Christmas Joys

At first I thought I might end up being a Scrooge between these two posts. And then I realized that even on a very "lite" level, joys were easier to come up with.

1. Wrapping presents. I love making the ends look pretty, the wrapping paper match up and the more ribbons and curls the better. When we go to CA, I help my mother-in-law wrap hers because she has quite a few, and if I didn't know better, I would think she waits to wrap them all until a few days before Christmas. I vaguely recall my father-in-law 'mumbling' about opening the stupid ribbons the first year I helped out.
2. Christmas tree lights. I love to put up lots of lights IN my house and then turn off all the regular lights and just sit on the couch.
3. Christmas music and singing around the piano with my mom and aunt. We sound particularly 'prima donna' ish when we sing The Forgotten Carols. Mom, have you got Shannon one of her own books of that yet?
4. Putting up the nativities and making them look just right, even though I only have a handful. Conner loves to help arrange the pieces too.
5. Christmas smells. I got a new Cinnamon candle this year that I really like.
6. White Christmas movie - enough said. Conner is a ditto.
7. Homemade fudge.
8. Dropping off Christmas goodies...I know, I know. I am slightly hypocritical. Its ok for me to pawn off my junk, but not everyone else.
9. New this year...Gingerbread houses with Lauralee.
10. Driving around to see lights.
11. Acting out the nativity. The most fun is when small children dress up. We always fought over who got to be the Angel. My dad was the donkey, complete with dress socks on his ears.
12. Finding a steal on something you thought you would have to pay more for.
13. Reading the newletters and Christmas cards. I love "newsy" info, not such a fan of travel itineraries. Always read through all my moms. She keeps them in a basket.
14. Hanging up the Christmas cards. It is fun to see all the friends we have made.
15. Watching Conner and Steve open gifts. This is so fun for me. Actually, I love to watch anyone open the gifts I have given them. I get all nervous and I want to tell them all my thought process. For some reason, all that thought makes the silly present seem a lot more valuable and I guess I just get anxious for them to understand.
16. Family get togethers.

Christmas Woes

The rule is that my next post is Christmas joys and it has to be longer and more meaningful than Christmas woes.
1. Packed parking lots, long return lines, even longer check-out lines.
2. For me, a not very good surprise artist, trying to surprise the main act himself and make it something that he goes, wow..., tricky...
3. Wondering if you got gifts for everyone that you should have.
4. Wanting to have gotten "more" (in no way a $ amt or # amt) for someone and still not sure how to do that.
5. The dreaded drop offs. I think we will miss most of these this year. Hopefully someone will pick up the plates from our front step. And the only ones that have come have been quite pleasant. I just don't usually like what is dropped off and half the time it is from someone I missed on my own list. No drop offs for me this year. We did a teaching Conner service banana bread FHE in November instead.
6. Nasty tape cutter cuts from the nastiest scotch wanna-be tape ever that I still have in bulk amounts from 3 years ago. take that back...good tape, terrible METAL cutter.
7. Running out of the real scotch tape that I bought to replace said wanna-bes.
8. Wondering if I have missed some one on my Christmas card list (almost a given every year)
9. Wanting to indulge our "only" child and wanting to help him understand what Christmas really is

New Nativity

I grew up with my mom collecting Nativity scenes. She has some from various countries and then lots of different ones that I am sure were made in the USA via China. Glass, plastic, wood, ceramic, paper, framed, fabric, even flowerpots. In her old house, she had plenty of display space all over the house. And they were literally all over the house. In the house they are in now, there is not as much display space, so she gave me one and I think I got one as a gift. And then Conner got one of the little people ones that he can play with, I think she might have been tired of worrying he might break some of the more fragile ones. She searched the net, stores, everywhere, for two years before she finally found a little people one. Then I think she bought 3 or so.

Well, today we were in Target taking Conner toy shopping and I came across a Playmobile one. Great toys especially if your kids like people or action figures and like putting things together. So I showed Steve and we bought it. At first, I thought, my mom would really appreciate this. But then when we got it home, and I remembered how much Conner liked Playmobiles. So we opened it up to look at it. The end result being that both he and I were so caught up in putting all the figures together that we kept it. It is darling and was a lot of fun...plus Conner can play with it.