Happy Holidays from Inside Voice! This episode is a collection of short festive stories that are sure to warm the cockles of your heart. So, fire up that virtual yule log, spike the eggnog - sit back, relax and enjoy the show! Shannon Day "Exile The Elf In 8 Simple Steps" Shelly Mazzanoble "The Fright Before Christmas" Elise Seyfried "Black Friday Shoppers!" Lauren Ziemski "Olympic Manor" Alexandra Rosas "Quick Fixes To Keep Your Post-Holiday Home Guest Ready" Kristine Laco "The Best Worst Christmas Ever" Sarah Guthrie "The Flagpole Christmas Tree" Jill Robins "Wreck The Halls" Karen Anderson "Disaster Planning Guide For The Holidays" Kelly McKenzie "Gingerbread Basics And Snow Globe Creations 101" Hannah Mayer "The Santa Tradition" Jennifer Scharf "An Open Letter To The Elf On The Fucking Shelf"

Sandy Rhyneer, Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and the Hawaiian Islands reads her emotionally powerful essay about the day she gave birth to her only son. Sandy Rhyneer is a Cuban-born, Miami-raised, NYC-transplant mixing it up in Seattle. Sandy does not fancy herself a writer, although she’s spent the majority of her career writing and editing. She has a BA in psychology, which she put to good use at high-profile PR sweatshops, before devoting more than a dozen years to furthering non-profit missions; first, at the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and now at the regional Planned Parenthood where she is VP of Marketing & Communications. After her son was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome, she became an outspoken advocate for people with the condition, especially on the topic of inclusion. Sandy serves on the marketing committee for the LuMind Research Down Syndrome Foundation. She chronicles her journey as Lucas’ mom on MundoBean. You can find her on Facebook and Instagram. Links Mentioned In This Episode: MundoBean | Blog Planned Parenthood Action Fund Casa Latina Gender Justice League ACLU YWCA New episodes every Thursday! Don't forget to subscribe to Inside Voice on iTunes. You can also follow Inside Voice on Twitter and Facebook.

Katie Anthony reads her powerful and heartfelt essay 'You're Gonna Need A Bigger Boat' - a survival hymn for all the exhausted new moms treading water. Katie Anthony lives in Seattle with her husband and two sons, ages 3 and 1. She is the only person in her house who cannot tell the difference between a backhoe loader and and excavator. Please do not try to explain it to her. Katie blogs at KatyKatiKate and tweets at @yokatykatikate. Links Mentioned In This Episode: KatyKatiKate | Blog You're Gonna Need A Bigger Boat Manhood For Amateurs | Michael Chabon Inner Fucking Peace | YouTube New episodes every Thursday! Don't forget to subscribe to Inside Voice on iTunes. You can also follow Inside Voice on Twitter and Facebook.

MomCaveTV founder Jennifer Weedon Palazzo takes us on her journey to motherhood with her heartfelt piece 'Back to Work.' Jennifer Weedon Palazzo is the creator of MomCaveTV.com, an online network of comedy shows for moms including Slummy Mummy, Slacker Mom, Double Leche, Blabbermom, and MomCave LIVE. When she’s not writing about the funny side of being a mom for sites like Scary Mommy and Mamalode, Jennifer can be found eating Reese’s Cups while furiously bidding on vintage clothing on eBay. She splits her time between Manhattan and the Berkshires with her husband, Evan, bandleader of The Hot Sardines and their two kids. Follow her on Twitter @MomCaveTV and visit https://www.youtube.com/MomCave. Links Mentioned In This Episode: MomCaveTV | Blog MomCaveTV | YouTube MomCaveTV | FB MomCaveTV | Twitter Back To Work | Mamalode New episodes every Thursday! Don't forget to subscribe to Inside Voice on iTunes. You can also follow Inside Voice on Twitter and Facebook.

LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER founder Ann Imig reads her poignant and humor-filled post '8 Years Of Blogging, 8 Tentacles Still Spinning.' Ann Imig is the founder of the live-reading series and video sharing company LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER and editor of the acclaimed anthology LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER: What She Said Then, What We’re Saying Now (Putnam Books, 2015). A Stay-At-Home Humorist, Ann’s writing has been featured on sites like CollegeHumor, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Huffington Post and The Washington Post. National TV appearances include ABCnews.com, NBC Nightly News and the webseries Battleground and The Louise Log. Ann’s blog (annsrants.com) has been named a Babble Top 100 Mom Blog, A BlogHer Voice of the Year, and a SheKnows Top 5 Funniest Mom Blog. Ann lives with her husband and children in Madison, Wisconsin. Links Mentioned In This Episode: Ann Imig | Blog Ann Imig | FB LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER | Blog LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER | FB LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER: What She Said Then, What We're Saying Now 8 Years Of Blogging, 8 Tentacles Still Spinning New episodes every Thursday! Don't forget to subscribe to Inside Voice on iTunes. You can also follow Inside Voice on Twitter and Facebook.

