Christmas in March

First of all-I just have to say I'm sorry for neglecting this blog for so long. We seem to be in this rut where we make a big decision, feel good about it for a while, then another one appears before us and, well, I'm the kind of person who over-thinks and over-analyzes every decision I've ever made. I think and analyze so much that it becomes this giant, bigger than life thing that I can't control anymore. I know I'm doing this even while I'm doing it, but that doesn't mean I can stop. So, I guess I've been too busy thinking in circles to write on this blog.

I've been meaning to tell everyone that this Christmas was probably the best one we've had since getting married and having kids. Oliver was old enough to kind of get what was going on and Alison remembered some of our traditions. For instance, the first ornament to get hung on our tree is this glass pickle. Everyone leaves the room, I hang it somewhere, and then we make Alison and Oliver try to find it. Well, really, we make Alison try to find it. This year as we were getting out all of our decorations she kept asking me about the 'tricky pickle'. I was SO happy that she remembered! I must have hid that pickle 20 times while the tree was up, and each time she was just as thrilled when she found it.

We stayed here and hosted, and I'm just going to come out and say it...I had fear. I was really looking forward to it, but we live in a 1400 square foot house. I was wondering how it would all go. It turns out that you can make anything work. We had a nice Christmas dinner thanks to Mam and our new kitchen, plus plenty of appetizers on Christmas eve, and the kids got to wake up and open presents on Christmas morning in their own living room. I have to stop and say that Oliver was pretty pissed off when he realized that all of those cookies we were putting on the nice plate on Christmas eve were for Santa and not for him.

So, in summary, I'm crazy, we had a good Christmas, and Oliver likes cookies.