Checkin’ my list – Just like Santa!

OK SO, it’s Christmas eve eve…how did I do with my pre-Christmas plans?

  1. Trim the tree: Yup! I blogged about it here, discussing how my tree reflects my personality, philosophizing abounds
  2. Make new wreath: Yup! It’s not the one I wanted to make, but Logan wanted to do a gumdrop wreath instead. Photo coming tomorrow!
  3. Make new garland: Yup…but I’m not happy with it, so no photos for you. I must think about it some more! I DID, however, make some fabulous, contest winning  new ornaments!
  4. Make Christmas cookies: Yup! Would you like one? Cookies
  5. Make gingerbread houses: Nope, this didn’t happen – however, Logan did make a wonderful Lego creation and asked me to blog about it, so here it is, “Safe Island”:Safe-Island
  6. Watch The Grinch (original, none of this Jim Carrey stuff): Yup!
  7. Liam’s holiday concerts: Yup, but no pix
  8. Watch Rudolph: Yup!
  9. Trombone Christmas Carols: Yup! A cool tradition started by a longterm S CA trombone player who plays in the Redlands Symphony with my hubby, it’s a gathering of many trombone players to play Christmas carols outside his house, to the delight of guests and neighbors! Liam actually got to play along on some of them, a BIG step for this budding trombonist!Trombone-Christmas-09
  10. Christmas eve tradition, watch A Christmas Story: On track for tomorrow. I’ve even added “White Christmas” to our DVR so we can have a double feature, we’regoing to have cheese fondue for dinner and chocolate fondue for dessert – doesn’t that sound FABULOUS?

So, overall, I’m doing pretty well in the fun Christmas things. I’ve got a mound of presents to wrap, a bunch were sent out last week, and we’re baking a Buche de Noel tomorrow for Christmas dinner dessert.  This is the 3rd or 4th year when we haven’t gone to celebrate with my family in Massachusetts. When we lived in Chicago, Kentucky and Ohio, we were able to drive to my husbands hometown of Logansport, IN for Thanksgiving each year, then make the longer trek, still by car, to Bridgewater, MA and my family each Christmas. Our 1st couple of years in Cali we went to MA for Xmas via plane, but that meant leaving our dog in a kennel, lots of expensive, annoying travel, no real rest, and as the kids got older, it got harder and harder for all of us. It gets kinds of tough to get a bunch of new toys and 1 hour later 8 cousins are opening them all up and playing with them. I could go on a bit, but lets just say it was a very hard way to spend a wonderful holiday, after an exhausting semester, and we’d end up not being rested for the next semester.

So, I miss my family terribly during this holiday, but at the same time I love being our very own core unit, complete with a happy dog. But, I am really trying to make Christmas time in S CA with no snow, no family nearby as fun as it can be!

Now – to start wrapping!

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