This Christmas season started for me in like September. That was the first time I saw a store putting up their ornaments to sell and I thought "Geeesch, it's not even October!" But I did find Em's ornament that day, at that store and it's perfect. Anywho, when the "real" Christmas season rolled around I was bombarded by texts from women talking about "christmas decorations is gonna cause us to get divorced" and "I hate how he puts the lights up outside" or "I hope he doesn't expect me to wrap all these presents" or "he wants to just buy everyone a snuggie." I laughed a lot at these texts because Brian does leave the shopping to me (thank God) and actually will pretty much do anything I ask him to do (and he's quite the little wrapping perfectionist I might add). But the decoration fights/arguments, I finally understood...I couldn't recall doing it in the past but for some reason, we did this year.
Anywho, while putting all the ornaments on the tree, I am reminded, one by one, where I got them, the story behind them and so on. There is one imparticular that stood out to me this year. And here's the story: my Granny used to by the grandkids an ornament every year that she picked out individually, special for each of us. Well, this one year, I got the dumbest, stupidest dog holding valentines ornament. And Granny so nicely said, "There's no special reason for that one Jenna, I just couldn't find what I wanted and didn't want to go to another store." Wow. Gee. Thanks. I. Feel. Special. So later, my sister and I were talking and I was saying how flippin' dumb my ornament was and how I was really kinda hurt by the whole thing because I saw all the other grandkids' and they made sense to them and were perfect for each of them. But mine was just a side thought and I just wasn't feelin' the love. So anyway, I guess Granny overheard us talking because a few weeks later she gave me another ornament...an angel holding a book and it said "a reader." Ok. Good. That's me. And I felt better. Since Christmas was over at that point, I hung the angel in my car. Well, years later, my husband would get in an accident in that car and the angel went to the junkyard with the car...oops.
So, yesterday was our annual Baking Day. We made like almost 30 dozen cookies or something crazy like that. We made so many that my mom was limping around and her back was going out. I was on my feet all day and needed a massage. We made cookies from 11 am-5 pm and only MY kind didn't turn out. I found this cute recipe in a magazine for Giant Kisses. You wrap dough around a hershey kiss and then wrap each cookie in foil and looked very cute. Yeah, they didn't hold their shape and collapsed so, that was the end of those...oh, and they weren't too good either. So we have like 18 dozen of the famous candy cane cookies (that family members sometimes actually BUY), 6 dozen chocolate chip, 3 dozen sugar, 2 dozen snickerdoodles, 2 dozen peanut butter cup and a dozen white chocolate macadamia nut. But we didn't YIELD that many dozens because HELLO, we ate some. DUH.
So, my shopping is done (but not the wrapping honey, hint hint) but I still need to make Brian his ornament. Every year my husband and I homemake an ornament for eachother. The ornament usually reflects something that happened that year or something significant at the time. I would tell you now what I'm doing but Brian might read this and I can't ruin the surprise :) I will say that our tree is awesome with its orange and white lights (thanks to my 4 year old son picking them out) but also, I LOVE that there are no generic ornaments on our tree this year. Finally we have enough ornaments that the generic ones aren't needed. That's so cool to me.
So besides all the freakin' drama of trying to plan the holiday get-togethers and rsvp-ing to numerous Christmas parties, I am excited to NOT have to go anywhere this Christmas Eve because we already celebrated with my in-laws because of some scheduling conflicts or whatever. And I'm also excited to not have to be anywhere Christmas Day until like 4pm. No rushing, the kids can enjoy their new stuff and we can take our time getting over to my mom's. And another thing I got excited about is...this year (having TWO children) I am trying to teach each child to think about the REAL reason for the season in that yes, it's Jesus' birth but also to learn that tis better to give than to receive. So lastnight I make my 14 year old stepdaughter get rid of some clothes. So this girl has 3 dressers and a closet and she has to STUFF the clothes in and push and shove and pull to open or close the drawers! SO MANY CLOTHES IT'S RIDICULOUS! Anyway, she's mad because I'm making her get rid of some and she's actually sitting in a heaping pile of sweaters pouting and there are like multiple colors of sweaters and multiple sweaters in different colors and she's tore up about it. She's looking depressed like I have to choose?!Really?! And I say "you are trying to decide which grey sweater to keep out of these FOUR and some people have ZERO." She looked at me and I'm pretty sure it clicked for her. Now if I could just get my 4 year old's brain to click, that would be great.
