Miscellaneous Musings

We all slept in today until about 20 minutes before the bus comes to our house. Lucky we woke up at all. In times like these it is nice that my kids hate to do anything with their hair and their clothes are simple. I rolled Grace out of bed, she downed an instant breakfast, brushed her teeth, threw on her favorite tie-dye t-shirt and coat and went out the door. My favorite part of the morning was her one complete sentence: "I can't decide if I'm tired or not... (long pause) I'm going with tired." It reminded me of my high school days when I used to roll out of bed at 7:05, shower, throw on some garb with Doc Martens, pull a hat over my wet hair, leave at 7:22 and somehow arrive to my first class on time at 7:30. Sometimes I even picked up a friend on the way. I was never late. Grace has yet to miss the bus, but I know the day will come when I have to drive her to school in my jammies because we've pushed the clock further than it can stretch.

Also, the countdown to Christmas has begun - faster than I can imagine. We have a beautiful hand stitched advent calendar that David's mom made for us. The kids take turns putting the little squares on it. They also have those chocolate calendars and they eat their chocolate every day after lunch. Hattie is having a really hard time understanding why we only eat one chocolate and leave the rest. She usually asks for another one later in the day and has a fit when we tell her no.

Red has returned. Red is our elf. Not a Harry Potter house elf, but an employee of Santa. He checks in on us periodically during the whole year - maybe once every other month or so. But, in December, he arrives on the 1st, and leaves at night to report to Santa and returns every morning perched in a new place. The girls have the most fun looking for him every day. Hattie is totally dazzled by him. She really wants to hold him and play with him, but he does not like to be touched. We let her touch him once in a while though and she's kissed him too. She is so excited about Santa this year. Christmas morning is going to be so neat. (neat, I know David doesn't like using that word.)(Red chose the top of the tree this morning for his vantage point.)

We're also pretty pumped up about our Christmas tree this year. Again, sticking with the fresh cut New England Christmas tree tradition. It is by far the nicest looking tree we've ever had. We had the Charlie Brown tree last year (not that it was dead, but it had a huge hole in it and it was so gigantic we had to hedge trim it in the living room.) This one is perfectly proportioned, exactly the right size, and we bought some new cool LED lights for it that make these circles on the walls and the ceiling when it starts getting dark. The term "far out" comes to mind.