The Season

Crunch time!  Christmas is just a week and a few days away!  And I'm not too far behind...okay, so maybe I am.  I have only baked one batch of cookies, and those are slowly being eaten so I will most likely have to make more for my gift tins.  Not to mention the other kinds of cookies that I need to make, as well as fudge.  I did mail off our parcel of presents for family, but I have a few straggling cards that were waiting for addresses that I am just preparing today.  So I hope they still make it!

And yet, when I think of it, I don't really think that we are huge "celebrators" of this season.  We have no family down here, really just our one family of friends that we have dinner with.  Though this year we are more involved with a local church body so we have a Christmas Eve service to not just attend but participate in.  And Mark has a work Christmas party now too.  And after Christmas there is a party I'm sort of helping get together, though not at my house.  Hmmm, maybe I am a celebrator.

I have grand visions of what our Christmasses will look like, but they aren't there yet.  I suppose it takes time to organize our thoughts and ideas and implement them.  At least for me it does.  I didn't even do a tree this year!  Well, that's not so different since I haven't done a tree since we've been married.  At first my hubby and I went through a stage where we were against having trees, but now we don't care.  I just didn't want to be constantly fighting with Leigh about it, trying to keep her away.  I hung garlands across the living room wall.  It looks alright, just not great.  I wish it looked great.

Buying gifts was also a stress for me.  I love giving people gifts, especially if it has special meaning or thought behind it.  It doesn't have to be expensive, I'm fine with inexpensive finds (unlike my hubby who is slow to start, but once he's started he is SPENDING).  But I have a hard time actually deciding what to get for others.  Some are easy, like my sister-in-laws, I found things right away for them, but all the men I had to buy for, I couldn't decide, so I just gave them money.  And the annoying thing about money is that I had to give more than I likely would have spent.  But it's done for this year, so I have until next year to figure it out again.

I would actually like to maybe make our gifts for others.  A couple years ago I did scrapbooks of our oldest daughter's first year for all the grandparents and those were a hit.  I would like to do something like that again.

Picture Perfect Family (Or A Close Approximation of One)

My parents (Mom and Step-Dad) were here visiting this past week, so I haven't been online much at all.  It seems like I have two extremes, on all the time, or not on at all.  Maybe I'll find a happy, moderate medium someday.  They left just this morning, so the girls have been a little puzzled; they can't figure out why Grandma and Grandpa aren't around.  They keep calling for them, and Abby keeps going "Where's Gramma?"  It's cute, though a little sad too.

All of my husband and my's family live up North where we had originally lived as well.  So I was hoping that I would have all my Christmas cards and gifts ready to sent up with them so I wouldn't have to send them all by mail.  And I would have had my cards ready, except I forgot to print out some family pictures to put into them.  So now everything is going to be sent up by parcel.  I can only hope and pray they make it there safely.

My best girlfriend is actually a photographer, so we had her take some family pictures of us in a cherry orchard this fall.  It is a beautiful backdrop to some beautiful people (yes I think that my family, not necessarily myself included, is beautiful).  But my girls didn't want to stand or sit still for any pictures, so we don't have many pictures with them smiling.  Actually, I think it would be acurate to say that we don't have any at all.  There are some where their expressions are just neutral, so those are the ones that are getting sent out. 

I am sure that our families will appreciate the pictures and not grumble about the lack of big, super-cute smiles.  But I sure feel like grumbling about it.  Why can't we get just one picture with the kids smiling?  They are happy kids, and they look so darn cute when they smile.  But I think that everyone has this issue, or at least I hope they do.  If it's just me I may have to hide in my closet and cry.