Christmas, is it over already?

A person spends over a month, if not more, baking, shopping, decorating for one day and then BOOM!! it is over in a blink of an eye.
We had a great Christmas this year. We were well prepared and had most of our shopping done by the first week in December. We still went out shopping lots but most days we didn't need to buy anything extra.
I was lucky enough to have holidays from work on the 20, 21 and 22. The kids last day from school was on the 22. It was very nice to have some day to myself. On the 20th, I spent the day visiting with friends which was really nice. On the Thursday, I cleaned house and did some baking. On the Friday, Shorty stayed home from school in the morning and then he and I went and picked up Boo and I took them to Burger King for lunch. Boo was worried because a lot of her friends bought her presents and she thought she had more time to do her shopping, so I took her out of school for the afternoon and we went shopping so she could buy her presents.
On the Saturday, Cor and I spent a lot of time shopping for groceries and odds and ends that we needed for Christmas supper. And then before I knew it, it was Christmas Eve. We spent the day cleaning house and boy did our house look clean. For the most part, we keep the place tidy but there always seems to be one or two rooms that we don't get to. Not this day! Excluding children's bedrooms, our house was clean from top to bottem.
Christmas Eve supper was of course at my mom and dads. There were 20 people there, from uncles to cousins that I don't see but once a year, to Cor's dad and my parents neighbour. It was enjoyable, but I was sure glad to come home at the end of the night. Then the having to wait until you are sure the kids are asleep before you bring out all the presents and stocking stuffers. We still didn't make it to bed until midnight.
Then it is up at the crack of dawn because Shorty is too excited to stay in bed. 6:15am and we are sitting on the couch drinking coffee while the kids open up all of their stocking stuffers. 7:00am and it is all over except for throwing all the wrapping paper away.
This year I had made up an excel file for the kids to add their Christmas wishes to whenever they thought of something. Each of them wanted one big thing and this year, we were able to get them what they wanted. Kat got a digital camera, Boo got a Nintendo DS and Shorty got a t.v. for his room. They were all tickled with their presents and had nothing to complain about at the end of the day.
I cooked Christmas supper for my parents and Cor's dad and it was a very laid back affair, with everyone in sweats and comfy clothes. Below you will see pics of everyone and of the tree the night before Christmas.
This is Christmas morning after all the presents were opened, breakfast eaten and the relaxing taking place before our parents showed up.

This is of course our Christmas tree. We bought a new one this year and are very happy with it. It seems like there are lots of presents under it, but we had to take some out when we went to my parents house for supper.
This is the present that Cor and I asked Santa for. Our parents went in together and got it for us. It is not staying in that spot, we plan to move it downstairs to our family room after Cor gets the flooring laid. We bought laminate to replace the really gross carpet that is down there.

This is Kat with her new digital camera. She has already burned out one set of batteries using the thing.

I actually had more pictures uploaded, but it never seems to work out for me. I guess I will have to add another post so that I can include the other two kids!

Christmas Outside Lights

Hello there,

I know, I know, it has been a very long time since I have posted. I can't believe it has been over a month since I last wrote anything. Where has the time gone?? I always think I am going to have time to post and then one thing leads to another and the day is gone.

By looking at the picture you can see how much snow we have already. Isn't that amazing? They said on the radio this morning that we haven't had this much snow at this time of the year in 60 years. I can believe it. The snow plows and city workers are putting in many long hours trying to get our city streets cleaned off.

I have been a busy girl. Between working at the clinic (40 hours a week), volunteering on the community association, selling my Epicure spices,scrapbooking and trying to get ready for Christmas, I am amazed that I haven't short circuited.

Work is going very well. We are in the busy season again, well at least for me. My list of clients that I schedule appointments for on a monthly basis is up to over 100 again. Last Wednesday I went to a course that was called "Managing your Emotions in the Work Place" It was a good course and I did learn quite a bit. The instructor was very knowledgable and had some very good tips and tricks on how to keep your emotions in check, from being angry, upset or snotty or rude. I am not normally the last 2 but the first 2 are sometimes a bit of an issue. But I am learning to be more patient and with that comes more calmness and the ability to let things go a lot easier. The really good news is that my Christmas holidays were approved. Since I got last year what I wanted, I had to give a bit, so I asked for the 20-22 off, which gives me a full 7 days off :) teehee, I am really looking forward to it, since the kids will still be in school when I am holidays, I will actually have 6 hours a day to myself!!

The community association is all right. We were supposed to have a craft/book fair in November that went bust when we couldn't get all the tables rented. Then we were thinking of doing a Breakfast with Santa but that fell through because we didn't get organized in time to do it. I just finished putting the newsletter to bed (wonderful newpaper jargon :) and it is now at the printers. It should be ready by the end of this week. If you would like to see it, I would be happy to email you the pdf format.

I am still selling my spices. Tomorrow night I have a fairly large party booked. It is going to be held at a school. My friend is the food coordinator at a school nearby and the people at the school have agreed to let her do this party since she uses a lot of the spices in her cooking. My goal is to have a $1000.00 party which would give me a good chunk of change to do the little bit of Christmas shopping I have left.

Tonight was to be my last scrapbooking class of the year. Unfortunately, I had to miss it so that I could get ready for my party tomorrow night. I am almost done getting ready, just have to get everything put in one place so it is easy to pack up and go tomorrow. I am still doing lots of scrapbooking and I have even branched into making cards. Card making is a great way to do a craft when you don't feel motivated enough to do a scrapbooking page. I should try and take a picture of a page and see if I can upload it to this site.

As for Christmas, I think I am getting close to being ready. We are almost done shopping for everyone and we were smart this year and wrapped most gifts as soon as they came into the house. The gifts are not labled this year, instead we put a little sticker in each corner that is numbered. On my palm pilot, I have the list of who gets each numbered package and what it is. This way no one my sweet, darling children are not able to snoop like they have done in the past. It will be wonderful for them to actually be surprised on Christmas morning.

I think I will do some holiday baking this year. It is not something that I normally enjoy doing but Boo loves to bake and I want to do some baking with her.

Well, that is my life right now in a nutshell. Not all that exciting but it is a busy one.