It took me a week to get the tree up and decorated and I had a lot of help. It took another week to get the mantle in the TV room done up and BoopityBoop helped me with that. I have a collection of ten little Santas that I put in amongst the greenery and lights. They took them out of the box and handed them up to me, saying "Ho Ho Ho!" as they did so. They are very aware of Santa Claus, although both times they actually met him, they acted like they hated him.
Well, we all like the idea of Santa better than actually being put on his lap, don't we?
Each morning, I head out to get a tiny bit of Christmas shopping done. I have a detailed list and an idea of what I want to get, then choose my locale accordingly. I haven't done as much online this year as I have in the past but Amazon is still dropping off packages on a daily basis. I love Christmas!! The truth is, the lead up is even more fun than the huge parties that happen at the end of it all. Of course, I celebrate right up until the 12th day of Christmas, which is Epiphany; January 6. This means that for me, Christmas itself is pretty much in the middle of it all. Advent is great: every day circles around decorating, gift planning and buying, cookie baking and dreadfully bad but beautiful Christmas movies on Netflix.
I watch one Christmas original each night before getting to whatever show I'm currently bingeing. They're all so bad the titles have come to be meaningless. The acting is bad, the scripts are bad, the sets are wonderful and I love them all to death!
Tuesday I dropped off my stuff at the shop then headed over to Mom and Dads' place for lunch and a walk with Dad.
Wednesday was the annual Holiday party at the shop, which was lovely and fun as always but I couldn't stay very long, since I was on my way back to Mom and Dads for a small cookie baking party with my sister Katie and our daughters, Josie and Meg. Josie hadn't been to the new place yet so she got the whole tour. We made four or five kinds of cookies and had lunch together at the in-house cafe. The sandwiches are great and the fellow who runs the place is delightful. While baking cookies, we watched A Muppet Christmas Carol. Josie said she wasn't a fan of the story. She's the only one I know who doesn't love it! I told her we'd watch a non-Christmas Carol after but she had to leave early due to a shift at work. So we watched The Man Who Invented Christmas, which turned out to be another take on A Christmas Carol!!
In fact, although I didn't get to finish the movie at Moms, TMWIC was Great! the story was a new take on an old classic, which is tough to do and the script, performances and look of it highlighted just how bad the Netflix originals all are. It was like having a home made cookie after nothing but store bought for weeks. No comparison!
Thursday I finished my Christmas shopping and mixed up two kinds of cookies.
Oh, my annual calligraphy job came in this week as well! I've been doing the Christmas cards for a local business man for years. Back in the good old days (pre'08 crash) I used to do their entire corporate client list, which was well over 300 addresses long. The job basically took care of my Christmas budget. After the crash, the company didn't hire me to address their cards but the guy in charge still had me do his personal list, which I appreciate. They usually contact me right after Thanksgiving so when I didn't hear anything I just assumed he'd retired or something but it turns out he was just out of town. On Monday, I got the message asking if I still had time and Of course I do! Calligraphy is a nifty break from everything else I do and I've been doing it so long I'm rather good at it. I had time to work on that project Thursday.
Friday, I was up and out early to my painting class. At the end of each class, Rick always asks us what we'd like to paint next. Last week, I suggested poinsettias because I'd done them last year and they were really fun but neither of mine turned out well at all. I thought it would be great to take another stab at it and maybe produce something that actually looked like a poinsettia plant. The others were not enthusiastic (poinsettias are hard) but no one had a better idea, so mine carried. I bought a big, beautiful red one at Aldi for $4.49.
I forgot to put it in my car.
So, while everyone else painted poinsettias (and did a very good job!), I borrowed a few items and painted this.
I had time to bake two trays of crinkle cookies and wash out my brushes before I headed up to my daughter's house. We played with the girls and dyed her winter jacket. She has a white down jacket that she's loved for years. the cuffs had become too stained to get clean so we dyed it graphite gray. It's a whole new jacket! I love Ritt dye.
Then Katie and Adam went out. The girls and I had a lovely dinner together. The first course was a hamburger patty and green beans. Boopity was willing to try it but Boop picked up each bitesized piece on her plate, inspected it, said "No." and placed it as far from herself on the tray as possible. She did that until her plate was clean. Boopity decided that if the dinner wasn't good enough for Boop, it wasn't good enough for her, either.
Next I tried the left over ham and cheese rollups. They were a hit! We added cottage cheese and a blueberry cereal bar and everyone was happy. After dinner, they each got a cocoa bottle and I got out their pajamas. Boopity wanted to put her jammies on herself and did a good job with the pants except she didn't take off her jeans first so we had to start over. She did a pretty good job with the jammy shirt, too but couldn't find the arms so ended up with her arms though the neck opening and wore the shirt like a skirt. Not bad for a not-quite-two-year-old.
Boop allowed me to put her in her pajamas but while I was zipping her sister in to her sleep sack, she picked up the one for her, said "No." and threw it behind the couch.
I love that Boop is discovering that she has a say in her own life! I over ruled her of course but I encourage her to voice her opinion.
In the midst of all this, we listened to their favorite music: The Soundtrack to the Greatest Showman, twice. They sing and dance and it's all wonderful. When I had them jammied up and zipped into their sleep-sacks, they said "Nigh-night!" and we all ran down the hall to their bedroom. We read a book, then I tossed them into their respective beds and we said prayers, after which they each handed me their now empty cocoa bottles, I turned of the light and closed the door and didn't hear a peep out of either for the next four hours.
I got through four episodes of season 2 of the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel before Katie and Adam came home.
Best baby sitting job ever!!