We three gifts from the dollar store are...

Christmas morning was one I won't soon forget. For one thing, the awe and wonder I could hear in Kailin's voice as she discovered that Santa brought her and Colby a Rose Petal Cottage (I was still helping Colby down the stairs when she rounded the corner and laid eyes upon the majesty of the cottage) was touching and filled my heart with joy. When the two of them discovered that Santa had also filled the cottage with gifts, their eyes grew wide and they searched frantically for a door to the cottage. I put on some coffee for the not so energized parents and preheated the oven for the egg bake. Then we dove in. Having received a watch and a guitar at the
Gannaway gathering the night before (two hot list items for her) Kailin was delighted to discover that Santa had brought her a yo-yo (orange to boot), a hat (just like dad wears), a peng-gwon (penguin) movie, and a real glass mug for hot cocoa. Colby was simply delighted to open anything we put in front of him (sadly, he was equally un-delighted when he grabbed something that was not his and we had to pry it from his mitts!). When all was said and done there was a mountain of wrapping paper, an array of gifts strewn about the living room floor, and two hopped up on Christmas morning children sprawled on the floor figuring out how to open the toys.

We took a little breather and cleaned up round one before embarking on round two of the gift opening. Then we could hold the kids back no longer....we set in again. The kids were still happy to open anything we put in front of them and, for this year at least, were equally pleased to receive toys or clothes.

My mom had taken Kailin to the dollar store to choose gives for Steve, Colby, and me. She gave Kailin no direction and allowed her to choose 2-3 gifts for each of us. Colby received a magnetic fishing game and also... a headband. With a jewel. He LOVES it. He declared it a hat and immediately put it on his head. I received bath salts with a rubber duck, a vase (which touched my heart since Kailin spent much of the summer picking wildflowers and then asking me to put them into a vase), and a brush (she said that I needed a new brush because mine was "just gross"). Steve....well, Steve got some really interesting things. He did get a battery operated lantern. Kailin noted that it was just like the one in Polar Express. That's one of her favorite movies, and the lantern definitely was a good choice for her dad. He also got hangers. Hangers. Lastly, he too was the recipient of a (non-jeweled) headband. We giggled. He put it on. We giggled some more and hugged our darling and thanked her profusely. My mom told me that she drove Kailin up and down the tool aisle looking for gifts for Steve, but she was insistent that she needed to find his gifts elsewhere. ha ha ha.

We had some breakfast (the stollen turned out well despite the insanely vague directions), and all too soon it was time to be getting ready to head to my mom's for more Christmas fun. The kids watched The Santa Clause 3 on the way - It's got Jack Frost in it but Kailin kept calling it Jack Frosty or Frosty Jack or Cold Jack...

It was possibly the best Christmas morning I can remember.

There was no shortage of yummy appetizers to fill up on at my mom's. By the time lunch was done, so was Colby, so we put both kids down for naps. When they got up it was a flurry of gift opening before people had to start leaving. Kailin was hard core and opened all of her gifts right away. Colby took a more laid back approach, lingering over certain gifts after they were opened, and then outright went on strike and refused to open any more. Ha!

All in all it was a very busy couple of days, but they were fun ones and I was sorry to see Christmas go. I'm already looking forward to next year when Colby will be nearly three and will probably be into Christmas a lot more than he was this year.

We are so blessed to have the wonderful gifts of each other, of children, family and friends - and most importantly, the gift of the birth of Jesus.

A (very) guilty admission...

I'm about to (okay, tomorrow) make my second post about Christmas and some (Pastor Heidi and Lisa to name a few) of you will I'm sure be noting that neither of the Christmas posts includes church. We didn't go to church on Christmas this year. I STRUGGLED with it. A LOT. I have witnesses. Ha ha. (I do though - that was no joke....)

To me, part of the beauty of going to church on Christmas is going at your church - where you know people, where you feel at home. I know that any church where Christians gather to celebrate the birth of Christ should offer fellowship and the Word and that should be enough. But for me, for whatever reason, it isn't - at least not on Christmas. Our church offers 3 services on Christmas Eve - the first at 3, and the last at 6 (or maybe 7). Because of the big dinner gathering on Steve's side, his mom always wants the siblings to get together before that to exchange our gifts (we used to do it after that, but with kids involved now, it just gets way too late if we do it that way).

To attend church on Christmas Eve we would either have to miss Christmas with Steve's siblings or we'd have to feed the kids a makeshift dinner in the car on the way home from Racine. I'm willing to entertain the second option in future years when the kids are more able to autonomously eat in the backseat in the dark - but for now, it's not a viable option.

