A Holiday Round-Up

I - ahem - appropriated this picture from Mom's camera.  Believe it or not, this was the picture my parents used on their Christmas cards this year.  Too funny!

• Thank you all for understanding why I needed to take a bit of a break for the holidays.  It was very much needed this year!
• Having said that, the fastest way to cure any sort of writer's block on my part is to apparently  put a restriction on my public writing outlet.  I found that the day after I put up that post I had so many ideas of things to write about that I almost broke my own rules. 
• Christmas this year was a fabulous success. 
• Why?
• We had a major Christmas Miracle when our (horribly inept, nasty, etc) HOA approved the plans for the playhouse my dad wanted to build the girls in time for work to be done on Christmas Eve.
• There will be more about the playhouse when it's done.  I can't wait to share its full story with you!
• Dad and Sean are working on it right now.....
• Because of the playhouse approval, our holiday schedule changed at the last minute.  To my delight, it wound up giving us the most relaxed, enjoyable Christmas we've had since the girls were born. 
• We spent Christmas Eve with my parents and my brother here at the house after a secret day of construction.  (I had to keep the girls away from the house all afternoon, which was neither easy or fun.)  We were unable to go to church because of the playhouse (truly a shame, as I LOVE Christmas Eve services), but we did have our traditional Chinese take-out meal. 
• Best of all...Unkie Erin wore the girls out so that they actually went to bed at a decent time!
• The four of us then had all of Christmas morning to ourselves, which was a blessing. 
• After church,which I insisted on as we hadn't been able to go the night before, my in-laws came over for a while.  It was so nice to have them here by themselves. 
• Normally we end up with most or all of the grandparents here at once, but this way the girls were able to really focus on one set at a time.
• Also, the two sets of grandparents do gifts in a very different way.  Separating the visits this year took any and all crazy (and unnecessary) competition out of the equation.  It's not that it's ever been an obvious problem...but there has been a weird undercurrent during some Christmases past.
• The afternoon was devoted to reading, playing with toys, and fixing a very low-key fried chicken and faux tators meal.  The girls were delighted to be able to stay home and play with the fun things Santa brought, and Sean and I were so worn out that we appreciated the quiet!
• Then on Monday I took the girls to Independence to spend the afternoon with my grandmother.  (She's 85, and the four hour round trip is now out of the question for her.)  Again, the girls were able to focus on their Grammy-Great, and because she wasn't stressed out by having to drive anywhere she had a lot more fun than she normally does as well. 
• After that the girls went to my parents' home for 48 hours, and I drove back to Columbia to relax and reflect. 
• Food was thankfully not an issue for me at all.  While I couldn't eat either the Chinese or the cinnamon rolls (from scratch!) I made for breakfast, I did buy myself a gorgeous piece of salmon that more than made up for it.  We didn't make desserts or cookies this year, and our non-traditional Christmas dinner was fun and took the focus off of the food. 
• I did eat a Patrick 70% dark chocolate bar, which was my one concession to the holidays...and was worth the tummy ache it gave me. 
• I will need to do perhaps two more posts on Christmas, but I think this is enough for now!

In the next two days, look for my December reading list as well as a review of 2011 reading and crafting.