Christmas 2011

7:00am...waiting to see what Santa brought!  (How awesome is it that my kids don't want to wake up before 7:00...if it weren't for Emma, we'd have dancing sugar plums in our heads until 9:00am!!)

It's really over?

But it feels like I just barely put up our tree and decroated the house and found places all over the house in closets and cupboards to put the non-Christmas decor stuff (am I the only one that has to do that?), and Will and Jay froze their fingers off hanging the lights on the house, and I didn't have a single present under the tree until Santa came...I'm not ready for it to be over yet!

I think my body is ready for Christmas to be over, but my brain isn't.

Did over-scheduling, busyness, and anxiety get in the way of anyone else enjoying Christmas?

Is this what I'm to expect from now on?

Every year I see all that is going on around us and I think...

I want to do that!

Next year, we'll do family pictures and send out cards (it didn't help that Will was in Korea again the week before), 

and do the 12 days of Christmas to a family, and drive around and look at Christmas lights

and I'll think ahead and buy wrapping paper NOT from ***mart!

Granted it sure does help to have a blanket of snow when I look out the window, but when I commented to Will how little I was feeling of the "Christmas Spirit", he said...

"Then you need to go do something for someone else."

Which is what I thought I was doing, but I was doing it with me in mind and in the wrong spirit.  If that makes sense to anyone but me!

On one of my (3...yes I had to go back 3 times.  We needed Crisco!) cursed trips to a store I swore I wouldn't step foot into again until 2012, I couldn't believe the resemblance to the Grinch movie and how people were going faster than their brains could think...money being thrown...stores being packed full...do people really put off their Christmas shopping until the 24th?  I just needed Crisco...what were all these people doing in the electronic department?? It was too much.

Which is probably why we all ended up getting sick.  We were kind of forced to stay home.  Brushing my teeth was strenuous, Will slept for almost 4 days and Lauren had the worst of it.  Emma came next.

Ah, the joys of holiday family get-togethers where we share our love...and a stomach virus!

All the grandkids got their jammies from grandma Strong. The Lambert kids and the Brad Strong kids weren't there to enjoy the chaos!  Uncle Ryan had these kids smiling while he took 42 pictures...just to see how long he could get them to stand and smile.
Easton wasn't having any of it!

This was my favorite thing of the day!  Our Santa is so cute...maybe he was full of cookies and a good, crunchy, sweet apple that Emma left for his reindeer sounded better than cookies from a bag!
I don't blame him!

 and Happy Birthday to my mom...the fastest candle blower-outer in the northern hemisphere!!

Next year will be full of service.  Service that is given in the spirit of love instead of service that is given in the spirit of being required!