12 days of Christmas

I have had a little trouble this year getting into the season. I think it may have something to do with me not working, which sounds a little crazy. But at work, we always talked about our favorite Christmas memories and our Christmas plans and what our gift purchases had been. We also gave each other advice on gift choices or ideas on where to find something for that difficult person on your list. And of course there is the office gift exchange. Which by the way is one of my favorite episodes of the real "Office". You know the one where they set up a gift exchange and set a $20 limit and then Michael goes and buys an ipod for his gift? Hilarious. Then he gets mad when he gets some cheesy throw away gift. But I digress... Anyway, at our office exchange we set a limit and then drew names. A gift request list would go up and for weeks we would debate on what to put on that list. Of course when the big day arrived, there was always much festivities with great food and great fun. I miss that about our office. This year I am in a constant mode of feeling not good enough. Christmas cards this year were not good enough. Teachers gifts were not good enough. Christmas decorating was not good enough. Christmas outfits for the girls were not good enough. Sigh. The struggle of a perfectionist.

I watched something today that took me out of my perfectionistic funk. It made me laugh, it made me want to listen to Christmas music and bake my pumpkin bread. I want to share this gem with you just in case you are needing a little more of that elusive Christmas spirit that everyone talks about. Go on, I dare you not to smile....

Thanks for the reminder!

Tonight the goal was to finish (or start) decorating the Christmas tree and mantle. This would be a huge accomplishment because the tree has been in the middle of the living room for the past 6 days. Just standing there naked. Apparently last year our pesky cat must have chewed through a wire or two and half of our lights on our pre-lit tree are inoperable. We tried replacing fuses and bulbs and finally just decided to rig the thing by putting new strands of lights over and on top of the non working pre-lit lights. Now when you look at the tree, there are lots of lights at the top and bottom and somehow the middle just looks, well, sparse. Perfectionist that I am, I could have spent another week trying to fix the lights, but the kids were SO excited and anxious to decorate the tree that I finally just threw up some ribbon and told them to go for it. As I was silently fuming about the lights and watching them argue over ornaments, a song came on our holiday music station - Away in a manger, one of my all time favorite Christmas hymns. Coincidentally, both girls are learning all 4 verses of this song for our church Christmas program next week. As soon as they heard it start, they stopped bickering and started singing away. There is absolutely nothing to put you in the right frame of Christmas than listening to two little girls sing, "Be near me Lord Jesus, I ask thee to stay, close by me forever and love me I pray. Bless all the dear children in thy tender care and take us to heaven, to live with Thee there." It seriously brought tears to my eyes. Lights, what lights? I am so thankful for the reminder sent straight from God about what is important about this time of year. I hope to keep that lesson close at heart as this month gets more and more crazy! Besides, I was pretty pleased with the end result - funky lights and all!

fishing for a birthday present

I cheated this year and bought myself an early birthday present - my new Canon digital Rebel SLR camera. I LOVE this camera and have had so much fun learning all of the different settings and things you can do with a SLR compared to a point and shoot. The only downside of this present is that I convinced my wonderful, generous, hubby that even though I bought it in October, it would count for my birthday and Christmas presents this year. The problem is that I love getting gifts! (Let's be honest - who doesn't?) I was trying to prepare myself for a birthday with no gifts when my good friend from college suddenly posted a giveaway on her blog. A giveaway of a DVD set of a show that I happen to love - Pushing Daisies! The giveaway is on Friday (my b-day) and I increase my chances by linking to her blog. Even without the giveaway, her blog is super entertaining. She is a very witty girl with some hilarious stories about her 3 year old. Here's hoping I win my own birthday present to solve my no-presents-on-my-birthday-this-year dilemma!