December 2009

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Just sharing some pictures from December. As usual, it was a crazy, busy month. Tons of shopping, decorating, baking, parties and photo book making. Scott and I celebrated our tenth anniversary. We also had Amanda's school sing-a-long and her class party.

Somehow I managed to get ahead of schedule with many things, which is pretty unusual for me. Oh I hear you all snickering... Okay, being ahead of schedule is VERY unusual for me, but somehow I managed it. Most of the gifts were not only bought or made weeks before Christmas but also wrapped and under the tree. I labeled them with a secret code so the girls had no idea who was getting what. Unfortunately it was such a great code that when Christmas morning finally rolled around, even I had no idea who was getting what. Oh look, it's another mystery gift. How exciting!

The biggest thing I managed to check off my list early in the season: visiting Santa. I've mentioned my issues around taking the kids to see Santa before here and here. Love Santa. But I've blown up the going-to-see-Santa experience into something to be dreaded... procrastinated... avoided if humanly possible. I want the girls to see Santa. I want cute photos of them seeing Santa. I just don't want to stand in line with 5,000 impatient children waiting to see Santa. The very idea of it makes me break out in a cold sweat.

Every year I tell myself that we'll go see Santa right after Thanksgiving. Get in early to beat the crowds. But every year I put it off. Last year I put it off so long that we ended up at the mall on Christmas Eve. Mind you, Christmas Eve dinner is pretty much the only event I can be counted on to host at my house every year, so it was an act of total desperation/insanity that made me venture into the mall on Christmas eve afternoon and even consider a visit to Santa. One look at that line of 5,000 impatient children and crabby parents stretching around and around and around and I immediately bribed the girls into leaving. I told them I had gotten a good look at Santa (which I had) and it wasn't the real one anyway. All we had to do was check the online Santa Tracker to know that the REAL Santa was already delivering gifts to good little boys and girls all over the world.

This guy was just one of his helpers. To be more specific, (like I said, I got a good look at him) this was the very helper who had called Alyssa “Booger Baby” the year before. I wasn't waiting in line for that guy. I just wasn't. Well if they had cried or told me I was ruining Christmas I might have considered standing in that line, but luckily they didn't seem to mind much. Do you want to stand in this line for six hours or do you want mommy to buy you something pretty and completely useless? We'll text Santa just to be sure he remembers you...

Don't judge me, people. It had to be done. I had a messy house and company coming. So last year I completely blew it. For the first time in their short little lives they had no Santa visit. I couldn't afford to screw it up this time.

So in November, when my friend Wendy mentioned that there was a holiday open house in a quaint town near us and Santa was going to be there... I was all for it. Mind you that we hadn't even celebrated Thanksgiving yet. I didn't care. I've heard people say it's awful to see Santa so early. Even right after Thanksgiving is too early for them. They say it's like torturing the kids... making them wait so long. PUH-LEEZ... I'm gonna torture the kids anyway. Why not start off the torture with a fun trip to see the jolly old man in red?

You may notice that Amanda's jacket is wet in these photos. That's because right as we left for the event it started raining. Not sprinkling a little but POURING. We were not to be deterred though. So what if we had to wait outside in a little bit of rain? I was going to get to check “Santa visit” off of my list and it wasn't even December! Go me! Luckily the rain seemed to scare a lot of people off. The line we waited in was nowhere nearing 5,000. This year I'm hoping to schedule our visit with Santa before Valentine's Day. Easter at the latest.

With so many of my “must do” items checked off of my list early in the month, like I had always fantasized about.. what did I do? Did I sit back and bask in the joy of the season like I'd always pictured I would do? No. No, I couldn't stand being done. It just doesn't feel like Christmas if I'm not running myself ragged, you know? So I just started adding a bunch of random stuff to the list. Things to do. Parties and parades to attend. Cookies to bake. Crafts to make. My visits to the Martha Stewart website spiked dramatically. Because I had clearly lost it. If it called for popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, paint, glue, glitter or googly eyes, I added it to my list. We made cinnamon dough ornaments that we never got around to painting. We made button wreaths, popsicle stick reindeer, craft foam trees, two advent calendars. I attempted to make this:

See? Those are my cute little gingerbread guys before the tragic accident. Many of them were dismembered. It hurts too much to talk about it.

However the kids and I did successfully make about a zillion of these snowflake button ornaments. Cute huh? Unfortunately, I pretty much forgot to attach them to my gifts as planned. I'm creative but completely disorganized. It's a curse. Then there were the gingerbread houses. That story deserves its very own post.

Anyway it was a fun Christmas. I think we now have more Barbie dolls than ToysRus. That was the only thing Amanda asked Santa to bring her. She finally added a stuffed animal dog and a couple of candy canes to her wish list just so Santa would have options, but for her it was all about the Barbies and Santa came through. Alyssa just wanted a baby doll. She got one that sneezes and runs a fever. Next year maybe she'll specify she'd like a healthy baby doll. Luckily they haven't started dragging out the catalogs and making carefully itemized 6-page wish lists like my brother and I did.

The girls and I spent New Years in Anaheim with my friend Beth. It was an impulsive trip for me. I couldn't resist the idea of Disneyland at Christmastime. Except that we didn't end up going to Disneyland since the weather was horrible, rainy and windy, and we heard the parks were insanely crowded. Bad planning on my part. But we had a great time anyway and we'll be going back to Disneyland again soon. Because if we don't, my children will remind me of it for the rest of my life.

As it is, I'm fairly certain I'll be hearing about it anyway.

Hey Alyssa, remember that Christmas Mommy surprised us with a trip to Disneyland but instead she took us to IHOP and the Dollar Store?