Merry Christmas

It is just before 9 am on Christmas morning and I am the first one up. Yes, my kids are still asleep. They have inherited a bit of Dennis' late sleeper-ness (is this a word?) and they were up until 10:30 last night so by my calculation they will sleep for approximately 9 more minutes. In fact, I am quite confident that I will have to stop typing before very long and finish this post tonight, but for now I am enjoying the quiet. Santa has left his loot under the tree and filled the stockings and the living room looks so nice and peaceful, before the rush of the kids and the wrapping paper and those infernal bits of plastic that keep everything tied into place in their packaging. It is nice to just gaze upon it and take a moment to heave a sigh. Another year done, the shopping and wrapping and scouting for deals. The delving into the kids little minds to figure out which of the "I want that!"'s were important and which would be forgotten by the time the commercial was over. Buying for everyone and feeling that I found things that people would appreciate. More important, actually getting the chance to visit and spend time with everyone and enjoy all the hard work.

So now I have coffee brewing and cinnamon buns to pop into the oven. My brother slept over last night so he would be able to enjoy Christmas morning with us, so I'm sure he will be thrilled in 9 minutes when the kids wake him up. It is quiet and nice and I am looking forward to seeing the kids excitement and spending the day with the family, eating and drinking and being together.

Fast forward 12 hours later and here I am, almost 9 pm. The kids DID wake up right around 9 minutes in and the peace and quiet was gone gone gone. Oh and those delish cinnamon buns? I put them in and then we started unwrapping and I didn't check them and they burnt. I was really quite bummed. Then it was off to my cousin's for a great family day and now we are home. I'm tired but content, everything is unwrapped and it looks like a toy store blew up and we have trash piling up. Cardboard boxes and wires and ties, plastic everywhere. WHY do toys come packaged as if they will make a great escape if not fastened in by 43 pieces of wire? Why?

Ahhhh, big sigh. Merry Christmas everyone, and to all a GOOD NIGHT!

Ice-iversary

Over the past week and a half there have been so many times that I have thought of a good blog post, but they never made it onto the computer. Like the day I felt like the only thing I ate was the bits and pieces of the kids food. Crusts of toast for breakfast. Crusts of ham and cheese for lunch. Leftover cold french fries and congealed mac and cheese for dinner. Then I almost posted about Abbey getting her five year immunizations. 4 shots, lots of crying and screaming resulting in a 102 degree temp and a day home from school the next day. Then I was going to blog about our Tumpka Timpka elf on a shelf and how already she has "forgotten" to leave our house and come back to a new spot the next day. This was subsequently blamed on the fact that Jack got a little bit too close to her the day before, and a bit of her magic disappeared for about 24 hours. So many times I have sat down at the computer and then been called away to do other things. Christmas things, party things, kid things, house things. Things. We even passed over the 1 year anniversary of the Ice Storm of 2008 without me blogging about it. The anniversary was actually last Thursday night into Friday morning since the storm itself raged through the night. In case you are new to my blog, or maybe you forgot and would love to relive it with me, you can read about our adventures in ice here and also here and here a see some lovely pictures here and also some more here. This Saturday the 19th is the actual anniversary of when the pipes burst rendering us homeless and rootless for a while until we moved into the comfort of that oh so lovely trailer in the yard. Oh brown paneled trailer of fun, how I do NOT miss you. Well hasn't this been a wonderful trip down memory lane! At least I can say that all of that madness from last year did result in new floors, new walls, new cabinets, some new furniture, and a new found appreciation for our HOME. All these many months later, it is still GOOD TO BE HOME!

