It looks like it has stopped raining finally, but the sky is still gray and the ground soggy. That makes two rainy Christmases in a row (et tu, global warming?). It is also absurdly warm – gonna be 75 degreees today. Am I in Australia or North Carolina?
We’ve watched few Christmas movies so far. I can’t believe I haven’t watched Christmas Vacation yet.
The lights on the outside bushes look good except for the strand on the last one because that’s when I discovered the plug for the last strand of lights didn’t fit the plug that came before. It fits the first strand, though. I thought about trying to reengineer them all but it feels too late now, so we will go with the two rows of lights on the bush. Oh well.
Daniel broke one of the lights in the window when he was waving to me when I went to the grocery store the other day. No worries – it isn’t like the front windows can be seen because of the large bushes in front of them. I alone will notice the asymmetry of two windows and one light .
I baked a lot of holiday goodies yesterday. My knees hurt. But it was a good thing to do because the one staple I didn’t check before heading to the store was our brown sugar supply. We now have 10 pounds of it
I mailed photo cards on Monday and Tuesday. They were hastily designed and printed on glossy photo paper at Walgreens. No matte cards from Tiny Print, Shutterfly, Zazzle etcetera. I’ve been meaning to book a family portrait for a long time, but it did not happen this year. That is why our glossy card features photos of only Daniel. That and the fact we took no decent pics with us in them. There was one possibility but it made my double chins front and center.
I didn’t go to my 20th high school reunion because see sentence above about double chins.
I had to ask my mom to help me figure out how to hang garland on our stairs and she made me 4 beautiful bows in 15 minutes.
I fail at the decorative parts of Christmas. My windows are not decorated; we don’t have a wreath (still in a garbage bag in the garage). Our elf lives with us year round.
I did buy pink poinsettias for the front porch because it is a billion degrees this year.
Maybe I don’t have it together decoratively but that’s OK.
I have a 9-ft tree whose lights seem to work this year (knocks on wood). I got out the ladder to decorate it despite my fear of heights. It is beautiful.
There are sugar cookies “expertly” decorated by an eager 6-year-old for Santa.
We’re making reindeer food today.
There are gifts under the tree and surprises hidden everywhere.
We have a Lego Christmas book to read tonight.
We get to play Santa.
And I still have 10 pounds of brown sugar
Family Building With a Twist 
Brian really wants Christmas to be magical for the kids, which falls 98% on me. I despise it every year. Did you notice I quit our advent project mid-way? I just got tired of it and it was only magical a few times out of 12. Because I start out the season all gung ho and post it on my blog and FB (because I put everything on FB so I can NOT do scrapbooks and just print mysocialbooks each year = WINNING), I look like the pinterest mom. And when it comes to birthday parties, big dinners, and cakes I am a pinterest mom, but holidays I SO am not. I force us through cookies, the gingerbread house, and decorating the tree and get so frustrated that I even put myself through it. I like the things I can do alone in prep for the holidays… Breakable decorations, big dinner planning, coming with Brian, outside lights, wrapping presents with Brian, playing Santa, and my cake. The pinterest shit with the kids? Uh uh. I do not like it. (The only time I raised my voice yesterday was when the boys returned from their movie and wanted to help with MY cake. I even said that – it’s MY cake!)
Your Christmas sounds lovely!!!
COOKING with Brian.. COOKING! HA HA HA!
Teeheehee!
We have 3 ornaments on our 4 foot tall prelighted tree that we bought at the hardware store after we realized we weren’t organized enough to borrow a friend’s truck to get a real tree. They were randomly around the house, not chosen on purpose from the cache or anything. And we bought a light up pink flamingo to go next to it (that will stay out year round, maybe on the porch sometimes). Decorating? Nope, I don’t. Not really. Maybe some day? We had a lovely time with the Leg.o calendar and that rascally elf moved more than half the days so it’s enough. I think the picturesque snapshots are totally unrealistic and not worth attempting to achieve. I’m in the “have fun when it’s time to have fun together” camp and forget fancy “memorable” things.