Well, it’s certainly been quiet around here this past couple of weeks. I hope it’s due to a glut of feasting and imbibing and whatnot.

Now that I’ve brought that giant pile of cardboard out to the curb for recycling tomorrow, it’s time to think about thank-yous. How do you do yours? Cards? A letter? Via phone, or email?

Me, I arrived rather late to the formal thank-you tradition. In fact - *blush* - I don’t even remember our mom ever telling us to thank people for stuff. As soon as the bub can hold a crayon, he’s going to get in on the thanking action - indoctrination can never start early enough!

I was lucky enough to score some nice notes on the tail end of a T*rget after-holiday clearance last year. My work is cut out for me, since various Santas have been good to us.

but I’m happy to have just gotten started tonight! With Jim away for a week, all my Christmas preparations came to a screeching halt. But I’m getting back on track. Eight cards written tonight. Which reminds me . . .

Christmas letters: yes or no?

Personally, I don’t mind them, er. . . except for some older relatives who detail each ailment that they endure throughout the past year, each thing that children or grandchildren have accomplished, and each bird-watching expedition that they took.

Jim’s rule of thumb for Christmas letters is that they should be one page and only on one side. I think I agree, at least that’s what I shoot for when writing ours.

We are not doing one this year, and we didn’t do one last year. We’re just sending out cards with photos. I’m not sure why we’ve been skipping it the past couple of years.

I have to admit that I do get stressed about writing and sending Christmas letters, though, because I know that some people dislike them and think they are silly and presumptuous. Relatives of mine, for example.

Anyway, so what do you think? Do you prefer sending or not sending Christmas letters? Do you like getting them or not?

Just a quick note to say “Woo-hoo!” All of our Christmas cards have been sent out. It’s quite a relief to be done. I even addressed them all by hand (to the addressee and the return address). In Christmas colors! I’m such a dork…

On another happy note, it’s really nice having people how nice your picture turned out considering the 2.5 year old did NOT want her picture taken (even when a bribe of a sucker was involved) and a 6 month old who hadn’t napped. And parents who were a bit frazzled that said kids wouldn’t cooperate for just 15 min.! (As soon as I get one scanned, I’ll post.)

We finally put up our tree this past weekend. It is an ugly fake one, but will work until we can a) afford a new one, and b) the kids are a little older. And heck, when it’s dark and the tree lights are on, it looks kind of nice! Sophia had a grand time decorating the tree, and redecorating it, and redecorating it… I think you get the picture. The tree looks a bit odd because all of the nice ornaments are hanging at the top while the “ugly” ones are hanging at the bottom (since I don’t care if they get broken by little ones).

This is the first Christmas we’re actually celebrating with our own little family. The past two years Sophia was so young it didn’t matter. So we didn’t bother with stockings or presents here, we did it all at my parents house. But this year, she’s old enough to understand. It’s going to be fun to see her wake up in the morning and see the presents under the tree, and gifts in her stocking. I can’t wait to see her expression on her face. (Note to self: buy stockings!)

Getting close to completing our holiday shopping. We have a couple gifts we need to buy for charity, and a couple for our friends. We know what we’re getting the friends, but have no ideas for the charities (one is for a womens shelter for battered women and their children, the other is for a needy family in the area). I’ll probably buy stuff that I think I would have enjoyed getting as a teenager (that seems to be the age they are in most need of gifts for). Boy, I can’t wait to have all of this done!

Off to do some holiday reading with the 2.5 year old. Enjoy as you prepare for your holidays!

(Side note: I love that we’re getting lots of snow before Christmas. It sure puts me in the holiday mood!!!)

As I probably mentioned before, my mom’s side of the family has a reunion every five years at Christmas. This is the year that we are doing it. For gifts, we all draw names. We have four adult gifts to buy. Somebody’s lucking out and getting all the little guys, but anyway. . .

We are buying for my cousin, D, who is some high-falutin’ executive at an internets company in San Diego, CA, although you wouldn’t know that if you met him because he’s very unpretentious. He looks just like Jerry Seinfeld, by the way. Whenever I see him (every five years), I always have to marvel at how much he looks like him. I’m sure he’s sick of hearing about how much he looks like Jerry Seinfeld. He has varied interests and used to be semi-pro (I think) in beach volleyball out there. But, what do you get someone who makes lots more money than you do and whom you don’t even know very well even if he is related to you?

OK, next drawee: D’s wife L. I have met her twice. Once ten years ago and once five years ago. She’s very nice. I think she has an art background or her dad’s an artist, or a jazz musician. She has some kind of job in the high tech industry although I think it’s more on the human resources side of things. She’s very petite (D is very tall). She’s from California. That’s what I know about her. Now, what would you get someone who you knew that much about? I mean, I know more about some of my online friends than I do about her.

As it turns out though, I think shopping for women you don’t really know is easier than guys, because with women, you can always go for candles or bath salts or yummy lotions or calendars or a nice scarf or whatnot. Actually, I e-mailed both L and D earlier for gift suggestions and found out that they are renovating their house big time and that L might appreciate something having to do with home decor, etc. That made narrowing down a gift a little easier as someone had just told me about this new magazine called Dom*ino which is published by the same people who publish Lu*cky. It’s the same thing as Lu*cky, but about home decorating. It’s not very expensive so it fits our budget. That’s what L is getting.

