It's beginning to sound a lot like Christmas

I'm still blogging my trip over at an audience of me and posting photos on flickr.

If you've got a hankering for some Christmas tunes, check out this little project my son's friends put together for the holidays. It'll make you smile! Bunch of talented kids, they are. I can't swear to it, but I'd imagine all the instrumentation is original, nothing canned. A little traditional stuff, a little funky stuff (I Saw Three Ships like you've never heard it, maybe!). Ryan's friend Kristin does an absolutely gorgeous O Come, O Come Emmanuel, too.

Ryan sings number 4 -- You Gotta Get Up, a cover of a Rich Mullins song, also recorded by the immortal Five Iron Frenzy. (Well, I guess logically Rich Mullins is the immortal one now, may he rest in peace!) We used to pull out the Mullins recording to wake the kids up on Christmas morning. (YES ... we had to wake the kids up. We are a bunch of undying night owls in this family, even as little children.) I can almost picture Ryan's three or four-year-old wonder at Christmastime when I listen to him sing here.

Oh, how they grow

It amazes me to realize this is the fourth year I've blogged on the birthday of my baby girl, who is not so much a baby any more. I just broke my middle child's heart, though, by commenting that I haven't been so faithful about blogging on her birthday. In typical middle child fashion, she hung her head and slunk into her room, then giggled. Then I reminded her she gets a national holiday and a three day weekend around her b-day every year. Blog schmog. Of course, then the younger daughter announced she gets a whole summer vacation.

For her birthday this year, we plan to remove the sign we put up over the window last year. Every now and then we notice it and comment, "We should probably take that sign down sometime. Naw, maybe next year after Kristen's birthday. Why waste a good sign?"

So, here she is, my blue-eyed beauty, another year older, another year bolder, eating our national family food, fresh pineapple, and sporting a hairdo of her own making. I told her when she's 16 or 17 and going to prom, her friends are going to hate her for that curly hair. Let's hear it for the girl.

Sorry for the photo quality. I'm loving taking pics with my cell phone and sending them right to my inbox and have gotten quite lazy.

Here we come a-yelling?

Kristen and I were out doing some holiday errands and stopped for hamburgers at the Burger King drive-through. While we were there, an incident happened that reminded me not only of who we are, and who we are to be, but also that it's better to go postal vicariously through other people.

The lady ahead of us had great difficulty placing her order. She repeated the whole thing several times, and the poor employee kept getting it wrong. The last time he repeated it back to her, the lady simply yelled at the top of her lungs, "TWO NUMBER ONES!!!!" (and although she didn't say it, you could hear the rest of it in her voice, "... you $%#$ %$%*@!!"

To his credit, the employee replied calmly. "Okay, two number ones, and what drink would you like with the second one?" And amazingly, she answered him calmly.

I have to say that after she yelled, I laughed my head off. She really didn't sound like she was about to go to the window and do anything violent, she was just fed up--not only with the BK employee, but with holiday stress in general. It was her moment to let it all go. (I hope, but then again, perhaps this is her usual M.O.)

In the long run, it was not only a release for her, but for me, too, and it reminded me of how hard it is to keep your cool during this time of year. We are supposed to be thinking about peace and love and all the good stuff, but instead are running around like headless chickens trying to get everything finished. It all seems so critical in the days leading up to Christmas, but so unimportant when it's all over.

In these last few days of the season, temember who you are to be, and let someone else do the yelling.

Here we come a-wassailing
Among the leaves so green,
Here we come a-wand'ring
So fair to be seen.
Love and joy come to you,
And to you your wassail, too,
And God bless you, and send you
A Happy New Year,
And God send you a Happy New Year.

We are not daily beggers
That beg from door to door,
But we are neighbors' children
Whom you have seen before
Love and joy come to you,
And to you your wassail, too,
And God bless you, and send you
A Happy New Year,
And God send you a Happy New Year.

