{pretty}
It is my goal to wrap as many presents as possible this year and avoid gift bags. I love a gift bag, but there is something about wrapped gifts that transports me to childhood when all gifts were wrapped and gift bags were a novelty. Boy, I sound old when I say things like that! Over the weekend, I did A LOT of wrapping. I finished all of the teachers' gifts for school and the small items that we are giving to each of the kids' classmates. I made a pretty good dent in family presents too.
It felt so good and they looked so pretty stacked on the piano. This was before we had the tree.
It felt so good and they looked so pretty stacked on the piano. This was before we had the tree.
{happy}
The boys were so happy to finally get a tree! They ran around the lot chasing each other and hiding in the trees. There weren't many left, so it was easy to keep track of them. It reminded me of the last time I went to a tree farm and cut down my own tree.
I was a single mom and overcompensating in every way so Aniston wouldn't feel like she missed out on the family experience that I so badly wanted to give her. We went to a Christmas tree farm, which had been our tradition her whole life. She was five years old and we had walked all over the tree farm for what seemed like forever and I finally asked her what she thought. Her response stopped me in my tracks and made me question, what the heck am I doing? She said, "Whatever you want, they all look the same to me."
We haven't been to a tree farm since.
The lot only had one tree left that was in the 5 to 6-foot range. Ours is an older house with 9-foot ceilings, so the maximum height we will buy is around 6 feet (accounting for the tree stand and angel tree topper). Seeing as how they only had one left, it's the one we picked and it's perfect!
I was a single mom and overcompensating in every way so Aniston wouldn't feel like she missed out on the family experience that I so badly wanted to give her. We went to a Christmas tree farm, which had been our tradition her whole life. She was five years old and we had walked all over the tree farm for what seemed like forever and I finally asked her what she thought. Her response stopped me in my tracks and made me question, what the heck am I doing? She said, "Whatever you want, they all look the same to me."
We haven't been to a tree farm since.
The lot only had one tree left that was in the 5 to 6-foot range. Ours is an older house with 9-foot ceilings, so the maximum height we will buy is around 6 feet (accounting for the tree stand and angel tree topper). Seeing as how they only had one left, it's the one we picked and it's perfect!
{funny}
My guardian angel must have been working like crazy on making our Christmas card photo a low-stress experience. It is a joke in our family that whatever day we take the Christmas card photo is the most stressful day of the year. Imagine my surprise when Sunday morning after getting the kids ready for church, I casually mentioned to Joseph that we should take our photo since the children looked so nice for a party we were attending after mass. I am never casual about this photo.
Joseph's response, "I need to sit down, I'm going to be sick" (invoking a physical reaction from anticipating what normally is such a stressful experience of getting the family to pose for the photo).
I couldn't help but think, who do I turn into that makes him feel this way when a family photo is involved. I promised myself that I would attempt to be patient and charitable when the time came to taking the photo. I went on to tell Joseph that I thought it would be easy and quick and that I wouldn't get worked up about it (read—I won't yell or bark orders at all, promise!). After mass, let's just take a few pictures.
Joseph's response, "Seriously, I don't think I can handle it today. Please, no."
Really, though, I was totally chill about the whole thing from the moment the idea popped into my mind until we got the shot, which amazingly only took five attempts! Someone is always the culprit of not getting the shot, and this year it was Miles. Some of the funny outtakes...
This is a crop of the shot we ended up using:
The cards have been ordered, and I have written my first draft of our annual Christmas letter. Joseph still needs to edit, and I need to check if my external reviewer (my sister) is available to check it over with a woman's touch. I am making real progress on those cards, yipee! We were a bit dismayed by the total price of the cards. After talking about it, we realized the cards haven't changed but now that we are a one-income family, everything seems more expensive than it once did. It's safe to say we are still making the transition financially to me being home full-time.
Joseph's response, "I need to sit down, I'm going to be sick" (invoking a physical reaction from anticipating what normally is such a stressful experience of getting the family to pose for the photo).
I couldn't help but think, who do I turn into that makes him feel this way when a family photo is involved. I promised myself that I would attempt to be patient and charitable when the time came to taking the photo. I went on to tell Joseph that I thought it would be easy and quick and that I wouldn't get worked up about it (read—I won't yell or bark orders at all, promise!). After mass, let's just take a few pictures.
Joseph's response, "Seriously, I don't think I can handle it today. Please, no."
Really, though, I was totally chill about the whole thing from the moment the idea popped into my mind until we got the shot, which amazingly only took five attempts! Someone is always the culprit of not getting the shot, and this year it was Miles. Some of the funny outtakes...
 |
| Kissy face |
This is a crop of the shot we ended up using:
 |
| Tongue action |
The cards have been ordered, and I have written my first draft of our annual Christmas letter. Joseph still needs to edit, and I need to check if my external reviewer (my sister) is available to check it over with a woman's touch. I am making real progress on those cards, yipee! We were a bit dismayed by the total price of the cards. After talking about it, we realized the cards haven't changed but now that we are a one-income family, everything seems more expensive than it once did. It's safe to say we are still making the transition financially to me being home full-time.
{real}
Another observation about being home with the kids—more time for projects like this:
We made these chocolate covered pretzels and pretzel rods as gifts for classmates. I thought it would be super sweet to have each of the kids make some. I gave each of them a station with parchment paper for their pretzels. That lasted about five minutes before Ander & Genevieve lost interest. Miles was a trooper and filled two sheets with pretzels. Aniston did a bunch too, but I was still left with about 40 pretzel rods to do by myself once they were in bed.
Keepin' it real—I must have cleaned up a thousand of those little sprinkles. They were everywhere!
How are your Christmas preparations coming along?
Be sure to visit the lovely ladies at Like Mother, Like Daughter to see more PHFR posts.
All those wrapped presents-- lovely! We visit a tree farm every year. My children are all still quite little but I can see that there may come a day when this tradition isn't appreciated anymore :( And those pretzels look so yummy!
ReplyDeleteI admire your preparatory activities! I've managed to get a tree up, but my baking plans seems to have fizzled before they're even out of the gate...
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on the gift bag idea! I love watching children tear paper on Christmas.
ReplyDeleteWow - you're doing terrific with all those things already wrapped! I'm so impressed.
ReplyDeleteThanks, ladies! It felt good to get so much wrapping done. The down side - I am having trouble getting motivated for the few remaining gifts to be wrapped.
ReplyDeleteShortly after all my progress last weekend, other items needed my attention so I am not feeling all that prepared anymore.