Wrapping

Wrapping, wrapping, wrapping, wrapping, wrapping, wrapping....

Guess what I am doing?

Kept the kids up til midnight last night baking, well, my daugher. Red is snuggled with her after waking early. 9:30 and I've got a morning ALONE. Aaaah. Feels WONDERFUL. Praying, wrapping, thinking, planning.

Eating Snickerdoodles...a childhood favorite cookie my Mom used to make. 1 full cup of Crisco goes in thoes suckers!!!! Wow. I didn't know that part! My daughter and I sifted flour...she didn't know what a sifter was, what it did, how to use it. One of my favorite activities in the kitchen..sifting flour. It's just so much fun! To my knowledge, that is the ONLY time I ever use that copper tone sifter I bought at a yard sale once...just in case I should need one.

Rolling in balls, sugar, cinnamon, trying to stick a pan in the hot oven...such fun.

Then, bedtime, our lighthearted novel took a serious turn at 11PM and I couldn't stop in the middle of it. Teen model wanna be turns burned in a housefire...Dad burned much worse! Sending daughter to sleep with those thoughts had to be a comfort! Thanks for the warning there, Carol! No, seriously enjoying the book. Can't wait to find out how God redeems things for Miss Lily.

I am so excited about gift giving this year. Some call it the "tinsel", over-doing, focusing on the wrong thing. When was the last time someone knew you well enough, got to know you well enough, to know exactly what you wanted or needed? Or they tried to make ammends by carefully choosing a gift? Most of us are well off enough to buy someone the right gift, but we are so self centered, well, we want the money for ourselves truth be told.

Our family. Our needs. Our wants. Our funds.

I'm still praying for God to enlighten me on a couple gifts I'm stuck with, but I love that moment when you find just the right thing.

All three of my sister in laws had their first babies this year! Special momentos for all of them! Neices and nephews to think of...for the first time! I don't know how to do it, but I'm excited to do for them as they have done for me for so many years.

Returning the favor of cooking the family turkey for my husband's family...all the basics, my job. I am proud to have a job...and absolutely terrified I'll not do well with the chore. I'm trying, though. One of our pastor's very favorite quotes of the year: "Do it afraid."

I am laughing today, remembering a friend who got my kids their first Gingerbread Kit for Christmas last year... A Nativity. I suckered her and her kids into staying and helping us put it together. That stable kept falling down! I had to distract the kids by reading some book about a corny reindeer while she worked. Finally, I went and got...the SECRET WEAPON, a hot glue gun.

"How they going to eat it later with hot glue on it?" She said.

"Well, they will not eat the seams." I replied.

And we got that stable standing, as well as Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds.

She got so flustered that I'd shang-heid her into that project on her day off...I still laugh thinking about it! So much fun. I have to look that picture up. Already had to move so many to my external hard drive from last year...a pain to go pull them off (my husband does not understand that this is inconveinent).

Well, I must go wrap a life like baby that cries, a $30 digital camera for my duagher, and a spiderman lamp (which, ironically carries a warning that it is only good for 90 DAYS once you read the tag. A lamp, only good for 90 days? What's this world coming to anyway? The ultimate in protective legal measures there.)

On to a productive, paced day, and a sane, happy wife. (That would be a first Christmas week). I'm living on cookies and wrapping paper!

Me