Anywho, while putting all the ornaments on the tree, I am reminded, one by one, where I got them, the story behind them and so on. There is one imparticular that stood out to me this year. And here's the story: my Granny used to by the grandkids an ornament every year that she picked out individually, special for each of us. Well, this one year, I got the dumbest, stupidest dog holding valentines ornament. And Granny so nicely said, "There's no special reason for that one Jenna, I just couldn't find what I wanted and didn't want to go to another store." Wow. Gee. Thanks. I. Feel. Special. So later, my sister and I were talking and I was saying how flippin' dumb my ornament was and how I was really kinda hurt by the whole thing because I saw all the other grandkids' and they made sense to them and were perfect for each of them. But mine was just a side thought and I just wasn't feelin' the love. So anyway, I guess Granny overheard us talking because a few weeks later she gave me another ornament...an angel holding a book and it said "a reader." Ok. Good. That's me. And I felt better. Since Christmas was over at that point, I hung the angel in my car. Well, years later, my husband would get in an accident in that car and the angel went to the junkyard with the car...oops.
So, yesterday was our annual Baking Day. We made like almost 30 dozen cookies or something crazy like that. We made so many that my mom was limping around and her back was going out. I was on my feet all day and needed a massage. We made cookies from 11 am-5 pm and only MY kind didn't turn out. I found this cute recipe in a magazine for Giant Kisses. You wrap dough around a hershey kiss and then wrap each cookie in foil and looked very cute. Yeah, they didn't hold their shape and collapsed so, that was the end of those...oh, and they weren't too good either. So we have like 18 dozen of the famous candy cane cookies (that family members sometimes actually BUY), 6 dozen chocolate chip, 3 dozen sugar, 2 dozen snickerdoodles, 2 dozen peanut butter cup and a dozen white chocolate macadamia nut. But we didn't YIELD that many dozens because HELLO, we ate some. DUH.
So, my shopping is done (but not the wrapping honey, hint hint) but I still need to make Brian his ornament. Every year my husband and I homemake an ornament for eachother. The ornament usually reflects something that happened that year or something significant at the time. I would tell you now what I'm doing but Brian might read this and I can't ruin the surprise :) I will say that our tree is awesome with its orange and white lights (thanks to my 4 year old son picking them out) but also, I LOVE that there are no generic ornaments on our tree this year. Finally we have enough ornaments that the generic ones aren't needed. That's so cool to me.
So besides all the freakin' drama of trying to plan the holiday get-togethers and rsvp-ing to numerous Christmas parties, I am excited to NOT have to go anywhere this Christmas Eve because we already celebrated with my in-laws because of some scheduling conflicts or whatever. And I'm also excited to not have to be anywhere Christmas Day until like 4pm. No rushing, the kids can enjoy their new stuff and we can take our time getting over to my mom's. And another thing I got excited about is...this year (having TWO children) I am trying to teach each child to think about the REAL reason for the season in that yes, it's Jesus' birth but also to learn that tis better to give than to receive. So lastnight I make my 14 year old stepdaughter get rid of some clothes. So this girl has 3 dressers and a closet and she has to STUFF the clothes in and push and shove and pull to open or close the drawers! SO MANY CLOTHES IT'S RIDICULOUS! Anyway, she's mad because I'm making her get rid of some and she's actually sitting in a heaping pile of sweaters pouting and there are like multiple colors of sweaters and multiple sweaters in different colors and she's tore up about it. She's looking depressed like I have to choose?!Really?! And I say "you are trying to decide which grey sweater to keep out of these FOUR and some people have ZERO." She looked at me and I'm pretty sure it clicked for her. Now if I could just get my 4 year old's brain to click, that would be great.
good luck with that.... it may be another 10 years at least for will :) i know.... i'm such an encourager :)
ReplyDeleteyou forgot to mention I helped bake dammit;)
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