Christmas 2007

I love Christmas but I have to admit that I am a bit happy when it's all said and done. I do love sending out all of my Christmas letters & photos. I sent out about 460 this year. Now that Shea is older, I have struggled with having to "share" opening up the cards that we receive. It's one of my favorite things to do each day when they come so I have not been very giving theses last few years as she has wanted to open some. I did however, share somewhat...as much as I could. I let her open all the friends that she actually "knows" and it was fun for her. My favorite "thing" at Christmas is our tree. Suzi found one last year that has white (I love)& colored lights (Shea loves) and you can use either white, colored, or both! It is a beautiful 7 1/2 foot tree and even though I swore I would never get a fake tree, I love it! We put up almost every ornament we own and I just love the lights at night when it is dark! It always reminds me of when Shea was a baby and I would nurse her in the middle of the night with the tree on! I love it and although I took all the other decorations down, I think I will keep it up until New Year's! Chris gave a great sermon on why we should say, "Merry Christmas" as opposed to "Happy Holidays" which I needed to hear because I had argued with Cherie & Minda before we left for Christmas vacation. I always like to say Happy Holidays because I feel like it covers all the holidays all year long but Chris made me realize why Christ's name is in the saying! We went to church on Christmas Eve and it was such a great celebration...lots of singing which I love. As opposed to the whole "gift" thing at Christmas, I did cave and bought a few things for our family. Shea had plenty of gifts to open but I just hate buying crap that people don't really want or need just for the sake of giving a present. Ya know? I would much rather buy things throughout the year and just give "I love you gifts" as Shea & I call them. Anyway, one cool thing that we did was buy presents for "Sylvia." Shea chose her name from a tree at church and she is 7 months pregnant and has a 7 year old son. We did have fun buying for the baby, her son and for Sylvia. We went and gave her the gifts personally which was a nice way to connect with her. I thought it was ironic that out of all the families, Shea chose her. With my surgery earlier this year and all, it was fun being able to buy for a baby! After cleaning up the last few days I have noticed one thing that makes me crazy! Why do the CD's and DVD's make it almost impossible to get into those darn things? Plastic and those damn, sticky, break a nail, to get into wrapping just drives me nuts!!!! I know that the stores need it to protect them and use as security but dang it...it took me longer to unwrap all of them that it would to watch the movie! Just as I thought I was done..."Christmas With The Kranks" had 2 more security strips on them! C'mon now! I guess I have to watch the thiefs in the store open them because it is my least favorite thing to do! lol