Ho! Ho! Ho!

Has it really been nearly a month? It has flown by. I have been so busy that many days I didn't know if I was coming or going.

The stockings are hung. No mantle here, this has been their home every Christmas since our oldest was born in 1987. They are kind of a mishmash, now. A family friend made beautiful embroidered ones for our first four kids, but then stopped doing them after she retired and moved away. I made new ones out of fabric that fit each child's personality, but some of those have gone AWOL. A friend made stockings for all the kids one year and their gift from them was in it. This year a couple of each adorn our railing.
The decorations are on display. I love this little fiber optic tree. The penguin I bought a few years ago, it sings "Baby, It's Cold Outside" (I love that song) and there is an echo that is sung by a baby penguin that pops up. The snowmen were given to me by a friend last year. Ruthie loves these and one space or the other is often empty as she takes them down to play with them.

The cookies are all baked. 8 kinds this year (2-4 batches of each), plus homemade marshmallows for hot chocolate. I'm often scrambling at the end to finish them, but this year I started late Thursday morning and finished Saturday by dinner time. I still don't know how I got them done in that amount of time.

The tree has been bought and decorated. We get a real tree each year. Sometimes we cut them down, but lately it has been more economical, both in time and money, to get an already cut tree. The kids have all bought their gifts for one another (and for us) and have them wrapped and waiting under the tree.

Our gifts to them are still hidden in our closet. Though we don't have any Santa believers anymore, the gifts still won't go under the tree until they are all in bed Christmas Eve night.

I was in charge of the Christmas Eve program at church this year and it turned out to be quite a task. It is a 3 part play (which I wrote) with Christmas carols sung between acts by all in attendance (led by a team) while the scenery changes behind a curtain. All is in place for this and I'm surprisingly calm about it all.

Yesterday I made my lists of things that need to be done each day. Today I had a sheet of directions to type up for my curtain guys, who will be raising and lowing a curtain in front of the platform. My goal today was to do as little as possible having a family of 8 and I succeeded nicely, LOL. A load of laundry, my curtain guy directions, a couple of sink loads of dishes and some general picking up. Mostly, I quilted :)

The flying geese have come out of hiding and got all of my attention today. I want to also get back to the posies and celtic, but that will wait until Christmas is over and I can give it my full attention. Hand quilting is perfect relaxing work and that is what I did today. I'm looking forward to getting back to my quilting challenge.

And, Miss Ruth. We occasionally find her sitting or laying on the back of the couch, this time it was on the arm. She got off before I could get back with the camera, but happily climbed back on when I said I wanted to take her picture. Last year she was rather out of sorts on Christmas, perhaps just overwhelmed. I don't think she really gets it, but loves all the "pretty" around the house and she knows what to do with presents, I'm sure she'll have a wonderful time.

I don't know who is more excited for the day to come and for what reasons. The kids are more excited about what they picked out for each other, I think, than opening their own gifts. We are all looking forward to Christmas dinner, which we get to have twice, because our oldest daughter and her boyfriend will be with his family on Christmas. We'll do a repeat of Christmas dinner on Sunday and exchange our gifts with them.

I look forward to each of the next several days, and hate for it all to go too quickly, though I will surely enjoy next week, with NOTHING that needs to be done!

For now, I don't want to wish away all the fun and excitement of the next 6 days and wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Healthy, Prosperous, Blessed New Year!

Sue