I love Christmastime. I have almost all  my shopping done. i need to get one more present for my daughter and all the stocking stuff for the kids. Yay...

This Christmas has been good because I am not as broke as I usually am, so I don't have to decide between food and presents.

I made Christmas cookies and candy. I just have to get it mailed out. I was planning to do that today but don't think I am going to get around to it. I am hoping they will get there by Christmas, but I am starting to cut it pretty close.

I have had a rough morning, it of course has to do with money. I actually cried all the way home from the bank. Instead  of posting about that I have decided that I need to post something that is nothing but fluff, so here is my holiday meme.

 1. Eggnogg or hot chocolate? I actually don't really like either. If I had to choose one it would be hot chocolate.
2. Letter to Santa?
                    - Dear Santa, Please bring me a winning lottery ticket.
3. Does Santa wrap presents or just set them under the tree? He wraps them, unwrapping them and guessing what you have is half the fun.
4. Colored lights on your tree/house or white? We have multi-colored lights on our tree. We don't have any on the house.
5. Do you hang mistletoe?Nope - but I have been known to carry it around and whenever I see a cute guy pull it out. Ok, so I am actually making that up. I have never actually even seen mistletoe.

6. When do you put your decorations up?Sometime the week after Thanksgiving.

7. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?We don't have a specific dish we always cook. It changes every year.

8. Favorite holiday memory as a child: On Christmas eve we always ate clam chowder with oyster crackers by candle and christmas tree light, and then my dad would read Twas the Night Before Christmas, and then we would open ppresents.

9. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?I snuck downstairs one year when I was maybe about 8. i saw my parents setting up a big fish tank and the next morning it was there from Santa.Honestly it didn't devestate me or anything, so I may have already not believed in him much.

10. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? I don't usually have any Christmas presents, but my kids open the presents from each other on Christmas eve.  

11. How do you decorate your Christmas tree?It is a mix of all different ornaments that we have collected at random places through the years. I usually string the lights and then my kids put the ornaments up.

12. Can you ice skate?Not really. I tend to trip myself with the toe picks.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? Years ago I got big huge black and white pictures of my kids that still hang in my livingroom.

14. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you? Giving my kids a sense of tradition.

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? Pumpkin cheesecake

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? We still do the same Christmas eve that I posted above. That is still my favorite.

17. What tops your tree?We had an angel until last year, but it broke and we haven't replaced it.

18. Which do you prefer, giving or receiving?Giving, because honestly I don't really like stuff. I am the anti-packrat.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? I don't know that I have one. I like most Christmas songs.

20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum? Yum...especially the new sour patch ones.

We went to the pumpkin patch yesterday. They had a cornfield maze, hayride and lots of play areas. They were grilling food and had all kinds of baked good. We bought three pumpkins to carve and one pumpkin to make pumpkin pie out of. After we carved the pumpkins we roasted the seeds and we also made pumpkin cookies and brown sugar glazed pecans. They were all yummy.

Here are some pictures...Flickr pictures

For halloween I wanted a costume that was awesome,  something sexy, something that would make men's jaws drop.

So here is my smokin' hot outfit.:-)

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 It's a woopie cushion....ok I am a dork.lol

Here's my daughters in their costumes.

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I should make my obligatory New Years post. The one where I share all the wisdom I have gained in the last year. The one where I talk about how much I have grown and how I am so looking forward to another exciting year. The one where I talk about the thrill of just being alive for one more year. The one were I run down the list of all that I have accomplished and all that I hope to accomplish in the coming year. Well....this is not that post. My year was pretty much uneventful. I was stressed and exhausted at the beginning of the year and I am stressed and exhausted now. I didn't have anything exciting happen, and while I hope next year is better then this one, I don't forsee it. In fact if today was forshadowing my year I would say it is going to be a long year. I didn't get to stay up with my kids last night, they had a little party. I worked 11 hours today and I will be working that all week. See my year is already starting out with me stressed and exhausted.   Now granted this was the first year in several where I did not have some major traumatic event going on, so that should count for something, but still  I don't have any  gleaming nuggets of wisdom to share. I don't have some amazing story of triumph over tradgedy, or some unacheivable goal that I somehow managed to achieve. No, pretty much I have just been getting by, never really getting anywhere and that just doesn't make  that good of a New Years post.

