The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year--Really?

Well, here it is, that time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Time for shopping, cooking, shopping, hanging lights and decorations, shopping, cooking, shopping, seeing family, and shopping. I have found, in the last couple of years, that I hate going to malls and stores during this time of year. Parking half a mile away from the stores, fighting the angry mobs looking for that perfect Transformer gift, standing in endless lines. I began doing most if not all of my Christmas shopping online. Most of the time I can get a good deal on shipping, rarely have to pay taxes, and best of all, no stores, no crowds, no parking. It is all delivered right to my door. Now, I do have to go home before picking up the kiddos from day care, just to be sure that none of the gifts are delivered in boxes with pictures of the contents. That did happen one year, busted.

We decided that both sides of the family will be getting family photos we had taken this year. I am framing them and crocheting some nice angels and hearts in thread to put in them. I will be framing the 5x7 pictures in an 8x11 frame, matted and with the angels and hearts in opposite corners. I hope it will look nice. I used some free patterns I found online, since I have not found myself to be particularly gifted in the area of writing my own patterns. I will just be lucky to get all these angels and hearts crocheted...I started a bikini for my niece a couple of years ago, finally ditching the pattern and trying to get it together myself. I did get the suit all crocheted, but then couldn'd figure out how to sew in a lining, so that one got scrapped as well. I have a ton of partially completed projects laying around in the project graveyard that is my dining room.

So, as part of the holiday season, and having small children in the house, we hang up the decorations inside and out. Now, I am not one to coordinate everything in the house from the kitchen to the bathrooms. We have a few decorations we put out and we put up the tree. The fun part, the exterior of the home. Last year we did not put up the lights on the house, or in the bushes. My nephews had a friend who was putting up his lights and fell off the roof of his two story house. This 19 year old young man was paralyzed from the waist down. So, after all that we really did not have the want to put up the lights. This year, however, my kids are having none of the darkness outside, they want bright and shiny and twinkling lights everywhere. So we start to pull the lights that have been hibernating since Christmas before last and try to untangle them all. Of course, most of the bulbs won't come on. So, between shocks and small cuts from broken bulbs we try to figure out which bulbs need replacing and which ones are just not coming on because of the break in current. We have not really figured out an easy way to do this. Now, my husband is not really known for his patience in these matters, so he opted to just buy more lights. Fine by me. Of course, we get home and half the lights we bought are the multi-colored and half were clear. We are now about halfway through hanging everything outside, hope to be done tonight. My Christmas shopping is just about done, gift cards to be delivered to my mailbox. Then all that is left is wrapping and cooking and all will be well.

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!