Tis' The Season

Well, it's here, it's here, it's here! Christmas is coming! Christmas is coming! I LOVE Christmas, always have. The whole season. When I was a kid the thought of getting presents, having my whole family together, eating delicious food, well it was almost too much to bear. Now that I am an adult I still look forward to Christmas with as much excitement. There are family get together’s, presents exchanged, and of course delicious food to be eaten. I get so excited when I think of what will become my own kids Christmas memories. Will it be putting up the decorations and the tree? Making cookies? Visiting with Santa? Going to Mass on Christmas Eve? This year we even decorated a gingerbread house, which was kind of messy and a pain so we may not do that again. December 1st marked the beginning of the countdown for us, the countdown to the big guy. The kids have a calendar that they do every night, adding felt ornaments from little numbered pockets to the tree. Then they get to open up their Advent calendar that they get every year from Grammy and eat their little tiny piece of chocolate. Last year after the ice storm when we had to evacuate the house to spend Christmas at my parents I remember running through the dark and the cold, and 2 things I was sure to grab were that felt Christmas tree and their Advent calendars. Last year at my parents we also started a new tradition. Each day we are visited by Timpka Tumpka. This is a little Swedish elf like gnome that is much like the "Elf On A Shelf" that is popular. Timpka visits Santa in the North Pole every night while the kids are asleep to report on their daily behavior. Of course each morning you will find Timpka in a new spot. I have no idea how he does it!

So however you begin your Holiday Season, I am right now wishing it to be merry and warm and bright. You really do have to spend the whole month celebrating, because 1 day? Nope, not nearly enough time to get it all in.

Just Keep Swimming

Hello out there in blogger land, sorry for the short posts lately. I can't believe Christmas is only 2 days away! With all that has been going on with the storm and the pipes bursting it just hasn't seemed very Christmasy. So many holiday parties and events were cancelled around here, and there has been so much displacement and uncertainty, but alas Christmas does arrive and no matter where you live and what you are doing it is important to remember the true meaning of CHRISTmas, enjoy your families and have some fun. And so we will. We may be homeless temporarily, but we have our family and each other and so we really have everything we need. I have been extra busy, Dennis is still working 12 hour days and since he has been sleeping at home in the basement while I stay at my parents with the kids we have barely seen him. I really am a single mother now! My parents have been so much help to us, more than you can imagine. We are so thankful and grateful for them, I am sure I couldn't do it without them. ALL of our friends and family have offered to help, and been so kind. It's overwhelming to realize how many friends you have when something like this happens, it brings a little tear to my eye, and everyone knows I never cry (except when water is pouring out from my ceilings!)

But life goes on, I still have to work, and meet with insurance adjustor's, and cleaning crews, and contractors. I feel like I am rushing all around, while still trying to find time for the kids and keep their lives as "normal" as possible. They are doing great though, and have been so good through all of this turmoil. Kids are resilient, although after this experience I think there will be an entire generation of children who will have anxiety every time the power at their house goes off! At dinner the other night Abbey gave a blessing. She said she was thankful for her family, for life and lights, and her friends. Oh, and food of course. I think that pretty much says it all.

So, we are doing fine. I am tired, I miss my husband, but I just keep thinking like Dory.

Oh Christmas Tree

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here. Saturday we went out and got our tree, and now that it is up I am really starting to get into the spirit. Now I can start wrapping presents and unlike in years past when the kids were more of a menace, I can actually put them under the tree without the fear of them unwrapping them. Some families may look for quite a while for the "perfect" tree, even going to different places, but not us. We drove up the road to a tree farm, got out and almost the first tree the kids walked by "fell" on them. It didn't really fall as much as lean over onto them as they brushed by. They decided that it was a sign, the tree wanted to come home with us and be our tree. Dennis held it up and while I was still saying "hmmmm, maybe we should look over there" he had already picked it up and was starting to tie it to the top of the car. "Um, OK, I'll just go pay and we'll be on our way." When I was a little girl getting our tree was a big event that I looked forward to as one of the best parts of Christmas. I remember that we would bring it home, all wrapped up in twine and my father would set it up in the basement for the branches to "fall". It would have to stay down there, "falling" until the next day when we would be allowed to bring it upstairs and decorate it. That was torture to me, waiting. I would visit the tree in the basement, pushing on the branches, willing them to "fall." This may be why we decorate ours almost as soon as we get it home, no waiting, no falling required. Of course, our trees have never been wrapped up in twine, so that may be helpful. I used to play for hours under the tree. I would set my barbies up all under it, and they would "live" in the tree. I would lay under it and stare up at the lights, the way my kids do now and it is just such a wonder. A piece of nature that up until that point has been growing in the forest is now wrapped in lights, with ornaments hanging from it's branches, in our living room. It's kind of amazing when you think about it. Now that the kids are older they actually remember the ornaments from years past. We have quite a bit of "Baby's First Christmas" ones, or that have their names on them, and everyone has to hang up their own special ones. I love that we have special ornaments, just for us. I love that the kids get excited to see the little ornaments with their names on them, or that they have made in years past. You take them out of the box and although you had forgotten all about them for the past year, there they are again. They look the same as they did before, from a different time, on a different tree.