My children are nothing like I was when I was younger...or like I am now for that matter. A typical Christmas for my brothers and I  was...

On Christmas eve we would all sleep on the floor in the basement. We weren't allowed to wake each other up, but we were allowed to get our stockings as soon as we woke up. One of us (usually me ) woke up at around 2 or 3 AM. We would accidentally on purpose  trip over the still sleeping people so that if it came down to it we wouldn't be lying if we were asked whether we woke up the others or not, because after all it was an accident that we woke them up. So anyway, early morning we would run up and get our stockings and open all the presents in them. Then we would fall back asleep. We would sleep for a couple hours and by 5 AM we were up again and ready to open presents. We were not allowed to touch the presents until we opened them, because our parents didn't want us figuring out what was in them, and I actually do not ever remember us breaking the rule and touching them. At 5 AM we would go upstairs and wake up my mom and dad. Then we would go sit and wait FOREVER :-) for them to come down. We couldn't open any until my dad had his coffee in hand. Finally we could open them all and it took probably less then a half hour. I was the worst one,I had no patience and everything about Christmas excited me. I am still like that. I love Christmas morning.

Now for my kids...

They all go to sleep in their own beds. At some point in the morning I can't stand it any longer and I have to fight every urge to wake them up to open presents and get their stockings. I have been pacing the living room since 5 AM waiting for them to get up. FINALLY they get up. One at a time they  slowly come out. They don't wake each other up. I have to wait agonizingly for each to get up. They don't run to their stockings right away or spend more then a minute gazing at the presents under the tree trying to figure out what they are. They wander around the house for a while waking up. All the while the suspense is killing me. I want to run after them with their stockings in hand screaming open them, for the love of god open them. Then ever so slowly they wander over to their stockings and open them. Then after they have looked at their stockings for what seems like hours, they are ready to open presents. From there it goes quickly. My parents always said that when I had kids I would be paid back for waking them up early every  Christmas. I wish...seriously where are these kids that are so impatient and excited because I could handle the early morning wake up. It is the slow leisurely wake up that kills me. So in a way I was paid back for it, it just happened to be by them doing the opposite thing than what I did to my parents.

I am a people watcher. I am constantly watching everyone around me. Their movements, mannerisms and facial expressions. I have always watched. When I was younger it was so that I knew how I should act at any given moment. I knew the looks I should have on my face. I knew the way I should move to make any given emotion more  believable. I knew how to read all the little signals the other person was sending. Not what they were saying, but what they were really thinking. I wasn't the way I imagined most people to be. I didn't have an inborn sense of expression or emotion. Honestly I am a pretty cold hearted person. Well, today we went to Opryland hotel. We go every year and there are tons of people there. Every time we go I realize how jaded I really am. The place is full of laughing happy people, but for everyone that walks by I think something negative. A couple with a newborn walk by. I of course figure, sure they look all happy, but she doesn't know he is running around with his secretary because she hasn't given him any since the baby has been born. A whole family looking happy and all together, but at home is the father an abusive tyrant. A husband and wife together holding hands, but is she really a possessive control freak, if that's even her husband maybe she is just the mistress. The happy single guy, is he a lowly  pedophile. Honestly if I left it up to my imagination there would be no happy people in the world. The strange thing is, in general I am more of an optimistic person, but something about watching  large groups of happy people just brings out the judgmental side of me. It's like I just can't believe that it is possible for them all to be truly happy...that it isn't all just an act.

On the topic of Opryland. We went and we had fun. The kids ate giant ice cream cones. I had my usual role as the mule designated to carry all of their coats around for three hours...even though everytime we go I tell them they will have to carry their own coats. Way to stick to my word there. They had a lot less decorations out this year, but it was still fun. We have gone every year for the last nine years...it's a tradition. I like the lights. there are lights everywhere. I always thought that the Opryland hotel would be an awesome place to have a winter wedding. Not that I plan on having a wedding. I have been married twice and haven't yet had one, plus I am pretty sure hell would freeze over, thaw and refreeze before I made that move:-) It is a nice place though. I want to rent a room there sometime, that would be awesome.