Lindsey had Lantern Tours all weekend. Saturday was an early night, as there were no tickets sold for the 7:30, 8:00 or 8:30 show. Sunday we had winds and rain, and the shows were sold out, go figure. Olivia helped me make fudge and peanut butter balls on Sunday evening.
Monday everyone was off to work early. Lindsey did some school work before she left, and took the remainder with her. By 8am I was in the kitchen in cookie making mode. I baked cookies until about 3:15, when I ran out of energy and patience. This has been a tradition with us since the girls were tiny. We'd bake and decorate cookies for days, then go about "elfing" family, friends and random strangers on occasion. It was always a huge deal, mostly because we were just in the kitchen working together and having fun. Now that everyone's grown and working, it's not nearly as much fun for me to do all the baking alone. I'm thinking this will be the last year for this tradition. We were all able to sit down and decorate sugar cookies together after dinner.
Tuesday morning was another early day for everyone. Lindsey had to take part of her school work with her again. I made the last three batches of cookies and then worked on my Christmas dinner shopping list and cleaned the house. The kids had jiu-jitsu in the evening and we watched old Christmas commercials on you-tube while they were gone.
Wednesday I dropped Lindsey off at work and then I headed to the grocery store for the week. I picked a couple of gift cards and my shopping is officially done. Once home I boxed up a couple of packages that needed to ship, and once those were ready I headed out to the post office. I was really dreading the trip, but walked in with nobody in line and was in and out in less than 5 minutes! I grabbed a cold soda on the way home from the post office and puttered around the house doing a few odds and ends. Church wrapped up the evening, this was my last night to teach until January.
Thursday I dropped Lindsey off at work and headed to the chiropractor. On the way home I dropped off some baked goodies at a friend's house. I spent the morning cleaning house and doing laundry, and then the in-laws stopped by around 11am. I picked Lindsey up at 1, and dropped off a plate of homemade goodies for the family she babysits for. We watched Christmas movies until everyone else got home and then had dinner. The girls went to jiu-jitsu in the evening. When they got home we did our traditional trip around town to look at Christmas decorations, while sipping on chocolate peppermint shakes from Chick-fil-a.
Neither girl had to work on Friday. They both slept in a little, Lindsey was up earliest of the two to get started on school work. She'd doubled up on a few things during the week to give her a lighter day today. Once we're all up and functional, we're driving out to another nearby town to go to a great little bagel shop for breakfast and then visit a couple of farmer's markets in that area. I thought we might find some last minute treasures, but if not, it's just a nice slower pace than going to big chain stores.
This is the last weekend of Lantern Tours and then it's just full steam ahead until Christmas!
I can see why the cookie baking has some lost some of it's luster doing it all by yourself. This is the first year I'm not spending most of my month baking and while I miss it a bit I'm relieved not to have that on my to do list. It sounds like you are really on top of things though and are well prepared for the holiday! Hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas.
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