush on that towhead.
• I have no idea what figgy pudding is, even though I loved singing about it as a kid!
• How is it that Macaulay Culkin managed to clean the house so immaculately and finish every home repair before his parents got home? And, why on earth did he not feel the need to tell his parents about that little ordeal that happened while they were gone?! I guess the police were so amped to have caught the Wet Bandits that they didn't realize it was an unsupervised minor filing that report.
• The original Simpsons Christmas special still makes me laugh. #ouchquitit
• People who stress over the word "Holiday": Quit trifilin'. (And, read this.) 
• I love love love the Charlie Brown Christmas special and have to watch it at least once a year, but I secretly go into OCD mode when: 1.) the heavy snowfall suddenly stops as Charlie walks away after the catching-snowflakes-on-their-tongues scene. It's so obvious the cartoonists simply tired of drawing white polka dots; 2.) Lucy's "The Dr Is Real In" sign changes margins and spacing twice in that scene. The words are printed in three rows, then two rows, then three rows again... which is a real shame because it looked more pleasing to the eye in two rows; 3.) those little girls running around in their bare legs in the snow. Where are their mothers?! 4.) learning the hard way that mimicking the twin girls' moves in the dancing scene is likely to give you whiplash; 5.) realizing what a brat Violet is and being secretly satisfied that she'd probably be faced with cyber-bullying charges in this day and age; 6.) I can't understand why they would cast the role of a shepherd's wife in the play, when there are clearly no shepherd's wives hanging out in the sheep fields in the Nativity story; 7.) Schroeder is such a music snob; 8.) Charlie's tree magically gains branches and needles the more ornaments they cram on it. It's like blue security blankets were the mid-century's answer to Miracle Grow; and 9.) the gang is singing "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" at the end and they tip their heads back further than a human neck should go.  I know, I know... they're cartoon characters, but I don't enjoy looking up their nasal canals.
• Candy canes taste gross.
• I am writing this post to avoid wrapping presents.

Enjoy your Christmas everyone!

And, once you air your grievances, take some time to remember the true Reason for the Season.