The holidays can be really wonderful.

So many things are different now during the holidays than when I was younger. I find that I just coast along and take things as they come. Fortunately for me, I don't have to cook and entertain at my house. My WONDERFUL inlaws have hosted Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at their house for many years. I tried to cook for their family once. Let's just say we won't do it again anytime soon. While I know my strengths, I can also appreciate my shortcomings...

It was our first Christmas without Dad this year too. We all had a very tolerable (actually fun) and stress-free time! I missed hearing his smartass comments and familial inserts. He had this funny language that my sisters and I try to imitate and memorialize. It's so goofy, but it was who we were.

Despite the fun, I had to appreciate the irony of it all:

I went to look for my new bike on Christmas Eve at about 1pm. I ended up back home 30 minutes before we were to be at church for William to sing (4:30) because I a) got bad directions (THANK YOU JOHN) to the bike place and b) had to go to a second bike place. By the end I was DONE with life and ready to go to bed.

Thomas woke up with a fever at 3am on Christmas morning. Not a mild fever, though, it was one of those that requires you to get up out of a deep sleep and get your kid Motrin and stay awake to make sure it worked. Fifths Disease was the culprit and we are still battling it two days later. He's 7. I thought we were done with these pesky diseases.

We woke up Christmas morning and opened gifts. After that, we (I) decided to watch the Nutcracker. Sadly, when William thought the Nutcracker had died after the battle with the mice, he cried like a baby. It took me a while to convince him that the Nutcracker would come back to life. As we were watching, Thomas couldn't stand it anymore and periodically danced like MJ to the rest of the pieces. Needless to say, we didn't finish the ballet, but we had fun- in an unconventional sort of way.

At one point, I was practicing my new holiday song, 'Shingle bells, shingle bells, shingles on my face."

Then, I overheared a conversation between John and Thomas. Thomas was saying that he promised he'd TRY to be good, but didn't promise he'd actually be good. That's been our mantra for the break so far...

At one point, I was listening around the house and realized that John could only use the 'Santa's watching' thing for about 8 more hours. I immediately started looking for things that we could use for the rest of the break, but couldn't come up with anything.

I could probably come up with a few more good stories, but what stole the cake was actually having a white Christmas in Atlanta. Apparently it had been over 100 years since that had happened. The boys, my mom and my sister were overwhelmed with the sight. It truly was beautiful and very special. At one point, one of the boys said that Poppy was making it snow. How true and how beautiful that he was with us, despite being absent.

We hope to have a prosperous and positively eventful 2011.