I have some unpopular opinions to share with you today.
Let's see if we agree! Or agree to disagree!
1. I never decorate for Christmas until after Thanksgiving. My house is decorated with turkeys, pumpkins and ready for Thanksgiving. I know cute turkeys are hard to find, but I've been collecting them for years. I really don't want to see anything Christmas at my house until after Thanksgiving. I do start shopping for Christmas and tucking things away for Christmas, but that's it - Christmas music, movies and decoration happen after Thanksgiving for us.
2. I know Elf on the Shelf isn't for everyone, but I'm so excited for some elf activities at our house in December. Anytime you can get your preteen excited about something, you stick with it! I've been collecting fun things to do and surprise my kids with for months. That way I can enjoy December and not have to run around like crazy to find elf supplies.
3. I don't understand people who pay money to work on their yard or plant trees and then refuse to water them. We live in an area of our city with lots of new construction and it's wild to me to watch things die.
4. I'm over holiday gift guides on social media and we're still weeks away from Christmas! It seems like everyone is putting out their gift guides and they all just blur together. The only way I enjoy and shop gift suggestions is when people I follow share items that their family owns and loves. I love those recommendations and often shop them. The huge gift guides of items someone thinks 10 year old girls would love aren't very helpful to me.
5. Do you ever start to wonder about products when you are seeing them promoted online 24/7? I'm looking at your Nutrafol, AG1, powder drinks, Magic Spoon, Tommy John and more. I'm sure some are wonderful, but they can't all be life changing, right?
6. I'm the only one at my house who loves doing family pictures. I don't love the scheduling/watching the weather portion, but I do love helping everyone pick out outfits and updating our pictures for the year. And sending out photo Christmas cards is always a highlight of my year (minus the crazy postage costs these days).
7. Super chunky, white tennis shoes are not cute. I love that tennis shoes have gotten cute and colorful and there are pairs for every type of outfit, but those super chunky white ones do not catch my eye.
8. I hate that so many little kids have phones. My first grader and fifth grader are both in classes with plenty of cell phones. I wish more parents would wait. We don't have a hard and fast age to give cell phones. We're learning as we go and educating ourselves about the best devices and online safety options for our family. Kevin and I got cell phones when we were 18 and headed off to college. I think kids today would be better off with that set up.
9. I would pick going to a Morgan Wallen concert over a Taylor Swift concert any day.
10. I can't wait to get my kid's school pictures for the year. Some years they're the best and some years they are just so so. But I love documenting them with a school picture every year.
11. I do not understand the current math curriculums being taught in elementary school. Let me explain. The steps and logic are so drawn out. A simple problem that would take me seconds to solve is broken down into many parts and takes up a whole page to figure out. There is less emphasis on memorizing facts and more emphasis on learning tricks and steps. I really need to do some research on this curriculum and the data behind it because it doesn't make sense to me. We arrive at the same answer, it's just that I do it in a fraction of the time that the new math teaches. Maybe I'm old or maybe the old way was better. I need to do some digging on this subject.
12. The pumpkin spice Frosty at Wendy's looks disgusting. A Frosty should be chocolate. End of story.
13. I suggested to Kevin that he should hide his ear buds because of Leo. He didn't think that was necessary. Ask him how he likes using one ear bud now instead of two right now!? Haha. I'm currently on the hunt for ear bud #2 and Leo is no help.
14. Super wide leg denim doesn't look great on anyone. I'm not talk about flares or bell bottom type pants. I'm talking about the jeans where you could fit your whole body into one leg. Don't get me started on the horseshoe jean trend. They're awful!
Did we agree or disagree!? Let's chat in the comments!
Love this! It is so nice to read a post with opinions that are not picked and based on links. I am team no Christmas prior to Thanksgiving.
ReplyDeleteI am 100% with you on math. My son's teacher actually told me NOT to have him memorize his math facts. 3 years later, we're struggling. Teach them the math facts. :)
ReplyDeleteIf you follow Officer Gomez on social media, you'll never want to give your child a phone. :)
Our oldest child wears hearing aids. Try looking for a "lost" hearing aid, when there's a "Leo" in the family. :)
Great post!
I agree on math! I asked my daughter’s teacher at her 3rd grade conference if they ever just work on learning the multiplication facts because the process is so drawn out. I was an elementary education major and in college one of my professors had us mostly work with the Singapore math curriculum. The number one math country in the world almost every year. I learned SO much about mental math from their 3rd and 4th grade curriculum that I was never taught. Anyways it baffles me that schools do not just use that curriculum because it is amazing and obviously gets much better results.
ReplyDeleteI had to look up what horseshoe jeans are and wow that is bad!