Our tree fell down that first night of course, spilling water all over the rug and sending ornaments flying this way and that. It crashed down as 65% of the trees in our married life have. I'm not sure why they always fall over, maybe it has something to do with the stand? Or perhaps it could be user error? I'm not blaming anyone, I'm just saying.

Excuses

Excuse number 1,043 of why I didn't step on the scale this morning for this week's installment of un-frump a slump. First off, in these uncertain and hard economic times, I find I get the best feeling from giving to others. So, in that respect I have donated my scale to the needy. Yes, that's it. The needy. I mean, they like to keep in shape too, just the daily struggle for food and shelter doesn't burn half as many calories as it used to, and the needy must keep on top of their weight as well. I know, I know, it was a sacrifice, but one I'm willing to make for humankind. Second excuse . . . I mean reason . . . there was this little holiday cookie swap thing I went to last night with about 20 of the other mother's here in town. No big deal, I mean, I only sampled like 14 cookies or so, washed down by 2 or 3 (or 4 or 5) glasses of wine. I'm sure that I actually lost weight while there, due to the fact that I was laughing quite a good deal and ate most of those cookies and consumed a good portion of that wine while standing up, and everybody knows that if you eat while standing the calories don't stick to your body. They go straight to your feet.

Lucky Shopping and Seeing Double Santa's

First, I must apologize for slacking off so tremendously for these last few days. I really don't have much of an excuse, just busy with Christmas broo-haha. This weekend we checked out the parade 1 town over to see Santa, a parade which involved the towns emergency vehicles, various sized horses, the middle-high school's marching band, a freaky giant Frosty marching alongside an equally freaky giant green Christmas tree and of course, the big man in red himself. Actually, we saw 2 Santa's. It was the strangest thing, first one Santa comes riding by with Mrs. Claus by his side and then about 4 minutes later another Santa goes riding by with yet another Mrs. Claus by his side. What? I immediately looked at the kids. Surely they would notice that this was a different Santa. Hell, you could look further up the road and still see Santa #1. But they didn't even seem to be fazed, waving and yelling "hi Santa." So weird. I think children just have such blind faith in the magic of Santa that seeing him twice didn't seem at all unusual. After the parade we ambled over to the tree lighting with everyone else but I had a rare burst of super-smartness and continued over to where we could visit with Santa. Actually, while one Santa was heading up the tree lighting, another was already getting ready to receive children on his lap. Ah ha, double Santa's strike again. We ended up 3rd in a line of about 100 kids to sit on Santa's lap. Jack and Abbey had their picture taken (see above) and even got to deliver their letters in person. So frickin' cute and made that much better by the 100 families we passed on our way OUT the door all waiting their turn.

The weekend got even better when my mom (who has been blessed with the gift of bargain shopping) took me to get my Christmas purchasing started and it rocked. I got tons and tons accomplished. Usually when I go into a store I kind of wander around in a disoriented fashion, ending up purchasing things I don't even need, or a bunch of gifts for people I don't even give to. We went to, well, I am not going to name the store because then people will know where I got their gifts, plus it might shed a little "clue" to where I live which my husband is strongly against. Safety first at all times, that's his motto. But the prices at this place were fantastic. I even got some stuff for myself, lets just call it an early Christmas gift to moi. Suggested retail value for my new clothing, $156.99. MY price, $44.95. $48 pants from the Gap, $12.99. Levi Sweater for $36 and I found it for $8.99 (so I got 2 of course). Ahhh, I do love Christmas.