There's just one service on Christmas Day at 9am. We could make that one - we did last year and I'm willing to bet we will again, but this year my mom wanted us at her house by 11:30 since we were working around several other schedules and the kids' naps. Although we could've made church and then just made it to my mom's in time, that would've meant only an hour or so for our own little family to share Christmas before we'd have to head out the door. Seeing as it's Colby's first Christmas at home, and he won't sit through church EVER and it's a struggle with Kailin most weeks, we decided in the end, that they wouldn't have gotten much out of church this year and that in the interest of being with family (of all shapes and sizes) we would skip it this year and do our own devotion at home.

I feel better having put it out there - in an honest sort of way, but I still struggle with it. We're already working on some kind of solution for next year because I enjoy church on Christmas and I'm surely not willing to give it up for scheduling! I'm happy to say that when I asked Kailin who had a birthday on Christmas, she didn't pause at all before saying "Jesus does!!" and then in typical Kailin fashion, went on to narrate that "when He was a baby, I was in China!!" We had to launch into a huge discussion about time... Oh - and when we talked about why we give gifts and I asked her if she knew what gifts the wisemen brought to baby Jesus, she reported that the wise men bringed the baby Jesus GOLD!!!!! (and she did yell gold really loudly, just so you know...)

Weather or not Christmas will come...

It's been a pretty funky December for weather here. In the two weeks leading up to Christmas, we had bitter cold, snow every other day, and close to the lake here, whiteouts and nasty ice at least twice. Not that snow every other day is immensely unusual this time of year, but it was the amounts we were getting - often upwards of 5". I haven't heard the totals recently (and much of it has now melted as temps were suddenly in the upper 40's yesterday and it RAINED all day - causing dense fog advisories for over 24 hours), but I know that they exceeded 30" for the month. Anyway, many of our pre-Christmas plans ended up getting canceled due to weather and although the time at home was nice as well, it was starting to really get me down.

Then they came out with the forecast for Christmas week and sure enough, every day that we had plans (including Christmas Eve), BAD WEATHER. I was just done with it. Sure it's not worth fretting over since nothing can be done about it, but truth be told, as much as I was excited to share the wonder of the season with Kailin this year and truly I was - I just had a really hard time getting into things this year. I think because we sort of missed our big ramp up weekend when we haul all the decorations out Thanksgiving weekend - it just...never felt like it was a big hullabaloo this year. The main group of decorations didn't even get put up til the 18th, and that is just unheard of for us.

I dealt okay with the constant cancellations, but I really didn't want to cancel Christmas Eve with the Gannnaway side. I just didn't. Thankfully, the news Christmas Eve morning was that we should get out while the getting was good and that the weather would clear in time for us to head home that evening. We took it slow and let the kids watch a movie and the roads really weren't too bad. The kids had a wonderful time playing with their cousins for the day and we were able to see both of Steve's grandmas, an aunt and uncle, his parents, and two of his three brothers and their families. We left about time for the kids to go to bed and brought them home and tucked them in with promises of Santa's visit by morning.

Then we set to work getting things ready for Christmas Day. Steve worked on the hors d' oeuvres for the Schultz festivities, and I worked on egg bake and my grandma Alley's apple stollen (a new tradition I started this year) for Christmas morning. Although I missed seeing everyone at the big Gannaway gathering (really more the Bordo side) usually held over dinner (we decided it was too late for the kids this year and too much of a risk that they'd be horrid on Christmas Day), it was very nice to be home in the early evening and be able to get things ready for the next day without being overtired and feeling rushed. The kitchen smelled wonderful and the Christmas carols were playing - and it was some really nice time just to be together. Soon it was time to head up to bed and await Santa's visit in the morning.

Onward!

I know this blog has again been woefully neglected. I'm going to catch us up in the next few days, I hope, and do better in the new year. Start fresh. Ring in the new year with new resolve to find the time to blog. It's therapeutic - and it's recording our life for me so that I don't have to be so annoyed with myself for forgetting all the interesting stuff.

Oh, and before I forget - I hope everyone who sent me a glittered Christmas card had a glitterific Christmas. Expect an envelope of the stuff back from me when you least expect it. I love a good glitter effect now and again, but glittered cards should be outlawed. When you least expect it and are gleefully in the midst of opening your Christmas mail out spews...glitter. It's on the counter, on the dogs, on the kids, and probably in your hair or magically glued onto your face so as to provide your daughter the opportunity to say every 5.6 seconds, "Mom, you have sunting on your face..." until ETERNITY because the stuff doesn't come off!!!!! There. I feel better.

Also while I'm on the subject, even if your regular billing date is the 24th of the month and even if you know in theory that you're going to get an energy bill this month - really, seriously, the energy company couldn't just wait til the 26th to send those suckers out?? (Yes, I fully realize that it's an automated system and that no one is purposely billing me on the 24th of December, but "Merry Christmas - last month sure was a cold one - send us all your money as soon as possible" is just not the sentiment I wanted this year...)

