Five more days until Christmas. My kids have been reminding me everyday. For the first time, I bought each of them an advent calendar. I saw them in Michael's and grabbed them as I was standing in the check-out line. Then, to my utter embarrassment, I had to explain to my 11-year-old what they were and how to use them. It's a pretty sad statement about the mother I've been. I always loved advent calendars when I was a kid. We had one every year. I hardly see them in stores anymore. I guess I don't really know where to look. Now I know that Michael's carries them.
The advent calendars have been one small thing that has brightened our season. I sneaked off to town one afternoon with the girls to buy a tree. Beaver Bark had real reindeer in a pen in their parking lot, so the girls got to pet them. That was pretty cool. We bought a live tree again this year. Last years made it until spring then died. We are going to try it one more time. My hope was to have the tree home and decorated before Nathan came home from work, but we were late, so I only beat him home by a few minutes. The kids decorated the tree by themselves. I sat by the box and handed out ornaments. It took some self-control on my part, but I did not hang a single ornament. Usually, I'm front and center telling everyone how to decorate the tree. I decided that wasn't the best approach. There is a drastic difference between my tree and the beautifully decorated ones in the stores. Mostly that's because mine has lots of mismatched homemade ornaments, but I really like our little tree. It's small enough to fit in our little house.
Now that I am enjoying the holidays again, I decided to send Christmas cards. It has been a catastrophe. My addresses are all out-of-date. I bought a pile of cards with photo inserts at Michael's last year 90% off. Now I know why they were on sale. The frame is too small for a 4x6 photo, so it cuts off part of the kids' faces. I never could get Nathan to sit down and do a family photo, so this year everyone is just getting a picture of the kids. The cards are basically a disaster, but at least they are going out. No letter, though. Seriously, I couldn't think of enough happy things to say. Maybe next year?
