It's Here...

So yesterday was the day Chris promised me we would start celebrating the Christmas season. It has taken a whole lot to wait until now. In high school, my dear friends and I actually had a private Christmas countdown club. Complete with shirts declaring the number of days left until Christmas. It's not that I like getting gifts, although that's nice. It's not the fact that I like giving gifts, although that's really special. It's truly just everything about the season that gets me. The music, the colors, the twinkle, the excitement. I just love it.

But everyone understands that everything takes longer with a little munchkin underfoot. And I am a planner. Like, make a schedule for my day off for each hour so that I accomplish the absolute most that I can kind of planner. And this truly makes me happy. But I won't bore you with the list of items that I put on our to-do list for yesterday, but let me just tell you, it was jam packed with antipicated holiday kick-off activities.





Starting with hanging the Christmas lights. This is my favorite. Even though I truly have nothing to do with it except for cheering on the valient accomplishments of my dear hubby and keeping the little elf out of the way, it's my favorite.







And then this momma planned some fun for the afternoon, but first bath time.










Next on our list, a visit to the most Christmas-y place Kansas Citians know...Crown Center.





Ellie was excited.



And pretty much ran on full throttle the entire time.



























So, when it was all said and done, my scheduled Christmas day didn't accomplish everything on my list...I got the box of Christmas ornaments out of the basement, but they still sit, laid out on the floor in my front room. However, it was a fabulous kick off to the holidays. And we were back in time to admire my husband's handiwork, lighting up the night.

Yes, my friends, Christmas-time is here.

Thankful Today.

What are you thankful for? I can't tell you how many times I've been asked that in the past three days, or worse yet, asked my students. Yet how many other times during the year do I pause for a moment, and let my heart settle on the sole purpose of determining something, someone, some people in my life that I've been less than thankful for.

I heard a preacher today on my good old Christian radio station this morning talk about gratitude. "Gratitude is the ability to see life as a gift" he said. "It releases ourselves from the shackles of being self-consumed." If only we could take hold of the choice to choose our glasses for the day, picking up the rose colored ones instead of the spectacles of criticism. And the choir I preach to at the moment is my own heart.

My mom told me today that my blog takes pictures of the lovely things in my life. And it's true, this blog leaves out the part of my life where my house smells like onions and celery at the moment and Chris has told me to air out the house because it reeks through and through. Or the part that my bed is unmade with unmentionables strewn about the unvacuumed carpet, not from any sort of risque encounter, mind you, but because my puppy dog likes to drag them out of my overflowing dirty clothes hamper and hide them to where they are only found by my dear neighbors who I have to call from work and ask to let themselves in through the garage because I left Ellie's humidifier plugged in from the night before with no water in it and I'm afraid I'm going to burn my house down. Or the part where I take ten different pictures of myself and Ellie because in most of the pictures Ellie's grunting and grimacing and I look pregnant in the face rather than in the belly. Or the part that Elie's crying right now rather than napping even after I've already been in once to rock her and change a stinky diaper. But the point is, gratitude would be the ability to see life as a gift.



And so, my life is beautiful, even though I don't always choose to see it that way, or feel like it's even presentable, let along beautiful. But, truly, I am so very thankful for my life.

And so this is my preaching today.



So it must be the turkey still digesting from yesterday, but, yes, as you can tell, today is a deep thoughts day. And, yes, I am so very thankful.


And until I can get her to join in with an "Amen" to all the preaching I'm doing today, I'll just settle for the fact that seh was thankful for the Macy's Day parade on tv yesterday. Yes, she made sure to wave at each and every float that passed the screen.


And I"m not quite sure Chris was thankful for his task, but he was put in charge of filling bowls with cranberries for a game that this forever teacher planned for the festivities.


And this sister was thankful for her precious bun in the oven...get it???


But it wasn't long before she need to put up those pregnant feet so she got a sitting job, directing her husband in decorating my parent's memory tree. More to come on what this is, but she retold the stories for each ornament he hung.


And what was my dad thankful for?


A picture says a thousand words.


And so the preparations for the feast went...



And then the feasting, napping, hugging and playing...


































Yes, this is a Tickle-Me Elmo my mother bought herself several years ago when they were the "thing". Don't know why. It's just her deal. But it just might be Ellie's deal now...

She even tried to laugh like him. That was pretty cute.

But of course, as we've discussed before, I'm a little biased.


And sweet girl, I'm thankful for you. So thankful for the joy you bring. You are a little light in this world. Choose to be a light always, dear Ellie. Choose rose colored glasses to see the world in and shine.