Yeah, I just haven’t felt it yet. I woke up this morning pretty groggy, dragged myself downstairs where, as usual, I turn on my Keurig and wander off to the bathroom, usually in the mostly dark. But since our tree is, and has been, up, the white light glow caught my eye and I did, for a moment, bask in that cozy feeling. But that was when it dawned on me that I have yet to really feel that certain something that is present this time of year.

OK, maybe that’s a little bit of a lie. Friday, I headed out at 3:30 so I could just… decompress. I can’t even remember what all I did, tbh. I guess we had a few beers and worked in the house on little things. OH, I know; we all heated up our leftovers from Chilis and then we watched It’s A Wonderful Life so in that, I did feel the Christmas spirit. I just can’t help but cry when I watch that one! The older I get, the more I appreciate it.

The next morning, I had a plan to really work in the house and get it tidy. And I did! I took Elliot to work at 8 then put bins away and straightened up. I was pretty proud of myself. My parents got into town just before noon and that was when plans went all wonky. We had been wanting to go to the restaurant where our son works but then, Ash reminded me that our next door neighbor had mentioned getting firewood together. And those two things overlapped. But it went ok; he left to get the wood and the rest of us went to eat. He didn’t want a burger anyway and that’s the only thing he’d have ordered there. The food was really good and we all enjoyed it!

Met back at home and, sadly, the wood place had closed so that was a bust. I picked up sandwich stuff for Ash, we visited a little more, before grabbing Elliot from work then heading to Cascades for Dakota’s performance. The city puts on a stroll through the park event with musicians and dancers staged throughout. She had to be there by 5:15 but didn’t start until 6 so we headed over to Amicus for a beer. Talked to our friends/owners a min then went back to see her dance. It was really nice – and the right amount of time at only 30 mins – and afterwards, we went back to Amicus for one more round. It was a nice night. They only visited briefly but I am glad they came.

My parents came back to the house around 9 am, I made a lasagna, and they left by 2. Probably would have gone sooner if not for the insane rain we had. I mean, it was a STORM. So yesterday was just ugly and a bust for anything outdoors. Koda and I went to Michael’s for door decoration stuff and took it to my office where we worked for about 2 hours. I don’t exactly like how it turned out because I was unable to follow through on how I envisioned it but we managed to arrange it in a way that still got the point across. It’s based on Krampus and has all my co-workers’ names in little snowglobes. If you’ve seen the movie, you know.

So yeah, it was an all in all good weekend. But I have to be honest with you: I’m stressing. Christmas just has so much to DO and one little thing (like my boys arguing endlessly over a stupid computer mouse) can set me off. Ash and I were both losing it over that and the kids just do not understand how much pressure it on parents to make the holiday magical. It’s just… A LOT.

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I know the entire theme is Christmas this month (at least, that’s how I remember it) so here are a couple songs I really love.