And yet there was more Christmas!

Is 25 days too many for Christmas? I would submit to you that most of the time, no. But right this very second, yes. Yes it is. Yet we persevere.

17. I could not remember this far back, but thankfully my camera remembered for me (and now I shared the biggest reason for taking pictures. To supplement my spectacularly terrible short term memory). We made ornaments for grandparents and teacher gifts. I got the ornament idea from Heather, but she had a kit from Hobby Lobby. I got some silvery ornaments from Michaels and used already-owned finger paints and sharpie to decorate. I love them. We also filled a mason jar with hot chocolate packets and Christmas candies and a Starbucks gift card for Spencer’s teacher. Henry’s daycare lady will get a Chili’s gift card because I know it’s a place she goes, and one of the ornaments.

18: Night at Bethlehem. Every year my neighbors’ church does this giant ‘do where there is a bazaar a la old time Bethlehem and a reenactment of the birth of Jesus, and I think it’s Spencer’s favorite. Last year we went and partway through the No Room at the Inn song, he stood up and yelled hey! I’ve read this book! Good times. We were on a short schedule this year because I had an early flight but we still got some goodness in before heading home. The kids got their candle, dreidels and chocolate chip cookies so they were set.

19: Watch a Christmas movie! This was our last official “watch a Christmas movie” and we watched Christmas With the Kranks. In retrospect, probably a little too old for them but they stuck it out until about 15 minutes until the end when they had enough.

20: Make a gingerbread house! Spencer had been awaiting this very day for 20 days, and he was not disappointed. He had a great time. Daddy took over the making and decorating, so Mommy wasn’t overly annoyed too. Good times.

21. Baking! The last of the baking. At the time, I didn’t know it was going to be the last of the baking because technically I have more to make but that stuff’s going in the freezer until some random time I decide I feel like making Oreo truffles. Right now is not that time. I did make chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal chocolate chip, forgotten kisses, gingerbread cookies (although I used Trader Joe’s dark gingerbread mix for this and I have to say, A+), and toffee! My toffee came through this time! With only one major finger burn! Paired with the previously made peppermint fudge and chocolate dipped marshmallows, I am done, man. I wanted to make Oreo truffles (regular and mint) and sugared nuts, and I have all the makings for all of those but dude. I’m tired.

(Henry enjoyed learning why baking day is such a good advent day for him)

22. WE FORGOT TO DO IT. Ha! Honestly, it was a Monday so I can already tell you it’s “read a Christmas book,” which we can easily fit in tonight if we want. This morning Spencer was again reading the 12 days of Christmas as loud as he could, so maybe that ship has sailed.

Tonight we have “make place cards for Christmas breakfast” which will be very easy. I have pretty cardboard-style gift tags, and we are going to write names on the back and tie them to napkin rings. You might do things fancier at your house, but I think this matches our stamina level. Christmas Eve is always “drive around in PJs with hot chocolate looking at Christmas lights until the little ones fall asleep.” It might say exactly that on the placard.

I have some wrapping to finish but otherwise I think we are in good shape to sail into the holiday with minimal exhaustion. After going through what we could eat on Christmas Eve, I’ve decided we are going out for dinner (Thai? Probably?) which means I can set my breakfast table midday instead of the middle of the night. I’m also making most of Christmas breakfast on Christmas Eve, so in the morning I can just stuff everything in the oven for warming. I’ve gotten over my anxiety about the children being disappointed about Christmas at this point. I know they’ll like things. I know they’ll be disappointed there are no handheld video games under the tree, but I do hope they get over it. S asked for a non-tech item Sunday morning and it was bought by Santa by noon. We are done. Done. I’m done.

Merry Christmas!

Conversations with Henry and other stories.

“God can see all things.

God is a pyramid.

But he doesn’t have a mouth. Only people and dogs have mouths.

And cats. Cats have mouths.

Cami eats really fast.”

(Cami is my MIL’s cat)

(I’m assuming the rest of this is related to the pyramid with the eye on it on the dollar bill.)

This kid, man. I don't even know where he comes up with what he wants to talk about, and he certainly doesn't need a sounding board to get it out. 

Also, I told my husband about this conversation, and his response was "I've seen Cami eat. She does eat really fast."

There was very little sleep last night from me, because of this child, but the folks at Jimmy Dean knew that and their machines made me a breakfast sandwich with extra carbs.

We've been bbarrelingthrough our advent activities, with even very little push back.

