Ho Ho Ho

Well, I'm on my Christmas break from school, and guess what happens-I get sick. Great. I was at Wal-Mart re-stocking my empty cupboards, when I started going downhill. I got up to the checkout counter and one of my milk cartons was leaking. The gal wanted me to go back and get a new one, and I said I was really feeling crappy, so I wasn't going to. She asked me if I wanted help out, and I waited on a bench for a very long time. She finally closed up her register, slapped on her jacket, and helped me out herself, she felt so bad for me. Wow. Good customer service at Wal-Mart. That's a first.

Anyway, I'm going to have to do some quick catching up on things after laying low for a couple of days. Today, the kids and I are going to make Christmas cookies. Then, maybe I can have those friends over this next week for cookies and lattes. Oh-the cookies. I have this beautiful, cookie cookbook by Better Homes and Gardens. On one side are gorgeous, anytime cookies. Then, you flip the book over, and find Christmas cookies. I asked Ben to pick out what he would like to make, and he picked some Santa ones.....I should take some pictures today....

I have a lot of presents wrapped under the tree, but I still need to get a few more for the girls. It's getting a little harder to shop for them nowadays. As I perused the toy aisles a couple of weeks ago, I was thinking about how fun it was to buy them Barbies and Polly Pockets. Now they want CD's and specific clothing styles from particular stores. They also ask for things like guitars and digital cameras. That's just no fun. I want to buy toys!

Well, we still have one kid left who still likes toys. What a blast to buy boy stuff. I didn't grow up with a brother, and he's my only boy, so this is all new to me. He's at such a great age to want to play with most of the types of toys they make now, so it's pretty fun shopping. He likes Legos, and action figure guys and balls and cars. I have to be careful not to buy too much, with his birthday right around the corner in January!

I'm disappointed, that I wasn't well enough to take them down to have a free carriage ride with Santa at this cool furniture store. This store does seasonal things for kids every year. Maybe next weekend...I also want to take the kids to see a drive-thru light display at a huge park near our home. It's something we do every year.

But, my most favorite, favorite thing of all is going to a Christmas Eve church service. Our church had a special Christmas production last night, but they're still going to do a Christmas Eve candlelight service for families. I just find that there is something magical about going to church at night on Christmas Eve. It's such a wonderful time to reflect on the gift of Jesus with my family right before we open up gifts the next morning. It sets such a wonderful, meaningful tone to the following day.

We do something very silly on Christmas Eve. We open our stockings. This started before we had kids. We were dying to open something, so we opened our stockings. Now, we still do it.

I gotta go. I feel like I need to redeem some time that I lost being sick. I still need to get our Christmas cards out!