BLUNTmoms Editor in Chief Magnolia Ripkin reads her hilariously snarky take on '9 Essential Items For The Over 45 Set.' Magnolia Ripkin is sort of like your mouthy Aunt who drinks too much and tells you how to run your life, except funny… well mostly funny… like a cold glass of water in the face. She writes a flagrantly offensive blog at Magnolia Ripkin Advice Blog answering pressing questions about business, personal development, parenting, heck even the bedroom isn’t safe. She is the Editor in Chief at BluntMoms. Other places to find her: Huffington Post,  The Mighty and Modern Loss. You can also check her out in two amazing compendiums of bloggers who are published in “I Just Want To Be Alone.”  And most recently, Martinis and Motherhood, Tales of Wonder, Woe and WTF. Links Mentioned In This Episode: Magnolia Ripkin | Blog Magnolia Ripkin | FB Twitter 9 Essential Items For The Over 45 Set New episodes every Thursday! Don't forget to subscribe to Inside Voice on iTunes. You can also follow Inside Voice on Twitter and Facebook.

Molly England from Bluebonnet Babies reads her compelling story Best Kept Secret detailing the search for and eventual meeting of her biological father. Molly England earned her master’s degree in social work at The University of Edinburgh. She currently lives in Texas with her husband and their three children. She is a devoted blogger, freelance writer and a passionate Certified Bradley Method® Natural Childbirth Educator. Molly contributes to On Parenting - The Washington Post, Pregnancy & Newborn Magazine, Well Rounded NY, Mamalode and more. Links Mentioned In This Episode: Bluebonnet Babies Bluebonnet Babies | FB Molly's Journey Best Kept Secret New episodes every Thursday! Don't forget to subscribe to Inside Voice on iTunes. You can also follow Inside Voice on Twitter and Facebook.

Karen Alpert from Baby Sideburns reads an excerpt from her hilarious book I Want My Epidural Back: Adventures in Mediocre Parenting. Are your kids having sleepovers? This one's for you... Hi, I’m Karen Alpert, aka Baby Sideburns. I’m a mom who likes to wear fat pants and drink Hershey’s syrup straight from the bottle while I cook dinner every night. And by cook dinner, I mean nuke chicken nuggets in the microwave. Thanks for checking out my page! You might notice that I swear on here a little. If that bothers you, I’m sorry. If it makes you feel any better I never do it in front of my kiddos (unless they drop a bowling ball on my head or something), and really I just do it in my writing because what I write is what goes through my head. Here are some other things I do besides curse in my head: Use fake words like vajayjay and anyways Write sponsored posts so I can buy chicken nuggets and Hershey’s syrup Raise two kiddos named Zoey and Holden (who were 5 and 2.5 when this page was created but who might be 97 and 94.5 now since this page will probably never be updated) Write books (cough cough New York Times bestseller) Have lots of fun on my awesome Facebook page Help other moms and dads by admitting that parenting is like crazy hard for everyone Links Mentioned In This Episode: Baby Sideburns | Blog Baby Sideburns | FB New episodes every Thursday! Don't forget to subscribe to Inside Voice on iTunes. You can also follow Inside Voice on Twitter and Facebook.