12: ICE at the Gaylord Palms - this was very interesting and seriously cold, but a pretty small exhibit for the money. I'm glad we did it, but I'm not sure we would do it again. (also, I'm the sucker who paid for the photo. Hey, I'm not going back, right? YOLO and all that)

13: We spent the day at Epcot snacking around the world with Tara and Jen and visiting with internet children. It was great fun. I wanted to see Elsa turn Cinderella's castle to ice once before the holiday was over, so we headed to MK for the evening. It was a lovely fun day.

14. Making holiday treats: I still haven't tried toffee again yet after last week's poor showing, but I made peppermint fudge, chocolate-dipped marshmallows, cheerio and m&m treats (think rice krispies with more gluten). The boys did not help, and I was okay with that. Not on the advent that we did also: my cousin graduated so we trekked to my uncle's house for a party and then my mom came over to babysit and we went out for an arty movie (yawn) and sushi and wine/scotch. It was a delightful weekend, and I needed a nap afterward.

15. Read a Christmas book! (I love Mondays). I had a terrible anxiety attack related to money and paying bills for my mom and being over all "maybe I should make sure I'm a little more on track with my meds". Christmas book, I love you for being so low maintenance. Spencer read to me this time, and I counted it on his reading log. Win all around.

16. The lights at the Botanical Gardens: Every year I look for something to do that isn't on our regular course of things we would normally do. This year I found that the Florida Botanical Gardens do up a lot of lights and for a small donation, you too can walk around and enjoy it! So we did. It was very nice (and I take terrible nighttime photos, but pretty!

We keep truckin’ through the holiday season

This week was the “easiest” of the Advent activity weeks. I sat here trying to remember what we did for on Saturday and just could not remember for a solid five minutes. It turns out the activity I had planned was not available (I thought a festival was going on, but I missed it by a day) so we made peppermint fudge and wrote letters to Santa (Henry did, with my help, but Spencer refused … I’m not sure what to do with that) and went to an ugly sweater party (in cheesy Christmas t-shirts). Sunday was making Christmas candy day, but after my toffee exploded on my kitchen I was pretty much done with that.

Monday – read a Christmas book (Spencer read Charlie Brown’s Christmas and Twas the Night Before Christmas to his brother and I melted a little)

Tuesday – have gingerbread pancakes for dinner (admit it, I’m a genius. Paired with goat cheese scrambled eggs, bacon and French 75s)

Wednesday – have a Christmas treat – this worked out perfectly because Influenster sent a bag of candy cane Hershey kisses that came in the mail Wednesday.They were well received.

Thursday – watch a Christmas movie. We watched The Santa Clause, which takes me directly to my brother’s childhood because he was so obsessed with that movie that we watched it several times a week for years, sometimes several times in the same day.

So tonight/tomorrow is a big one. We try to do one special thing a season. Usually, we go to Rockapella but this year we decided against it because the kids fell asleep last year and I’m not super happy that they moved it from Tampa Theatre (even though the new location is also gorgeous). But we’ve decided to take the kids instead to ICE at the Gaylord Palms. I’m excited; I’ve never been. We’ve got a hotel in town for the night, and tomorrow we’ll see the Christmas lights and the carolers at Disney/Epcot, and meet up with Tara and Jen and all the internet children. This weekend is going to rock.

In other, not Christmas news … nope, I don’t have any non-Christmas news, I don’t think. We are consumed. My cousin is graduating college and we’ve got his grad party on Sunday, and also I’m a walking Target advert today and I’ve not been so comfortable at work in maybe my life. Although slightly weirded out because I do not leave the house in non-pants. These are definitely non-pants.

Gifting

In the past, we’ve never gone overboard for Christmas. Part of it is that the rest of the family way over spoils the kids, and another part is that I remember the years that my parents went crazy overboard even though we were struggling to pay bills and pressure just trickles down to the kids. I was told very young that there was no Santa because there wasn’t money for a big Christmas and my mom didn’t want me to think I had been bad. I think the way I grew up makes me a terrible gift receiver – I never know exactly how to react and I’ve never been able to really enjoy presents. I want my kids to enjoy what they get with the buoyancy of childhood.

All of that lead-up is to say, I think we may have  overdone things a little this year.

Joint gift:

WiiU

We’d been thinking about this for a year, and the moment we decided, our eight-year-old Wii started giving us trouble. Perfect timing.

