Wii are finished!

I have just finished shipping the last of my Christmas orders and I am celebrating.

Patience and I did the dance of joy after I slapped on the last shipping label.  She’s been a trooper…my number one assistant and shop manager.

Now that the stockings are all off to their holiday homes and the monogrammed gifts have been sent, I am going to sit down with my kids for a few days and see if they recognize me.  I have been letting the Wii babysit while I worked.  I may have to dress like Mario Cart and pretend I have no hands like my Mii character to get my boys to even notice that I have walked into the room.

Seriously, why do they have no hands anyway?

 

Tonight Grace and I got to spend a couple of hours together driving to a little private school Christmas program that she videos every year.  While we drove we talked and looked at Christmas lights and sang carols.  It was so sweet….reminded me of the times when it was just me and her….20+ years ago.  I can go instantly back there in my mind.  She’d be buckled into her car seat and kicking her little fat legs wearing her glittery pink cowgirl boots.  She would pop her pacifier out of her mouth to squeal over the bright lights then pop it back in.  Grace doesn’t use a pacifier anymore.  Maybe I should put one in her stocking just for fun.  Or maybe that would only be fun for me.  I’m too lost down Memory Lane to make any big decisions like that.

Speaking of stockings, I finally finished getting everything we need for our stockings.  Every year it goes something like this:

1.  Spend all year buying little things…at the dollar spot, on clearance, at the flea market, garage sales, etc….and toss it in bags on a shelf in my closet.

2.  Around December 1st pull it all out and sort it into 10 piles.

3.  Realize that, while I tried really hard, there are 3 people with too much, 4 people with just the right amount, 2 people with very little and 1 person with nothing at all.

4.  Spend the next 2 weeks killing myself trying to find more budget things for the stockings.

5.  Spend December 14th running all over the big city spending way too much money on stocking stuffers.

6.  Collapse in satisfied exhaustion and make a resolution not to do stockings next year.

7.  December 26, start looking for bargains for next year’s stockings.

It’s a viscous cycle.

I wonder how much harder it would be if I had no hands.