Our other two names — one is my cousin’s husband whom I’ve never met, but I was able to figure something out for him (see earlier post). The other is another cousin’s son who is about 22 or something like that. I have no. frickn. clue what to get a 22 year old guy. There’s all the generic stuff like Old Navy gift card. . . hey, there’s an idea . . . maybe I’ll just to do that.

Gift cards are easy, right? But they kind of just scream, I don’t know you or what you could possibly want, so here’s this gift card for you to go find what you want. There’s no excitement when they open up that gift card envelope, there’s no oohing and aaahing. There’s no — that’s just what I needed or wanted. I know, I could get him a sweater or something, but again, kinda generic, and I really have no idea what his tastes are.

By the way, I think my cousin D is getting a gift card too.

Do you have to buy for friends or family you don’t know very well? What do you get them?

We bought our Christmas tree last Saturday morning. J is usually an ogre about getting a tree and about Christmas in general, so it was kind of neat to see him getting excited about going to get it with the kids.

We just went to a local lot and quickly picked one out. Daniel was not all that interested, but he’s paying attention to more than we know. Anyway, while we were waiting to get our tree stump cut down and to get the tree bagged, Daniel and I went just outside the lot into the parking lot to walk around. Daniel found a small tree that he liked in a grassy area near our car. He was standing there holding onto the tree watching other cars go by while we waited.

After a few minutes, we went to check on the progress of the Christmas tree wrapping and then came back out to wait some more. There was some dirt right around the tree (the one that he liked hugging) that I hadn’t really been paying attention to either time we were there.

“Look, Mama, ants!” I hear Daniel say.

“What!?” At about that same time, I hear one of the workers at the lot who was putting a Christmas tree on top of someone’s car nearby say, “Yep, those are fire ants.”

“What?!”

I quickly pulled Daniel away from the tree and began to examine his feet and pants. Sure enough. There were ants. Not that many, but too many all the same. I took off his shoes and socks and stripped his pants off. Thankfully, we got all of the ants off of his clothes before he got bitten. I had some on my shoes as well.

Crisis averted. Mostly. Next year, we’ll be sure to check the area for anthills.

Mommy’s taking pictures while Daniel’s playing in the ant pile.

Home and decorated! Please disregard the concentration of ornaments in the lower left corner of the tree. They have been artfully arranged by a 2.5 year old.

An interesting article all about that enduring classic, A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Fred Flare hosts a neat little slideshow thingie of NYC holiday window displays.

The Brick Testament

Sure, I may harbor a bit of resentment against our neighboring nearly-million-dollar-but-not-nearly-worth-that clone homes. But they certainly do put on a fine light show at the holidays! Daniel and I walk almost every evening now, and each time there’s a whole new gazillion-watt spectacle to discover. Though we’ve only seen one that even nears a National Lampoon-esque display so far; I’ll have to post a picture.

Today I decorated outdoors in the time alloted me by the bub, which means a slightly crooked swag over the garage door, with clear lights, and three of those oversized plastic outdoor ornaments. Perhaps tomorrow he’ll be kind enough to let me put a string around our kitchen window. Now that he’s asleep, I’m thinking about dragging the tree in from the garage…

Eh. Maybe tomorrow.

On Friday, a friend of mine was taking her two daughters to visit Santa who was making an appearance at a local kids boutique store. For lack of anything better to do on Friday morning and to hang out with some other moms, I decided to take the boys over and check it out.

When we got there, there were maybe 5 or 6 other child/mom pairs. All were little girls and all were sitting so peacefully on their mom’s laps while Santa was starting to read “‘Twas the Night Before . . .”. I pulled up my double wide stroller with my two safely and firmly buckled inside. Santa greeted us and told us to join the circle.

“Uh, thanks, Santa, but I think they’ll stay in the stroller for now.”

The little girls all seemed to have lovely little outfits on, specially chosen for their visit with Santa. Meanwhile, my kids had on whatever I could grab and put on them that morning as they screeched and wrestled me to get away. Daniel’s hair was going in all different directions. I actually did try to put some gel on a cow lick to hold it down. I tried to get a few last minute nose and face wipes in when they were pinned in their car seats before we went into the mall.

While Santa is reading the story, Daniel immediately spots the snacks and starts loudly requesting things. Hoping that a juice box might keep him quiet for Santa to finish, I handed one over. Daniel sucked it down and asked for the “blue one.” One juice box was enough as he was already bouncing up and down in his stroller seat, but he moved on to cookie requests.

I tried to keep him quiet by whispering things in his ear which kind of worked, as long as Andrew wasn’t trying to swat the back of his head or pull on his seat back.

Anyway, after story-time was over, I let Daniel get down and run around. He had no interest in Santa, but I coerced him into having his picture taken. He wanted nothing to do with going up to Santa on his own, so I corralled him while another mom got Andrew into place. So, here’s our pic. Santa assured us moms that his knees are very strong. Good to know.