We also are a holdout on cell phones. My oldest is in 6th grade which is second year in middle school. He kind of asks periodically but knows the answer will be no. I always hear the wait to 8th grade thing but would like to wait even longer if possible. I went to pick him up early one day and all these kids were sitting in the office (maybe waiting for parents?) just looking at their phones. It is such a sad society we are creating for our children.
Interested in your Math discovery as well… Five steps required to do a quick math problem for my second grader… Doesn’t make sense to me!
ReplyDeleteWhat a fun post!
ReplyDelete1. We are usually the day or weekend after Thanksgiving for decorating, nothing before!! We also are Catholic and focus a lot on Advent (although we totally also do the tree, lights, and other decor beforehand as part of our prep and "waiting" for Jesus!).
8. Definitely no phones here for a looooong time! Hoping to wait til they graduate high school....they are just SO addictive, even for adults!! I think we are only beginning to see the effects on youth from phones, including depression and anxiety, let alone the lack of social skills.
13. Our 3yo loves earbuds, too. And pretty much anything else he shouldn't have! Such an exploring, mischievous age!!!
Oh, and I agree about Math! We homeschool and I love our curriculum but I'm beginning to see more drawn-out math as well. Interested in your research!!
ReplyDeleteI use to wait to decorate for Christmas after Thanksgiving but one year I decorated early because I was hosting a Sip and Shop at my house and it sealed the deal for me! I loved enjoying the decorations for a few extra weeks!!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great post! I consider myself to be "old school" on many things, and I agreed with lots of these. My kids learned math both ways due to our move during elementary school. The new math just doesn't make sense to me, and I don't know how you can solve problems without having some things memorized. I agree on many of the gift guides, where it seems like the person just googled "tween gift" to put something together. I plan to do a general for him and for her guide, but focus on things we have or on my wish list. I always decorated for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving, but might put it up before the kids come home this year. I'm on the fence. I also agree about all the things being promoted online...like all of a sudden everyone has better hair because they use Nutrafol. It's so obvious when the promotions roll out. And that makes me so sad to think of elementary kids with phones. Wait as long as you can.
ReplyDeleteI have so much to say! HA! I decorate a couple weeks before Thanksgiving- I do this because my birthday is December 3 and it's my gift to myself to have everything decorated before my birthday :) I am SOOOO over gift guides. I thought I was the only one! The products! Please don't get me started. I totally get supporting an item that you use and love- but wow. its like the same 10 products being used by EVERYONE. And they all say all of these products are LIFE CHANGING. HA! None of my kids have phones, including my almost 15 year old daughter. She is alive and well- and is very happy and has friends :) It truly makes me SO sad to see almost every kid have their head down, hunched over looking at their phones! I am not a huge fan of Morgan Wallen or Taylor Swift- but I would pick Morgan Wallen if someone made me :) 100% agree on the wide leg denim trend. I am not even going to try and wear them. My legs do not need anymore width added to them! HA!
ReplyDeleteLove hearing all your opinions!
ReplyDeleteGift Guides - I'm always curious how people can afford to buy all the things in the mainstream gift guides! That TV that you can roll from room to room alone is several times more than my entire gift budget.
Christmas in November - I just need more than 4 weeks to celebrate Christmas, so I always decorate early in November. I have LOTS of Christmas decor, so it's worth the effort when I can leave it out for a good while. But I still try to soak up the fall color, the pumpkin treats (but not pumpkin frostys - I'm with you on that for sure!), and all the fall goodness while still enjoying the glow of my Christmas tree. :)
Concerts - I've been over Taylor Swift since 2013.
Products - the one that cracks me up is the something Harvest. I can't remember the whole name, but the commercial says "my Harvest order arrived, and my fridge is full!" Don't they know that's what grocery stores are for? Ha!
Enjoy your turkeys and pumpkins! <3
This was fun!! Love your opinions haha! You are so smart to wait as long as you can on cell phones. I promise you will never regret that! My kids didn’t get phones until their junior years of high school and now a few years past that even they will tell you that was the right decision! I won thousand percent agree on the wide leg jeans! I have no idea what the horseshoe jeans are but I will have to look that up. So, I am team early Christmas decorating but that is just because it takes me so stinking long to decorate that if I started after Thanksgiving it wouldn’t be done until two weeks before Christmas! 🤪Jon got the pumpkin Frosty from Wendy’s and it literally tasted like a candle! 😳
ReplyDeleteWe decorate on Black Friday since I am anti-shopping on that day. Growing up, we would decorate after my sister's birthday in mid December.
ReplyDeleteI use Nutrafol (my body reacts to stress by losing hair, fun). I think it does work.
Don't even get me started on the pant selection of college and graduate students. I truly cannot when I see them.