I think I’m slowly getting a bit of Christmas spirit. I’ve been trying to take this month one day at a time so as not to become overwhelmed by all the Things I Have To Do by December 25th. So far that approach is working. It helps that we are trying really, really hard to keep the season simple, with less talk about gifts and who-wants-what and the material things.
A couple of Sundays ago I went to the annual Cookie Exchange at Sue’s house. We all baked a batch of 4 dozen cookies and each of us ended up with about a half dozen of each type of cookie. Yum. Equally good were all the snacks made by Rose and Sue – especially good since I hadn’t had time for lunch after church. We had a great time eating, talking, laughing, eating some more, catching up on news and finally we got around to swapping cookies. Got home just in time to see the Bengals win another game.
Our house has Christmas lights this year! Nothing crazy, no inflatable snow creatures, just the traditional lights-hanging-from-the-gutter and some happy little colored bulbs on the porch railing. Thank you, Chris, for climbing the ladder to do this, indulging the Baby Bird in her wish for lights on the house. They look wonderful!
We got our Christmas cards out in the mail this past weekend (right on schedule) and also put up the tree. No live tree this year due to budget cutbacks (that’s OK, we saved a tree…) so we borrowed the old “family tree” from Ma & Pops. We figure it’s about 35 years old? We opened the box and stared at the pile of prickly green limbs, trying to decide how to go about making them into a tree. We sorted the pieces into piles by color of the tip and Thank God, when we got to the bottom of the carton, there were the torn and tattered instructions. So up went the tree, then the challenge of the lights (half are flashing, half are not - ?!?) and finally the garland and decorations. It’s bee-yoo-ti-ful!
While Chris strung the lights I worked on the Nativity set and unpacked my collection of Nutcrackers. I’m trying to resist the urge to pull out ALL my Christmas knick-knacks (I have enough for several families…) and keep it simple, keep it sane. So I chose my most favorite items and arranged them to my satisfaction – and voila, it’s Christmas in our house!
My on-going project is the Christmas ornaments that are to be family gifts. I baked salt-dough shapes a couple of weeks ago, as did Kelly – I’m doing letters of the alphabet, she’s making fun things like dogs, bunnies and hearts to give to her friends. We stocked up on a new supply of the little bottles of acrylic paints and have been painting like crazy, making them into colorful works of art. I’m about half-way done, so I’m on track to have them finished in plenty of time.
Halfway through December and still sane! Oh, and just 97 days until Spring!
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