Ahhhh...now I can breathe deeply and get on with the blogging in peace.

Seek and ye shall (not) find...

A drum. My friend who has kids about Kailin's age took her daughters to Kohl's and asked them to pick out gifts for their dad. One chose a wallet and the other chose a tie. I felt bad that I hadn't taken Kailin shopping for Steve. So I took her to the store and asked her what she wanted to get him. She brightened and said, "I know! He will have a DRUM for Christmas!" A drum.

We already have two toy drums, so I thought I'd have her pick out a Christmas decoration of some sort - then it doesn't have to be around all the time and you know, pa rum pum pum. Not so much. Kohl's, Target, Walmart... NO ONE had a drum of any kind. And we didn't limit ourselves to ornaments - we looked in the light ups, the other decorations... EVERYWHERE!!! No luck. Christmas was fast approaching so we headed out (in a snowstorm) to the local garden store. They always have a healthy selection of Christmas decorations. We pulled in and Kailin could see inside. She said, "MOM! It's Christmas in there!!!" I laughed. It was indeed Christmas in there.

I couldn't wait to show her the "tree room". It was an annual event for me when I was a kid - this store has a back room filled with artificial trees of all shapes and sizes, decorated in every way imaginable - and very awe inspiring to a kid, I might add. The purpose of my childhood visits was always to see the "fruit loop tree". There was always one tree (and only one) festooned in a garland of fake candies - among them lifesavers, which to me appeared to be fruit loops. We intended this pilgrimage to be a family affair, but with the holiday season so short this year and so many other things to fit in, Steve working, early bedtimes for the kids... that, along with visiting Santa, just didn't ever make it to the top of the list. Had it not been for the drum quest, none of us would've seen the tree room this year. But before we could hit the tree room, we had to exhaust the store for a drum...

They had two drum ornaments. The same ornament - one red, and one green, both with tiny mirrors and gold beads. I initially spotted them but passed them by hoping for a better option. Nope. None. They were the last two remaining drums of any shape or form in the store. (I even searched the trees in the tree room for drum ornaments with all intentions of pleading with anyone who would listen to me that we NEEDED to shop from the tree despite the signs vehemently insisting that we not do so...no need to plan that argument out!) We bought the green one. Kailin reminded me at the register that it is a secret. I laughed. She had told Steve no less than 12 times already that "you will have a drum for Christmas!!" Thankfully, and truthfully, he never heard her. I think God was smiling on us just then - maybe on me for my dedicated efforts to find the drum or maybe on Kailin for being so excited about giving to others. I was thankful in any case that the drum did indeed remain a secret right up until Steve opened it on Christmas morning.

Oh - and the tree room? It held a different draw for Kailin. She deemed it a rainforest and then asked where we were. She was hesitant to believe that we were still in the store both there and in the silk florals aisle we happened down on our way to the register. "Where are we NOW, Mama?" "The store. We're still in the store, honey." "Noooo.... this is not a store!" Now if THAT isn't awe and wonder, I don't know what is...

Soapbox about apostrophes

**Warning - this is a preachy post but I can't take it any longer!!!!!**

I'll get right to the point.... If your last name is Smith and someone is addressing something to you (a card for instance), then the correct way to write that is "The Smiths" or "The Smith Family". "The Smith's" is NOT correct!!!!!! To indicate the plural of something, you simply add an s at the end. You do NOT need an apostrophe unless you are indicating that something belongs to the Smith family.

Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now, but it's just like fingernails on a chalkboard to me and I had to vent somehow or I was going to implode!

Fabulous fiber optics

This is a picture of Kailin helping me decorate our real tree. It was a task she enjoyed thoroughly this year. She did pretty well at it. Her brother, on the other hand, is much more interested in tree un-decorating and in general tree brutality. He prefers to remove the ornaments and/or flog the tree with his kiki and/or forcibly rip the needles from the branches. Lovely holiday fun to be certain!

The real topic of this post is the smaller, artificial tree that we put up in the kids' room last night. It is one we've never before put up and one we inherited from Steve's Great Aunt and Uncle. It was much to our pleasant surprise to find that it was a pre-lit tree. Had I known that, I'd have put it up with the kids last week! (I don't do lights....) It was a much less pleasant (for me at least) surprise to find out that the tree has certain...fiber optic "qualities" (in my opinion, fiber optics almost NEVER indicate quality). We had our choice of white or color. Steve asked Kailin what she wanted. Color, of course! Steve set it up and plugged it in. The kids were astounded and bewitched by the twinkling myriad of colors before their eyes. I have to admit - for a kids tree, it's pretty cool. Charmingly spectacular one might even say. We're going to finish putting the ornaments on it tonight and then I'll see if I can get a picture. Believe me - it's special!