Counting Down to Christmas Day!

Well, it's almost here and Christian is bouncing off the walls with anticipation. We've been counting the days off on the advent calendar since Dec. 1st but as it gets closer you can feel the excitement building. Grandma GoGo's gifts have all arrived and are under the tree. Their arrival took the excitement level up a notch or two. He only has a half day of school tomorrow. His school is having a holiday puppet show and then Shane and I are picking him up at noon.

All week long he has been doing all kinds of seasonal projects at school. They are all so cute and will be put away in the memory box.



After we pick him up tomorrow we'll be heading home to do our Christmas baking. Christian is very excited to help me decorate the gingerbread men and the sugar cookies. In addition to those cookies I'll also be baking snickerdoodles, thumbprint shortbreads with raspberry jam, Reese cup tarts, peanut blossoms with hershey kisses, rice krispy treats, coconut macaroons, chocolate fudge and maybe peppermint patties if I'm feeling adventurous. I love to bake for the holidays. It always gets me into the spirit of the season.

All my shopping is done -- only the wrapping left to do. Our spare bedroom looks a bit like Santa's workshop filled with shopping bags, boxes, rolls of gift wrap, bags of bows....

I'll blog more later about the baking and preparation over the weekend. Hope your holiday spirit is in full swing!!!

Kudos to Gordon

I think it's high time to pay some respect to our cat Gordon, especially after what he did last night. But, first, let me start by telling you that Gordon came to live with me about 12 years ago when I was single and living alone. I've described him as being the world's best house cat. Aside from the occasional hairball, he has never caused any harm. He has never clawed up a single piece of furniture -- the only thing he ever scratches is his scratching post -- and he barely sheds. He has the most docile temperment, even after we brought home that "little human creature" almost five years ago and threw a real wrench into his existence. He has adjusted and even grown quite fond of the little rugrat.

Well, this morning was much the same as always. I woke up around 6ish and groggily walked down the hallway toward the kitchen for my morning cup of coffee. It was still pretty dark at that time but I could clearly see Gordon laying at the end of the hallway stretched out on the floor and what looked like a small hairball laying close by. I walked past him, not really looking down, and went straight to the kitchen and grabbed the roll of paper towel and headed back to clean up the mess. I turned on the dining room light, turned around and imagine my surprise to find not a hairball but a small, dead mouse!!! Eeeeeeeek!!!! I immediately hollered for Shane because, although I don't flinch at cleaning up a hairball, there was no way on God's green earth I was touching that thing! Christian freaked out a bit at first, but only because he thought it was still alive. Shane had it "cleaned up" quickly. I have to tell you that Gordon was very proud of himself. As Shane put it, "even after 12 years of domesticated bliss, he still has that feline killer instinct!" He protected his family. Way to go Gordon. I'd much rather have a dead mouse to clean up than a live one living in my house somewhere. Give that kitty some catnip!

Lights on the Bay

On Saturday we went to visit Grandma and Grandad.

They live on Kent Island, not too far from Annanpolis right on the Chesapeake Bay. Every year they have a holiday light display at Sandy Point Park that you can drive through so we decided to check it out. As soon as it got dark we piled in the car and headed out. What an awesome surprise to pull up to the entrance and be greeted by none other than Santa Claus himself! Christian was thrilled.



He came right up to Christian's window and gave him a candy cane and reminded him to be a good boy and stay on Santa's "good list"!

It was hard to get really great pictures out of the car window and because there were lots folks driving through and we had to keep things moving along pretty quickly.

It was fun though so if you find yourselves near Annapolis, MD before the holidays I highly recommend it. Just the thing to help get you into that holiday spirit!

Real vs. Artificial - Which Do You Choose?

I don't know about you, but I have very fond childhood memories of picking out our Christmas tree every year. We NEVER had an artificial tree. We would make our annual trip to the local tree lot or on a couple of occasions we even went to a local tree farm and chopped one down! It was great fun with all us kids (I'm one of six) running around saying, "how about this one Mom?" or "this one looks good", or "Oh, look at this one!" Eventually we would all come to a general consensus and decide on one special tree to call our own. How lovely it will look in our living room.

But then came the trick of tying in onto the roof of the car! The first Christmas miracle was managing to secure it without scratching the #%&* out the roof of your car. Remember how happy Dad was about that? And by now we were all complaining about how freaking cold we were. Let me tell you, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan can be a pretty bone chilling place this time of year. Don't believe me, just go check out the weather channel and see what the temperature is in good ol' Sault Ste Siberia today! Probably hovering somewhere around 15 degrees farenheit I bet! And that doesn't take into consideration the wind chill!


But, we'd eventually get it home safe and sound and we'd all be warmer and happier and looking forward to decorating it. We would be so excited to unpack all the familiar ornaments we hadn't seen in a year. So many of them had special meaning and stories surrounding them. Many of them were even handmade by us throughout the years and of course Mom loved those ones the most -- still does I'm sure. We'd have the Christmas music playing (Bing Crosby, Andy Williams, Rose Mary Clooney, Burl Ives) while we were unpacking everything and hanging up our Santa faces (we didn't have stockings -- long story). Just imagine the energy in the room!



While we were going through boxes, it was always Dad's job to put the lights on the tree first. Like I said, imagine the energy in the room, of six excited, loud, rambunctous children ranging in age from 4 to 12 and one thirty-something man trying to string lights around a tree without falling off the ladder, stepping into a box of ornaments or stepping onto a kid for that matter. It almost makes me belly laugh now just thinking about it!

Eventually the lights would be finished and Dad would high tail it outa there and head to the sanctuary of his garage/workshop for some peace and quiet and a well-deserved beer or two and leave Mother in charge of the rest. We'd hang up so many ornaments there was not a single bare space left. Then, as was tradition in our family, we would put so much silver tinsel on the tree you could barely see any of the ornaments. And then, the moment of truth, we'd turn off all the lights and and oooh and aaah over how beautiful it looked. And from that day until the morning of December 25th the excitement in the air was palpable. We'd trudge through the next few weeks like time was standing still and the actual day would never get here. But eventually, it always did.

As you can see from the pictures, the Bailey family decorated their tree on Sunday night. No trip to the tree lot or tree farm, no scratches on the hood of the car, and no freezing our butts off. We just opened the box and put that thing together and it was still a blast going through all the boxes of ornaments, hanging up the stockings and listening to Christmas carols. The excitement is still there with Christian asking "how many more days until Christmas Mommy?"

There may come a time when he asks if we can get a "real" tree and if he does I'm sure I'll say "of course" but for now this beauty in a box works just fine and Santa comes to our house without fail. And, putting up the tree no matter what kind will always take me back to our house on Superior Street with all my brothers and sisters and my Mom and Dad and make me feel like a little kid again. I hope your tree trimming takes you back too.