December Freak Out

Why is everything in December?

My daughter's birthday (that's my fault, I could have planned better) and I threw her first big birthday party.  Why did I choose to do that?  She was turning 3 and she won't remember it.  It was fun.  It was a breakfast party and it was over by 12:30.  We tried to catch the Muppets at the theatre because Baby Sagittarius loves muppets; at least I thought she did.  The Toy Story short film "Small Fry" threw her off.  She was expecting more Toy Story and instead she got the first 10 minutes of people singing and dancing.  I understand, she wanted a lot more muppet action.  Instead of testing how long she'd "be cool" we decided to get a refund and go out to an early dinner.  I was totally wiped by the time we got home.  Not a bad day.

Tamales.  I love to eat them but not necessarily make them.  It's a lot of work.  If someone is so kind as to gift them to you, they must really, really love you.  7am - 7pm.....12 hours of work and no, I didn't want to eat a tamale when they were done.  I didn't want to look at them or smell them.  Nope, no, niet.  Mechanic Hubby brought me a whopper and it was a Christmas miracle.

Post office. This I didn't mind so much.  The day I went to the post office was actually a very great day spent with my sister.  It didn't start that way.  I have a crazy imagination.  When someone sets a time to meet and they don't show up (I give about 1/2 leeway) I start to worry.  I called my sister and she didn't answer.  So instead of just thinking, "She must be asleep," because that's pretty much her favorite hobby, I think she's in some horrific crash and is unable to answer her phone.  Needless to say, the worrying was unnecessary and yes, she was sleeping in.  Silly me.  We had a great lunch, went and finished up our Christmas shopping and went to the post office the Thursday before Christmas and my package got there on time. 

Christmas Eve. First off, my Gramma said I was dressed very nicely.  She felt under-dressed because she was lounging in her sweats.  I assured her that I wished I was wearing sweats.  Why did I dress up?  Anyway, I made chicken alfredo and penne in tomato meat sauce.  My sister made a salad and we ate...and ate.  We had a cookie decorating contest and we quickly found out that we stink at cookie decorating.  We decided to forgo the whole staying up until midnight tradition because we had to be at church early the next morning.  We all received some great gifts and the night was wrapped up by 9:30.  Pretty sweet.

Christmas Day.  Got up early, got ready, went to church.  It was only an hour long and I'm so glad we went.  One of the members of our congregation sang a song called, "Mary Let Me Hold Her Baby."  It's basically about a woman who can't have children but she was allowed to hold the Savior a short time.  The blind lady who sang isn't particularly the best singer, but the lyrics were moving; as she identifies with the woman in the song.  It was a treasure to hear.  This particular verse was so true: 

Those like me 

who can't have children 

Still can be mothers
Something in His eyes 

convinced me
I could serve so many others

We had everyone over, opened gifts and ate a great Christmas supper.  As much as I enjoy the holiday season, it's definitely more for kids because if I had to wrap one more gift (which I think is counter productive because you're basically wrapping future garbage around the nice gift) I think I'd go crazy!

And yet, there's still one more holiday.  New Year's Eve.  We're going to make pizza in the beehive oven outside, exchange white elephant gifts (darn it, one more thing to wrap), maybe hook up the XBOX Kinect outside, release some floating lanterns (like in Tangled!) and stay up to ring in the new year.  It's going to be so fun!