My schedule has been crazy this week which has prevented me from posting sooner. I’m almost finished with my Christmas shopping – I still need to buy a few more items for my kids for under the tree. But I FINALLY finished my Christmas cards and sent them out. Whew. As much as I do enjoy this tradition, it becomes more work and stress than it is probably worth. Don’t get me wrong, I love sending out cards to friends and family, but in years’ past, I tried to channel Martha Stewart and send out 60 of them, all home-made with stamping, cut-outs and personal notes in each of them. My light bulb moment was when I came to my senses and remembered something: Martha had a staff of 100+ to do her bidding – I didn’t. So, I resorted to going on-line and uploading a couple of photos of my kids and dogs to make a beautiful photo-card with a short caption of "love from" and voila, we’re done. Here’s this year’s results:
My mother is arriving next week from Pittsburgh to visit us for the Christmas holiday. The kids are spoiled relentlessly with shopping trips when she visits. Sure, it provides wonderful memories for them, but then we have to put the kids through grandma-detox every time she goes back home. I’m not a big shopper and I typically don’t enjoy malls – I prefer on-line shopping – so, I cringe when Mom wants to venture out with us for a spoiling session. This typically occurs the day after Christmas when we embark on the great sales for additional items we really wanted for Christmas, but didn’t get – I’m speaking from my kids’ perspective, not mine. Mom will also push me to buy more clothes for myself which I definitely don’t need. So, I cave and let her buy me a few items (but do end up liking a lot later). It’s something she enjoys doing for us and I don’t want to take that away from her. She has done so much for my family over the years – I just try to be careful not to let her do too much. Ever watch last year’s Christmas episode of "The Middle?" Marsha Mason plays the mother to Patricia Heaton’s character, spoiling the grandkids on Christmas morning, making "Santa" look cheap. Yep, that’s Mom. My husband and I were almost on the floor laughing when we watched it, realizing with new eyes that we need to just let it go and allow the grandparents to do their job. I’m thankful to have loving, caring parents who want to spoil our kids.
Okay, getting ready to post a new excerpt of my book tomorrow morning. I’ve really appreciated everyone’s support, so far!
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