IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE.......

Christmas just happens. And it's beautiful, isn't it? We all go a little crazy during this last week, thinking we just don't have our act together this year, and suddenly, Christmas just happens. You know? We mamas are magicians.


My Mandy is home. My wonderful, sweet third-grade-teaching daughter is home. And she's busy! Teachers get paid once a month. Mandy got paid yesterday. Mandy and Aaron just finished the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace course at Fellowship Church last Saturday. So Mandy took me and her new budget plan shopping today. Actually, I'm done and she could have gone without me, but this was a mom and me day. Oh my, we had a wonderful time. Lunch. Lists. Finding every single thing on the lists on the first shot. A wonderful, wonderful day.


And look what I did! My mother was here almost every day this week and I spent those days with her, just enjoying our last few days together. My brother Derrell arrived from Denver today. He's here to move Mom back to the eastern slope. He survived the truly unbelievable blizzard that Denver is just tonight finally digging out of and got out here to help Mom move.

Mom and I play Scrabble. A lot. And I don't think she'd mind me telling you she's so determined to beat me
that it takes her 15 to twenty minutes to make a word.

So I made goodies in between my turns. :-)

I'm so tickled that I got my family's favorite Christmas treats made this year. And I even added a new one this year. I know it's going to become a family favorite.

At the top, on the left, is my homemade cracker jacks, Rob's favorite. On the right of it is Big Mama's toffee. OK, I love you to pieces, Big Mama, but we all know this is Gulley's recipe for toffee. My goodness, if Gulley doesn't start her own blog soon, well, it's just a crying shame. She could start with a food blog and go from there. You know? Anyway...

Under Gulley's toffee is my Santa's Whiskers. OK. They're cookies. But you know how when someone brings a Christmas tray to work or church or something and when they take the foil off, it just smells like Christmas? These cookies smell like Christmas. They're wonderful. The only Christmasy smell I've ever loved better is a brand new baby doll. Nothing is better than new baby doll smell but my Santa's Whiskers run a close second.

And to the left of them is my divinity. If I didn't make divinity, my little family would think I was ready for assisted living or something.


If there's one thing I regret, it's that I never took family photos seriously when my kids were little. This is Krissy and Andy's Christmas card this year. I ask you, what on earth was I thinking? My little girls were just this gorgeous and Rob still had hair and I was still young and beautiful and do you think I have a single Christmas photo like this one? Uh, no. So can I just say, I love, love this Christmas card. It goes without saying that my daughter is beautiful. She has always been so beautiful, inside and out, but my word, look at her gorgeous husband, Andy, and my precious grandchild, Cameron. This is "Beautiful Family," personified. (I know I'm a littled biased, but really, are they not an amazingly beautiful little family?)


The light of my life. Cameron. Last Christmas, he was practically a newborn, five months old. This year, he's a little spitfire and I mean that in the nicest way. He's not a brat. This child is truly the most amazingly mellow toddler I've ever encountered in my life, and yeah, if he were the toddler from you know where, I'd probably say that, but still. Krissy and I took him Christmas shopping on Wednesday. We left at 10 o'clock in the morning and didn't get home until after five o'clock in the afternoon. He totally missed his nap. Lunch was French fries dipped in ranch dressing and mostly playing with the big cardboard "car" box that A&W kid meals come in. I think we managed to find one reasonably sanitary place to change his diaper. Most eighteen month old babies would have been a nightmare but Cameron was an angel. All.day.long.

I adore this baby.


As mischievous as this baby has been in the last few days, I adore her, too. Rob and I have been married for twenty-eight years. We've always had dogs and cats. All our pets have been a little quirky but truly good pets. Chelsea, hands down, is the most wonderful dog we've ever had. She doesn't have a mean bone in her little eleven pound body. She is love in motion. Lots of motion. But ask anyone, Bev, my Mom, the guy who tries to sell me steaks from the trunk of his jalopy once a month, really anyone. She loves anything with a heartbeat. She doesn't just sleep with me. She crawls under the covers and shoves her little shih tzu behind as close to my heart as she can possibly shove it every night. Oh, how I love this little package of complete, total devotion.


My little family decided years ago that we'd all make "wish lists" to give each other at Christmas. I, for one, do NOT want my kids to spend money on gifts for me that I don't want or need. It works. We give each other lists of all the things we'd love to have but wouldn't buy for ourselves.

I had a hard time with that this year. I have magnetic lists, several actually, on my fridge. One's for Sam's and one's for the grocery store and one's for Borders....you know. I Febreze my dog and I have separate pads for each store I shop at. I do.

My Christmas wish list, right there on the fridge for all to see, the one I've been working on for three months, says, "recipe cards, sweater rack and citrus/sage Yankee candles." Seriously, I couldn't think of anything I want.

What I want more than anything at all this year is to see this movie. This is the one movie I cannot wait for Netflix to offer. I.want.to.see.this.movie. And I think I've dropped enough hints, I'll see this movie before the new year. I did make it very clear that this Christmas wish includes the TUB of popcorn and a large Sprite.

:-)


So my brother is here to help my mother move. I've spent every single possible moment with her we both had in the last week and she'll leave on Christmas Day.

We're ready for Christmas Eve. Our family gets together that evening. This year, for the first time ever, no formal sit-down, napkin-in-your-lap dinner. Can we say buffet? And my word, it's going to be wonderful, it saved me probably $100 and I may never do it any other way, it's so stress-free.

So in spite of feeling like I had the hardest time ever getting in the spirit this year, Christmas has arrived and we're ready for it.

By the way, Mandy and I saw the most wonderful thing today. Did you know Fisher Price has a nativity for toddlers? I swear, it's adorable and if we hadn't both already gone over budget shopping for Cameron, he'd be getting that this year. Who knew? He's getting it next year, for sure.


I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do my Sunday post this week. Sunday is the day my family will be here to celebrate. Lots of food to eat, lots of gifts to open, lots of games to play. So my Sunday Meaderings may not happen. Instead, I offer you my very, very late Friday night Meanderings.

To all of you, every single one of the one hundred and twenty-three people I have in my bloglines because you are my friends, I wish you a wonderful Christmas. You have, each and every one of you, blessed me. And I am thankful for you.


Gullery's toffee recipe (EASY) is here.
My recipes for crackerjacks, Santa's Whiskers and divinity are here.