Shelly Mazzanoble reads her hilarious post '6 Reasons My Vagina Is Happy I Had A C-Section' - tell us about your vagina birth story! A million years ago, Shelly Mazzanoble had a short story published in a literary magazine calledWhetstone. She was paid $50 which she spent on a keg of beer and threw a great, big party. Motivated by her strong desire to curate menus for cocktail parties and her friends’ penchant for drinking free beer, Shelly has gone on to publish short stories and essays in Carve, The Seattle Times,Scary Mommy, In the Powder Room, Pregnant Chicken, Blunt Moms, and has been syndicated on popular websites such as TODAY Parents and BlogHer, where she has been named a featured writer. She writes a regular column called Mom in the Middle for the Seattle-based parenting network, PEPs (Program for Early Parent Support) where she seeks to scare daunt forewarn enlighten new parents about the  terrors joys of parenthood and has recently realized her biggest dream come true– writing a column about The Bachelor. That’s right. The Bachelor. Her regular series for the lovelies over at In the Powder Room, Mother Rose Best, mines one of TV’s greatest treasures for the most practical and life-changing parenting advice ever. Yes, ever. Don’t miss it! Not wanting to completely waste the theater degree procured from lovely Ithaca College, she removed all the narrative from that first published short story and turned it into a one-act play.Blue Malls, starring Shelly herself, was produced in Seattle’s Mae West Fest XIII. Due to the anxiety dreams still plaguing her, she did not star, support or even understudy in her play, The Chicken & the Egg (also originally a short-story), which was produced in Mae West Fest IV and later Manhattan Theatre Source’s Estrogenius Festival. In 2006, Shelly was introduced to the roleplaying game, Dungeons & Dragons, while working for Wizards of the Coast. She’s still bitter that no one introduced her to this game earlier as her imaginary friends and innate desire to lietell stories would have been put to good use. Her book,Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress: A Girls Guide to the Dungeons and Dragons Game published by Wizards of the Coast, was nominated for an Origins Award and won an ENnies Award— the annual fan-based celebration of excellence in tabletop roleplaying gaming. Confessions has been translated into Japanese with the far superior title of, On Mondays I’m a Wizard (even though her game was on Wednesdays) and has been required reading in college classes focusing on game design and theory. Her second book, Everything I Need to Know I Learned From Dungeons & Dragons: One Woman’s Quest to Trade Self-Help for Elf-Help was nominated for an Origins Award and has the distinct honor of being read by at least six of her non-D&D playing friends. Shelly is the co-host ofDragon Talk, the official Dungeons & Dragons podcast where she frequently practices her impression of Bert from Sesame Street. (“Ernie! My pige-unnns!”) Uncanny, right? When not slandering the reputations of newborns and eschewing the very notion that having “just one baby” is indeed easy (WTH, Mom?!) she enjoys eating raw cookie dough, pretty much anything airing on Bravo, pretending to be asleep so her husband is the one who gets up to fix her son breakfast, going down a Pinterest rabbit hole, painting things gray, ankle booties, coming home and taking off her bra, quoting Mommie Dearest, the idea of a garden, and being the oldest mom at daycare, and writing books with very long titles. In fact, she is at work on another book with a very long title. Sadly it does not include a dungeon or a dragon but it does include a toddler and several euphemisms for “lady parts.” (TMI? Just wait.) She lives in Seattle with an alpha cat named Zelda, a smelly dog named Puppy, a very patient man who either doesn’t read her blog or just has a really good sense of humor, and a genius* toddler who loves big butts and he can not lie, pretending to fall down, poop, and providing his proud mother with endless fodder. At least until he gets a lawyer. She should probably be properly fitted for a bra. Shelly encourages you to check out her blog, especially the older entries because she had a lot more time to think and edit back then. If you like reality TV, Shelly wants to be your friend. Links Mentioned In This Episode: Shelly Mazzanoble | Blog Shelly Mazzanoble | FB 6 Reasons My Vagina Is Happy I Had A C-Section Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress: A Girls Guide to the Dungeons and Dragons Game LTYM Seattle | Video New episodes every Thursday! Don't forget to subscribe to Inside Voice on iTunes. You can also follow Inside Voice on Twitter and Facebook.

Lynn Morrison reads her controversial post I Gave Up A 6 Figure Salary For My Husband (And That Is Worth Some Money) - do you think you deserve a wife bonus? Lynn Morrison is a smart-ass American raising two prim princesses with her obnoxiously skinny Italian husband in Oxford, England. Born and raised in the Deep American South, Lynn avoided becoming mired in the Mississippi mud by escaping to go to college in California. Had she known that the move would eventually lead to marriage to a nerdy Italian, she might have chosen a mud mask instead. As the Nomad Mom, Lynn exposes the truth about what it’s like to be married to an uber-brainiac and the mother to multilingual children. The truth is, her days are pretty much like everyone else’s, just with more pronunciations of the word “water.” After a long day of struggling to remember to say “chap” instead of “y’all” or “dude,” Lynn likes nothing better than to curl up with her Macbook and a glass of wine and write thought-provoking essays on why sweatpants are the new black or why it is impossible to suck it in for eight hours. If you’ve ever hidden pizza boxes at the bottom of the trash or worn maternity pants when not pregnant, chances are you’ll like the Nomad Mom Diary. You can also find Lynn over on BLUNTmoms and on the Huffington Post. Links Mentioned In This Episode: I Gave Up A 6 Figure Salary For My Husband (And That Is Worth Some Money) Lynn Morrison | FB Lynn Morrison | BLUNTmoms BLUNTmoms Syndication Group New episodes every Thursday! Don't forget to subscribe to Inside Voice on iTunes. You can also follow Inside Voice on Twitter and Facebook.