Christmas cheer

With my new job starting, it's been a little difficult to find the time to observe the holiday traditions, but we're working on it. The cards are finally all sent out. First time ever, we completely ran out of everything -- cards, letters, and stamps -- before we'd made it through the list. So... I thought about going out and buying more cards and stamps, making more copies of the letter... but a split second later I thought: nope, ain't gonna happen... so, anyway, we're done with cards.

Cookies are a very important part of my family's Christmas, and it was beginning to look as though I wasn't going to have time to make any. So... this past weekend I gritted my teeth and got busy. First I made panocha squares (they're really easy):

and then candy cane cookies:

The twins really enjoyed helping with these and we got a good do on them.

Then came spritz cookies, made with my grandmother's cookie press that was salvaged from the flood:

The twins also helped a lot with these (which explains why we used the butterfly shape and purple sparkles). And then we have fudge (which in MY family is considered a Christmas cookie):

I have the ingredients to make a few more batches of cookies, but they'll have to wait. Time is up. Maybe we can make Lebkuchen on New Year's Day.

Our tree is coming along.

It could use some more decorations, but the nice thing about Christmas trees is that there are no rules -- however many ornaments you put on, that's the right number. Actually, our Christmas tree does have one rule: the bald eagle ornament has to go as near the top as possible, because bald eagles like to sit at the tops of trees.

Tonight I let the twins open their new Christmas stockings from Uncle Rick's mom -- the old ones were destroyed in the flood. Oh, this was exciting!

Getting the stockings out reminded the twins of last year. Baby A said, "Last Christmas my SNAKE was in my stocking!"

"That's right," I said. "Santa Claus brought you a stuffed snake."

"And now the stuffing is coming out," Baby A went on, reminding me of my MANY MANY mending projects lying undone around the house. When will I ever have time to mend the snake? Maybe on the bus?

I'm trying not to get too stressed out about how incredibly limited my time is now. I get off 2 hours early tomorrow (Christmas Eve) and of course no work on Christmas day. It's enough, or rather, it will have to be enough. I'll try to just enjoy everything and not worry about making things perfect, as if perfection were ever possible. And maybe we'll have time for another walk in the snow.

We've been getting little snowfalls off and on the last few days, and there's a SLIGHT chance of snow on Christmas Eve!