Woman in the Middle

Christmas 2012 has come and gone, sort of! We still have a couple of families we need to see and exchange gifts with, so the festivities will linger a little bit longer, I am happy to say!

I have mentioned this before, but I don’t remember what I have blogged about. I really don’t. I wish I did, but my brain won’t cooperate! Towards the beginning of December I was looking back at what I wrote in December of last year and ran across a post about what I would do differently this year. There were two main things: buy larger boxes so I didn’t have to wrap each individual piece of clothing I bought my girls separately and leave the dog out longer first thing in the morning so she didn’t poop during present unwrapping. I have such lofty goals for myself, don’t I?

Well, I am happy to report that I took my year old suggestions from myself and bought bigger boxes, which worked out pretty well, Less wrapping! Yay! And the dog refrained from pooping in the house for the entire day on December 25th! Double yay!  Christmas Day was actually cold, which added to the Christmasy feel of the festivities. Our weather here can be absolutely anything on December 25th including pounding rain, hurricane force winds, or summer warmth, so having weather that actually matched the season was a nice change of pace.

Yesterday we made our traditional trek to visit friends in San Diego. As always we had a wonderful time visiting and catching up. One of their sons goes to UCLA and the UCLA football team is playing in the Holiday Bowl today in San Diego. So a bunch of his buddies came by to spend the night and attend the big game. It was amusing to see all of those college boys traipsing through the house, and my girls liked it too!

Today I have already started trying to clean up the mess from Christmas and bring order to the chaos. I think that may take more than one day! But it is all good. Christmas chaos is the best kind! I hope your Christmas went well and I wish you your own opportunity to bring order out of chaos!

I know it is Christmas time because….

I still have a boat load of cookies in my kitchen from the cookie exchange we went to. I normally try to keep those evil little suckers out of my house but it is Christmas, when the lion is supposed to lay down with the lamb and we are supposed to make amends with our enemies. Take my word for it,  I am REALLY trying to befriend this batch.

A real tree has taken up residence in my living room. It is slowing turning into a dry fire hazard and hey, nothing says “Happy Holidays” like having a fire hazard in my living room!

The wind started up again early this morning and it is really blowing. In inland Southern California, it isn’t December unless you have to chase your outside Christmas decorations down the street a half-dozen times before December 25^th.

As sure as I know that the sun will come out tomorrow, I also know that a Christmas card will arrive in my mail box tomorrow or Saturday from someone I didn’t send one to, and I will not have enough time to get one to them by December 25^th.  It is great to have traditions this time of year and this is one of mine.