Christmas Time Is Here

The calendar presented a shorter amount of time between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

(Well, in my mind it did...even if it really wasn't shorter, please play along.  Thank you.)

In those short weeks, I spent most of my school days assessing kids for report cards.

The other part of the days were spent entertaining said kids and peeling them from the ceiling because Christmas is almost here!  SANTA is almost here!

It's a fabulous time of the year to be a teacher.

Exhausting, but still fabulous!

Our time in the evenings was spent with volleyball practice

 and watching the kids do

 a.  LOT.  of.  HOMEWORK.

And I DO mean a lot.

We decorated the tree and mantel the weekend before Thanksgiving. 

It's what we do.  I simply can't wait any longer.

We got out of school for the Christmas vacation on Friday!

Friday afternoon was a whirlwind of shopping with Courtney.

Friday evening we took the kids to the movies.

Saturday Cory and I shopped

 while the kids went to Grandma and Papa's house to enjoy lunch out with them.

Last night we piled Grandma and Papa into the car with us,

 and we drove through the "Way of Salvation" light display in Carthage. 

As our tradition goes, we followed the lights with an ice cream treat.

Today is the day for making Christmas cookies, candy and treats!

I've made one batch of Chex party mix and another is ready for the oven. 

These are the days that I love most about Christmas.

My shopping is nearly finished.

The kids have NO HOMEWORK!

I am excited to just see their faces and do some fun things together.

Tis the Season to be Jolly!!!

I'm on it!

Christmas is so delicious!



Traditions Old and New

Every Halloween for the past 13 years, we've had the same tradition.

We go to Grandma's house.

We eat dinner.

The kids pass out candy to the trick-or-treaters.

We trick or treat in their neighborhood.

The kids did not really want to trick-or-treat this year.

I convinced Courtney to dress up anyway.

We partially followed our annual tradition with only one kid going door to door.

...and truthfully, she didn't go door to door.

She only went to about a dozen houses
 before she said she was ready to go back to Grandma's house.

It was cold.

There weren't as many people out.

There weren't as many houses with their porch lights on.

When we returned to Grandma's house,
we certainly didn't find our kids on the floor in the living room

 with their piles of loot all spread out around them. 
They helped themselves to more pizza and disappeared to the basement.
Sigh.
It might be the start of a new tradition.

Despite the fact that we didn't go all out on costumes and trick-or-treating,
it was fun. 
It was fun to hear the kids laughing.
It was fun to talk about scary Halloweens past. 
It was fun walking through leaf piles on the edge of the road.
It was just nice to start the holiday season with our tradition.


I will have to get creative next year.
I'm not sure if I'll be able to get my family to participate in the neighborhood walk again.


In my defense...it's the kickoff to the holidays. 
It's family time.
It's memory making at its' finest.


I'm the mom.
It's my job to hold on to these things, right?
I'm supposed to keep trying to pull us together before they grow up and move out, right?
It feels right.
It feels like the right thing to do.
Just one more Halloween before Corbin graduates from high school.
Just.  One.  More.
Yes.
I think I'll just keep trying with the traditions.