Hallo! Merry Christmas Eve!

I had never heard of either the nuts being called that, or of Eenie Meenie Miney Moe having anything other than a tiger in it. Huh.

The problem with my sister being married is that now there are THREE guys (against the three women) who want to watch football. No way around it.

My lasagna just came out of the oven. I'm contemplating cooking the turkey breast now. We dithered over ham or turkey, so we got a tiny ham, and a hotel style turkey breast, instead of the full bird. I still have to make pies. I never did make cookies, and don't think there's time for that.

We need to have the kids at church by 4:10, for choir rehearsal. At 4:30, they have the dress rehearsal for the Christmas play/service (the whole service is led by children), which is from 5:00-6:00pm. Then we'll head to eldest sister-in-law's house to spend a couple of hours with Scott's family. Tomorrow, we'll have Christmas here at home, just us and my mum.

We used to try to see both families on Christmas day, but that's become too difficult now that the children are older. In a few years, I'd like to start having the Christmas Eve gathering here. With the fat man visiting tonight, and since the children are still young enough to care about being in the play, it would be impossible (or impossibly stressful).

Generally, we have our parents over for Christmas breakfast, freeing Scott's parents to go to one of their other children's houses for Christmas dinner. Since we'll be going to church tomorrow morning (our first Christmas on a Sunday, since we started going to church), we won't be hosting them, tomorrow. It seems kind of funny to think we'll only see them, tonight. I think we'll play tomorrow by ear, and see if they can't come here on the way home from their dinner at my other s-i-l's house.

Playing it by ear is, imo, the only way to enjoy the busy-ness. I miss the days when I didn't cook the Christmas dinner, but love that my children will have Christmas memories set in our home, not just their grandparents' homes. Oh. Somehow I just made myself miss my grandparents and my Dad, far too much.

To those who celebrate, Merry Christmas.

Christmas at home is greatly helped by their being three TVs, plus everyone's PC can play DVDs.

We used to fight to get to watch basketball over football. Not too much of a fight, since my father likes all sports, but my sister and I had no interest at all in football. Probably got his contrary side up.

(Bless Kristin'n'Drew. Bless bless bless. I mean, I'm VERY sorry about the awfulness of divorce, but I like it when my peeps get together.)

Thanks, Fay. It's pretty darned happy-making, despite the awfulness of divorce.

I'm about to head over to aunt and uncle's house to play golf...no, they don't have a real golf course, but apparently they've rigged some bizarre...oh I don't even know. I'll have to attempt to describe it later once I've actually seen the thing. My aunt is an artist and my uncle is an architect, and you just never know what new and bizarre feature will show up in their house. They have a fully movable smiley face made out of painted tool parts on their garage, just as a for instance.

Anyway, to their house, then to the ranch for dinner. Catch you all later!

OK, we're out of here too- will likely not be back till after Christmas...

So happiest of holidays to all! Mwah!

TImeslies all. Anyone want to send me some christmas cheer ~ma? I have to go spend Christmas with the people that probably inspired the creation of Xander Harris' entire family tree. Or maybe grade ~ma since I'm failing Latin II?

of course, but I'm holding some back...I'll need it tomorrow, the better to avoid a Christmas redball. Daniel, I'm sorry that happened...it seems like a drastic "solution". Fay, I'm gonna picture you juggling llamas now...it's kind of a surprising turn-on.

Cheer~ma, Almare. Sorry to hear about the Latin.

I'm off to grocery shop for dinner tomorrow night and cookie baking. All the presents are wrapped, all that really needs to be done is clean the front room for guests tomorrow. Yay! It's been an odd season for me, kinda hard to get into a really hyper-cheery mood myself, but now that I'm off for three days I've been able to relax and just enjoy myself. It feels very nice, so I'm glad to share it with anyone who wants a little.

Hey everyone! All my presents are wrapped, I have baked 3 batches of brownies, and I still have plenty of time to look pretty before Teacup Guy gets here. I hope everyone has a good Christmas Eve!

I still have plenty of time to look pretty before Teacup Guy gets here

Prettier, maybe. Having met you in person and seen any number of pictures of you, I feel qualified to state that pretty is your baseline.