Happy Holidaze!

Hello out there? Remember me? :crickets chirping:

Okay, I know. I've been MIA. Since Thanksgiving. Yeah, yeah. Go ahead, say it. Slacker!! Red, you're a SLACKER!

But somehow, it feels like I haven't had a moment to sit down since November. Well, a three year old and a husband, a house and cat, and a full-time retail job? I've been busy. To say the least. But, things are slowing down and returning to normal. Thank God, I say! I have a serious love/hate relationship with the holidays. For real. I love Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years. Love. To me, it's always meant getting together with family, good food, good times. Then, I grew up and got a job. In RETAIL (not the smartest thing I've ever done, but that's a whole different post for another day). At that point, I began to hate the holidays. People get mean and irrational. Work gets harder and you have to accomplish more with less time. Long hours, even longer weeks. For years I only got 4 days off in the entire month of December. This year was a little different. My change of position offered me more days off, and fewer hours at work. Yay! But, it was still hectic. But, now I can breathe. Here's a brief recap of our holiday season.

Thanksgiving: We had a wonderful time with Mike and Shell, Livi and Violet. I absolutely love having family dinners with them. The kids crack me up, and it makes my heart full. Dinner was at our house, and even though I had to work, Steve assembled a wonderful meal. He's a great cook. I think I'll keep him. :)

Christmas: I worked until 11 on Christmas Eve. Steve and Sami put out the cookies and milk for Santa, threw the Magic Reindeer Food outside, and put out the Santa Key. He said she was absolutely psyched for Santa to come! I got home from work and put out all the presents and filled the stockings, and put the breakfast bake together. We were in bed by 2 or so (ugh). I woke up at 8, very surprised since I'd fully expected to be poked in the forehead at 6:30! I came downstairs and made coffee, put the casserole in the oven, and even made cinnamon rolls. Nobody was awake! I sat down and enjoyed a cup of coffee, at which point I decided to wake everyone up. I dragged Steve out of bed, then we woke Sami up at 9:30. What alternate universe was I in that I had to wake my child up on Christmas morning! Haha! We opened presents, she was thrilled with everything. Then we had to get dressed and went over to Shell's parents house for dinner. We had a great time, laughing and telling stories with her family. Then, back to our house to open presents with the Mike and Shell, et al. THEN, over to Aunt Elaine's house for dinner with the rest of the Krauses. Finally, we got back home, and essentially collapsed in exhausted heaps. But we were happy, and our hearts and bellies were full.

New Years: This was a tough one for me. I had to work both NYE and NYD, and we had plans to go to a friend's house for a party. 2 hours away. I was so nervous about it since Sami would be staying at a mutual friend's house with her kids. I didn't want to drive all the way out there in potential bad weather, had no idea how Sami would react to us not being there in the morning, was unsure how many people I'd know, etc etc. As it turns out, the weather was fine (not so much on NYD, but we were mostly home by then), Sami had a blast, and we had a ton of fun. I can't remember the last time I stayed up drinking and playing euchre until 3am. Oh yeah, it was back in college. Ha! All was good. All that worry and complaining about nothing. So typical of me.

In a nutshell, that was our holiday season. We made it through, with little sleep but lots of fun and love.