Christmas upadte...

...........and the season continues on. Even if I would prefer to stay in bed and pull the covers up over me. But no, these two little boys of mine would never allow that and I would never do that to them. So even though I am way stressed, I am keeping up with our tradition. Today we started preparing our fourth and last holiday cookie for this year. The frosted cut out cookies. ARgh...flour, dough and soon frosting will be from one end of the house to the other. TanMan and I did the cut out and baking part and when TDog gets home today we will finish off the frosting and decorating. Funny, it is so important to me to keep this tradition up because every year it is the same thing. The boys start out with gusto-which causes the flour and sugar to fly and then about half way through they have had enough and there I sit finishing by myself. Oh well.....some day they better remember and tell their own children how we did this. Today TanMan insisted on putting my Christmas music on while we worked. I even enjoyed it and we sang along as we mixed, rolled and cut out 8 dozen cookies - about half of what I usually do.

I am like a rat. If I can find a hole, no matter how small, I'll squeeze through it. And that is just how my Christmas shopping is coming along. I am managing it and it is even working out for me. I've got a plan in my head, writing it down would be all to easy so I just keep it running through my head. Yes, I wake up at 2 a.m. as it all rolls through my head again. I can't wait until the day after Christmas. That is the day in which I really celebrate - by sitting in my chair in my pajamas the entire day watching the kids play and then yelling at them because by 10a.m. they will be bored. Won't matter that the whole house is scattered with new Christmas toys...and THAT is how I am keeping my shopping in check. Kids just get way to much stuff now days-and really I don't think they care what it is once they rip the paper off.

I have my Christmas dinner planned, all of the adult children and grandchildren will be here and I am going down a new path for my dinner. Usually I make all the traditional dinner stuff-but we have all of these little kids who really don't care what it is. We will be having mac & cheese with a big ole ham and 2 or 3 different colors of jello with some fruit thrown in. I am even going to splurge and do the mac&cheese homemade. I figured Christmas is worth more then ripping open the Kraft box. Anybody out there with a good mac & cheese recipe would be much appreciated!