Good master and good mistress,
As you sit beside the fire,
Pray think of us poor children
Who wander in the mire.
Love and joy come to you,
And to you your wassail, too,
And God bless you, and send you
A Happy New Year,
And God send you a Happy New Year

Drowning in Christmas Stuff

EDIT: I removed the image I had on this post. Quite by accident, I figured out a way to increase your blog traffic in amazing numbers, but it's not necessarily the way I wanted to increase it. :-) Just imagine a cozy Christmas scene with stockings hung by the chimney with care, a purdy decorated tree, and lots and lots of other "Christmas stuff."

I've come to the conclusion that I simply have too much "stuff" for Christmas decorating. I used to really look forward to it, and would spend a few days cleaning up the house good, then put the decorations out, and even then I got a little carried away at times. Let's just say one tree has never been enough, shall we?

So, the last few years, Todd gets the boxes down from the attic, and the stuff sits. And sits. And sits. I had grand plans this year to start early, get a box or two at a time down, sort through it, get RID of the "too much stuff" stuff, and it would be easy as pie, right?

Then I got sick, and now it's December 10, and I'm back to the "too much stuff" thing. When I'm out shopping, the shiny, glittery "new stuff" calls me, but mostly, I've resisted this year.

Well, except for that rug. And ... those Christmas tree skirts. (Which now join the two I bought on clearance last year that I totally forgot about until I opened the boxes of too much stuff.) I'm having to give away skirts, and this is the first time ever it's not because I lost or gained weight. (Although that's a story for another day.)

But, yeah, too much Christmas stuff, and thus, a flagging Christmas spirit.

Something's not quite right, don't you think? I'd venture to say it's more than just me with a "too much stuff" problem at Christmas these days.

Let us pause...

...to commemorate two momentous happenings.

1) It's Thanksgiving weekend, and I did not had a single bite of turkey for the first time ever in my whole entire life. We had a sumptuous garlic encrusted pork loin at my FIL's on the actual Turkey day. We actually bought a turkey to make today, but got lazy and stuck it back in the freezer last night (it wasn't at all thawed anyway) and heated up a ham instead. At the last minute, though, I started acting like a mom whose son was home from college for his first Thanksgiving, and we pulled out the ingredients we thought we might stash away for a traditional turkey dinner at Christmas. We made green bean casserole (Todd's dad's favorite. Or not.), creamed corn, smashed potatoes, fruit salad, rolls, and last, but certainly not least, Todd's creation--pumpkin cheesecake. My mom commented that it tasted just like Cheesecake Factory's, and Todd and I exclaimed, a little sarcastically, "How crazy!" It was, in fact, their recipe.

2) We have a Christmas tree up and decorated the Saturday following Thansgiving for the first time in about six or seven years. It's not the "real" tree--the one with crazy colored lights and ornaments handmade since age two by everyone in the household--that one will follow in a couple of weeks so it's not too dry by the 25th. No, this is the fancy schmancy one that gets to shine in the front window with white twinkly lights for passersby to admire and say "ooh! aah!" as they wistfully stare and wish they had theirs up already. Okay, so we finally finished at 12:30 a.m., but it is done. (And besides, when did we ever do anything early in the day?) I told Todd that this is what happens when I'm not stressed out and I'm doing the work I love. :-)

Ha. You thought I was going to say, ""Let us pause to give thanks," or something cheezy like that, huh?

(But yeah, let us. We have a lot to be thankful for.)

And another thing

Happy...um...69th Birthday, Dad! Wow, that's a lot of years. It's been 19 since the one when I called you up at 6 a.m. to tell you you qualified for AARP. Where have they gone?

The Holiday rocked the start of MY holiday season

Oh, bah humbug, Chris Kelly.

I saw it in sneak preview last weekend, and I loved it. (And so did the other five people with me, or so they say...well, the guys didn't exactly say "love" but they seemed to enjoy it quite well.) So there. I don't think it was meant to be any kind of overly intellectual endeavor, so pass the eggnog and enjoy a fun holiday love story, dude!

I've never even jumped on the Jude Law bandwagon until this movie, but now I have a bad celebrity crush. :) (Love ya, Todd, honey, darlin', sweetie pie...)