Also for both, Disney Hidden Pictures board game

Spencer (6.5)

Jeans

Blue Fedora (still trying to properly replace the ones that got stolen last year)

2 Movies (Transformers and Goonies)

Oblivion for PS3 (he wanted Skyrim, but I felt Oblivion was less people-violent)

Star Wars legos

Basket ball

Henry (4)

Shoes (not yet purchased)

Blue fedora (same aside as Spencer’s)

2 movies (Space Jam and the original Willy Wonka)

Funky Barn for WiiU

Tinker Toys

Philbin the teddy bear

Soccer ball

I think I need to get Spencer one more thing? I really like things to be equal, but I don’t even know if they honestly notice things like that – especially since all the grandparent gifts will be added to the mix before they open a thing. We’ll see.

Henry picked out Maleficent for Spencer, which was on his Christmas list, and Spencer hasn’t done his shopping for his brother yet. I had also gotten H a scooter but my mom is going to give that to him from her, and I talked my MIL into getting Spencer roller skates. I don’t know what else they are getting from extended family. 

I am SO EXCITED.

Christmas is all around us

**edit - can we just pretend this was posted on Friday, as it was typed? Yeah, there we go. Today's Friday. You're welcome.

This morning the boys were up before 5am. I couldn’t move for the first wake up – C went in and talked to them, ostensibly to get them to go to sleep again, but a little after five I jolted awake to them singing 12 Days of Christmas at the top of their lungs. I went in and they were lying in Spencer’s bed together with his side light on and the nursery rhyme book open (12 Days is in there).

There were very many more wake ups before I finally dragged myself out of bed for work, but nothing like that pre-dawn blood pumping, right?

We’ve been working on the Advent calendar (is it still an Advent calendar if you don’t celebrate it like Advent? I don’t know). Anyhow, 25 days of Christmas. It took me until the end of day 2 to fill all the slots and there’s a TBD somewhere in the teens, but otherwise it’s pretty good. Of course, now that the kids aren’t on me to fill the little slots constantly, they are fighting me over the planned activities (and believe me, I’m way light on the “activity” portion of this whole ordeal. Day one (and every Monday thereafter) is “read a Christmas book”, so we read How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Day two, have a holiday treat (that’s also scattered throughout). Day three, make snowflakes (this took an embarrassing amount of time doing incorrectly before I sucked it up and looked up directions online. I apparently did not retain this from my childhood.)

Day four, see the Christmas light show at The Shops at Wiregrass and take a train ride.

Tonight is Day five (and nearly every Friday thereafter), watch a Christmas movie. I bought the 1996 version of Miracle on 34^th Street, and I hope to even sit down and watch too; I love that movie. The kids do movie night every Friday but I rarely sit and watch with them (although also I usually dislike the movie being watched) so I’m going to try to slow myself down today. I can start going a hundred miles an hour again tomorrow, right?

Here’s my favorite Christmas song, for your enjoyment:

Books I read: November

Early in the year, I was on pace to read 169 books, and then by later in the year I was on pace for 161. I don’t think I’ll get to 160, frankly, but I don’t care. I have had so much fun reading this year. Sometimes maybe I was reading too much but such fun. With the holiday season, reading isn’t really a priority so while I’m pretty sure I’ll get to 150, any more than that is up in the air.

53. Broken Harbor - Tana French

54. Raven Boys - Maggie Stiefvater

55. The Dream Thieves - Maggie Stiefvater

new

83. The Storyteller - Jodi Picoult This was not at all what I was expecting, with the Nazi/WWII tie in, but it was good. Jodi’s books are always solid.

84. I'll Give You The Sun - Jandy Nelson It took a lot to get into this book, but it was worth it. Good.

85. The Evolution of Mara Dyer - Michelle Hodkin I loved this whole series.

86. We Were Liars - E Lockhart I started this book at 2am and finished at 4am, on a very bad day. I thought it was good. Fairly light read, and I guessed the twist pretty early, but then I second guessed myself the whole time.

87. We Are Not Ourselves - Matthew Thomas Hated. I read 125 pages of 495, confirmed with Elizabeth that the rest was just as depressing as the first quarter and then I moved on. Happily.

88. Mortal Heart - Robin LaFevers Good end to a great trilogy. I liked the first two better, but it was really good. Different.

89. In the Blood - Lisa Unger This was recommended to me by a friend reading it for her book club. It had that Gone Girl psychological thriller feel. Pretty good.

90. Wool - Hugh Howley This was super good.