Oh my gosh, it’s been a while! We had a great trip!!!

Are you ready for Christmas? I just finished up wrapping the gifts, and the stockings are done. We are going to Greg’s parents tomorrow night, and will spend the night. Before that we have a visit with some neighbors, and a service at our church. I’ll be singing with our cantata choir a couple of the songs we did last night at the cantata. It’s been so busy, and Greg’s been sick since yesterday with the flu. My throat is raw and scratchy, and I’m exhausted. Remembered I forgot to pick something up for one of our neighbors (he’s elderly and very lonely, and I always make it a point to remember him. So I’m trying to decide if it’s worth running into town or not.

I love Christmas, but I find it so easy to lose perspective. It’s rather complicated, you see, because generally Christmas is spent with Greg’s family. They all have more money than we do, and they’re all the type of people that you wonder what to get for them because they already have everything. If it were my family, I know how much fun we’d have whether we gave big or little or no gifts. So that part of Christmas I don’t like. I do like buying for my own family, cause I just KNOW they will like what I get them. And Greg doesn’t know his own family well enough to be much help, so each year I stress through the gift-buying for his side, and have a grand time for the gift-buying for my side.

I didn’t do a lot of baking this year. We don’t eat sweets like a lot of families do, so where we aren’t even having Christmas dinner here, I decided to forego too much baking. Was a good decision.

I would love to think that for Christmas next year, I will start early on in the year. Of course, I say every year that I’m going to start early. I suggested to Greg that perhaps we should write out a list in Jan. of who we need to buy for, and ideas, and then buy one or two gifts per month so that by the time Dec. rolls around, most of it will be done. And we’d just have our own family left (the boys and us, I mean). Wouldn’t that be nice??? *sigh*

Well, I am beat, and I have a HUGE list of things to accomplish tomorrow before our busy evening out, so I must go.

MERRY CHRISTMAS! And God bless us, every one!

We’re going on a trip. We’re leaving next Thursday. We’ve been planning it since March. See, I have this really AWESOME friend, Anita. We’ve known each other forever. Life has taken us away from each other many times, but somehow we always find our way back, and I think she’s just the greatest. I need to tell her some time how much I appreciate her. You see, I don’t have many friends. I’m outgoing enough, but only to a point. I have HUNDREDS of friends and acquaintances (our wedding was a testament to that!), but I don’t get close easy. And I joke a lot…it’s hard for me to reveal the deeper parts of myself, so I turn a lot of stuff into jokes. Even my husband gets annoyed with me for that, cause he’ll try and tell me how much he loves me, and how beautiful he thinks I am, and I always manage to turn those moments around, and they become an opportunity for slapstick comedy. Anyway, right now I feel like Anita is my best friend. And well, she got a good deal on a special cruise package in Jan. and in March she and Brad (her boyfriend, and another long-time friend of myself and dh) decided they wanted to go on it, but them not being married and all, needed some chaperones, so to speak, so we got asked (disclaimer: this is NOT why she’s my best friend!!!). It’s been somewhat stressful figuring out all the details, esp. when our driver recently quit on us, but I think it will work out ok. My boys are going to my dad’s (that is a miracle in itself for me! I cannot believe I’m doing so well with that whole situation…kinda proud of myself for growing up a bit) for the week, and I just know they will have a great time. We’ll be in Florida - Ft. Lauderdale to be specific - for two days; then on a cruise ship for two days, docking in the Bahamas; and then three days in Orlando. I am soooooo excited. I haven’t got a thing done for Christmas, what with trying to get all our pennies together for the trip, but hey, I’ll have ten days after I get back to do all that, and I mostly know what I want to get anyway…and we’re not doing anything big, really. I get too caught up in the must-get-big-ticket-items mentality, and that’s not what it’s about. So we’re having a much needed vacation from all the stress this fall has brought, and then we’ll be refreshed and ready to dive into the celebrations of the season. Oh, and I’ve even started packing already…