All I want for Christmas...

Hello, my dear friends! It has been a hectic week for me. I had to finish my Christmas shopping, bake cookies, clean the house, break up the first Christmas Break fight, and generally just wishing that I could hit the eggnog and drink myself into a stupor. It has been a hard week for us. The kids were a little afraid to go to school on Monday due to the events of last Friday. We don't shelter our children from news like that. We discuss it, and do our best to explain things and answer their questions. Our girls understand that not all people are good people. We feel knowledge is power. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So my first All I Want for Christmas is: I wish that the Sandy Hook event hadn't happened. In lieu of that, I wish that the families of Newtown find peace.

All I want for Christmas is for these &#%*#^#*@^ Christmas cookies to be done. I like to bake, but I absolutely detest Christmas baking. There is so much baking and decorating and dishes. Oh my God, the dishes! I hate these Pinterest moms with their perfect snowman cookies and reindeer cupcakes. The odds are that the cut out cookies will get made but those suckers are most likely not going to be frosted. I am certainly not going to take hours to pipe a smile on each one. Most of the time I can barely handle my rage against the cookies long enough to finish baking them. That's right. I feed my kids rage-laced cookies. I am told it doesn't affect the flavor.

All I want for Christmas is for my house to stay clean. When I pick up a room, I do not want to walk in five minutes later to find a bunch of junk on the floor. Heaven forbid that I find cookie crumbs all over. Heads will roll if I find a half-eaten cookie. (I worked hard on those damn things.) Newsflash family members! We have a trash can, toy boxes, laundry baskets, and lots of other places to put things. The only thing I should see on my floor is the rug.

All I want for Christmas is some peace and quiet. I want absolute silence. No television noise, no Christmas music, no fighting children (more on this later). I just want quiet. I want to be able to lay on the couch for fifteen minutes without anyone talking to me. I want to be able to hear my heartbeat. I can dream, can't I?

All I want for Christmas is for the kids to be in school again. They have been out for break since yesterday. I have already broken up fights, sent kids to their room, and locked myself in the bathroom. I have come to cherish that wonderful time of day when the house is quiet and peaceful. I can get things done. I can take a shower without anyone knocking on the door and telling me that they need something. Those hours are blissful. I need them. It is the only way I hang onto my sanity.

All I want for Christmas is a happy Christmas. I want to snuggle up with my girls and watch Christmas movies. I want to see their eyes light up when they open their gifts. I want to have an awesome dinner with my family, even if it means that I have to cook it. I want all of you to have a very happy holiday with your families. Thank you to everyone who reads my blog. I appreciate you sharing a bit of your time with me. I hope that I have made you laugh and made you think. I hope that I am one of the highlights of your week. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

Creative Creativity Genes

Today I was out shopping (God I love shopping.) for Christmas decorations. I walked around Hobby Lobby, Big Lots, Target, and even (the dreaded) Walmart. I wasn't looking for anything too specific. I wanted a couple of big bows for the pillars by our front door, a wreath, and maybe some lights to string around for some sparkle. I couldn't find any lights that made me think, "I must have you!". So a no go on the lights. I scored the bows at half price. (Dadadadadadadada dum BARGAIN HUNTER!) But the item that frustrated me the most was the over abundance of ugly, ugly, UGLY wreaths. They weren't only UGLY but they were expensive as well. I am not going to pay fifty bucks for a wreath that looks like an elf threw up on it. Call me cheap. It's not going to happen.

Luckily, I am the daughter of a very creative and talented woman. (Yes, I might be sucking up a little. It is the gift giving season. Sue me.) My mom was one of THOSE moms. I can remember her making her own wreaths. She hung her own wallpaper and did weird stuff with paint on the walls. She could make a slipcover for a couch. She sewed me a new Christmas dress every year. I think she made my sister a dress for homecoming once. My mom could wire electrical sockets, fix the garbage disposal, and still found time to play with us. My mom was Martha Stewart before Martha Stewart made it cool.

If my mom hadn't been the way she was, I might not have the courage or creative ability to do half of the things that I do. Anyway, back to my wreath. I decided since the other wreaths I had seen were really, really, really ugly that I would make one myself. I did steal the basis of my idea from a wreath I saw on Pinterest, but the color scheme and accessories are all me. Ok foam forms for wreaths are expensive! (I am a major cheapo, just so you know.) Hobby Lobby wanted eight dollars for a small wreath form. So I went into the needle point area and found an embroidery frame. It was eighteen inches in diameter and cost me five dollars. HA! I got lucky and tulle was on sale. 50% off to be exact. So I got 200 yards of white tulle and 12 yards of sparkly red tulle. The white cost me nine dollars and the red was two dollars. At Walmart I got a twelve pack of glittery red ornaments shaped like candies for 3 dollars. I also got a giant, silver, sparkly ornament of the word joy for two dollars.

