6 days till Christmas

I thought I was so prepared this year. My shopping was done early, the house was decorated in plenty of time, but I am feeling such a holiday time crunch. I feel so incredibly busy, but I know that there are people out there so much more busy than me, how do they do it?

Let's see, today I worked on a Christmas present I'm making (okay, so there's one thing that I put off till late), I got ready for a presidency meeting, went to the presidency meeting, picked Tyler up from school, took him straight to WalMart to buy a birthday present, took him to the birthday party, worked on my homemade present again, picked him up, came home, wrapped a sheet of stickers 30 times for hot potato at the preschool party on Friday, gathered materials for the party, (yes, I'm the room mom, another thing that definitely crept up on me this time of year), made dinner, cleaned it up, read with Tyler, watched Frosty the Snowman on TV with Tyler, put him to bed, worked again on my present, and now I'm doing this. Okay, that so did not help; I just feel more busy now after rereading that.

I think the biggest problem is that I forgot to take into account all the little things that are inevitable this time of year. Example: Last Friday Dan decides that he DOES need to go to his work party, and on Saturday, an hour before it's time to leave, he decides that I too DO need to come. Did I mention it was black tie? Here we are:
Luckily, I had a dress from about 6 years ago, when Dan had some other work function that was black tie, and luckily it still fit!

My goal was to not let the stress get to me, and I think that is still possible. I still have 6 days till Christmas, and not too much to do. At least I think. We'll see what creeps up.

Pirates

We had Tyler's friend party last Saturday. I thought that having it earlier in the month would make it a little easier to get people there. We invited 4 little boys, and three came--pretty good. Here they are:
I think they all had fun. Tyler for sure did, and loved getting presents. We made a spyglass, played pirate games, had pizza for lunch, did the pinata, and had cupcakes for our treat.

And totally unrelated, but look at what I found in my yard this morning. We have three trees in our front yard, and around two of them were three of the weirdest looking things I have ever seen. Have you ever seen this? Do you know what this is?

Gift giving

One definition of a good gift giver is someone who is thoughtful; one who thinks of the receiver and chooses something with that person in mind. If that is true, then Tyler is an exceptional gift giver. For example, last Mother's Day, Dan asked Tyler what he wanted to get me. "Lightbulbs" was his answer. Now, you might be thinking that is a lame gift, but just that day I had mentioned that I needed new light bulbs.

Well yesterday, I was asking Tyler what he wanted to get his Dad for Christmas. "Well, since Dad likes taking baths, how about a rubber duckie?" See? So thoughtful and chosen carefully with the receiver in mind. And yes, we did find a rubber duckie that is just waiting to be wrapped and placed under the tree.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Wow, what a crazy holiday season we have had already. Our Thanksgiving was wonderful! We had 21 people eating dinner at our house, and the food was absolutely delicious. I love the food on Thanksgiving--turkey, potatoes, stuffing, sweet potatoes, veggies, all of it. I sometimes think it would be awesome to have Thanksgiving dinner more often, but then of course it wouldn't be as special. Of those 21 people eating dinner with us, 15 of us slept here at our house. We were pretty crowded, but it was fun. Tyler loves playing with his cousins, and we love visiting with Dan's family; we always stay up too late playing games and visiting, and we did again.

Sunday morning, Tyler had a pretty nasty cold (which we even eventually went to the Dr. for, but yes just a bad cold, no infection) so he stayed home from church. When I came home, our company had just left, so Dan had pulled out all the Christmas stuff from the attic. We were both so excited to decorate this year. I think it might be because Tyler is really getting into it with us. Well finally yesterday, I put the last of the things away and got my house clean from all our company. I love it. The only thing left is the outside lights. We are finally going to do them. I have never had lights on my house at Christmas, not as a child, not with Dan. And I want them. I started this afternoon, but only got as far as what I could do with the ladder; I didn't want to climb out onto the roof without Dan here, and he is working today. He promised me we will get them up next week.


So, here are my pics of our decor. I obviously need some work when taking pictures without a flash, but you should get the idea. I want to point out Mom, under our tree in the family room (which used to be Grandma's and I kept thinking of her when I was stringing the lights on it) we have wrapped books. We are going to open a book each night starting tonight for a little countdown to Christmas. You see, my mom has given us a Christmas story book on Christmas Eve for years now. I think I was able to go from the 9th to the 24th, with some supplementing to fill in the 1st-8th. That would make 15 years? worth of books. What a neat tradition, and we are excited to use them this way.

Merry Christmas Everyone!