So I got all the items for my wreath for twenty-one dollars which equals roughly half of what the UGLY wreaths were. I finished it in about two hours. It is so pretty and very girly. Girly works at our house. My husband approves of it also. (Not that he has a choice. It is a done deal.) I am also pleased with the wreath because I realized something while I was making it. I am influencing a new generation of creative, independent women. My girls watch (and sometimes help) me do things like knitting a sweater or rewiring a light switch. I hope that I am showing them that it is okay to do things yourself. Sometimes doing a project yourself instead of buying one doesn't turn out exactly the way you want. Sometimes it comes out even better. You get to have that feeling of pride when you look at what you have accomplished it because YOU accomplished it. It is better than the rush of buying something any day.

Christmas Shopping...MEH

I have been suffering from writer's block. I would like to say that is because my delightful daughters have been behaving impeccably lately. (Bahahahahahah.....gasp....gasp.....hahahahahaha) The lack of posts lately hasn't been due to lack of material. The lack is clearly within me. I have not had the energy or will to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, if you will) as of late. We have recently relocated. (AGAIN) This time we were blessed to have the assistance of professional movers. Thank the Lord for them.

It is that time again. Black Friday is looming over us. Toy commercials send our children into a toy-lust frenzy. My girls will run about the room shouting, "I want that! I want that!" and occasionally "No, Paige I already called that one! Ha ha!". My favorite quote this season has been, "Mom, I want that! But you have to be eighteen or older to order!" (Yeah, I have that age thing covered. Don't worry.) Then they fight over who should get that particular toy for Christmas. (Dear God, the fighting.) Sometimes I think it would be easier to make the same list for each child and just buy three of everything. I guess that lacks imagination. When you add in nieces, nephews, parents, grandparents, and siblings the list becomes bigger and bigger with each person.

Every year I say that I will be done with my shopping before Thanksgiving. Every year I fail. (EPICALLY) I haven't even started so far this year. I could blame the move and other various reasons. The truth is that I can't bear the thought of starting. I am a normal woman. I love to shop. Christmas shopping has become a chore. Christmas itself has become more of a chore and less of a holiday.

So I have been trying to think of things to make it more fun. The truth is that once you grow up and become an adult and a parent Christmas becomes work. You have to make Christmas cookies, buy presents, wrap the presents, decorate the house, etc. As adults we have to WORK to make the holidays fun. We have to plan adventures for ourselves. We have to chose to have the holiday be fun.

Here are some things we do (as a family) every year to make Christmas more fun:

• Each child chooses an ornament from the Toys for Tots tree. We then have fun picking out a gift. 
• We make a colossal amount of Christmas cookies. I let the kids decorate them. (They might not be perfect, but the kids have fun and that is all that matters.) 
• Whenever we have a delivery, we have cookie bags made up and we hand them out to the delivery men as a thank you. (The looks on their faces are great, and they always remember you after that.) 
• Each child gets a special set of Christmas jammies to wear on Christmas Eve. 
• We have our go-to holiday movies. In the week before Christmas, we pick one each night to watch as a family. 
• Every Christmas Eve, my husband reads our kids "The Night Before Christmas". I keep a log on the inside of the cover where I note each year that we have followed the tradition. 
• The kids write letters to Santa (and he writes one back). They also go to visit him at the shopping mall. 
• A few days before Christmas, Santa sends each of the kids a video email.
• Every year we hire an "Elf on the Shelf". 
• Every year we go to a store called Tannenbaum's and the girls each pick out a blown glass ornament. I write the year purchased and the child's name on the bottom of each ornament. When we decorate the tree, we have fun pulling out the ornaments and remembering why that ornament was picked and what good things had happened that Christmas. Some day when the girls move out and start their own families, I will pack up their ornaments for them to have. 
• My husband and I pick out an ornament for ourselves as well. We try to pick something that means something to our family for that year. 
• If it snows we build a snow family. We also go sledding. 

It is true that there are some aspects of the holiday season that are just loathsome. Hopefully, you can find a way to outweigh the loathsome with the fun and heartwarming. Plus, though it is loud and ear-piercing the screams from your kids when they get that present they have been hoping for makes it all worth it.