I've Turned The Christmas Corner

As I described here I suffer from a yearly holiday phenomenon in which I dread the holidays.  To someone who enjoys exactly 0.00 things on her To Do list on any given day it seems daunting, over-whelming and unappealing.  Now, WHY do I want to have to go shopping?  Tell me again how all this ::waving around at plastic Santa Clauses, flashing Christmas lights and a stack of catalogs that have recently come in the mail:: relates to my life in general and Christ's birth?  Why do I want to drag a bunch of stuff out of the basement only to have to put it all away again in a month?

Yes.  I was that person.

But, alas, as described HERE the other part of this phenomenon is that eventually I do come around.  And I come around hard.  This year is no exception.  I'm almost to the point where I never want it to end.  Everyday I'm thinking of a new goodie to make/bake.  I became giddy as I packaged up presents and dropped them in the mail OR carefully chose them from a website and clicked the "Make Purchase" button (which was 90% of my shopping, btw). 

I also loved decorating the house & seeing my kids get more and more excited as I finished each area.  Here are some pictures of The Holidays Around the Landersons:

(Local peeps: Do any of you know anyone with an embroider machine that can do Beebs' name on that stocking up there?  Yeah, I got these before she was born.  I neeeeeeed to fix this before I forget about it until next year.  Again.)

And some of my FAVORITE Christmas sites around the house?

Finished, addressed and stamped Christmas cards!

Oodles of festive Pretzel Hugs!

  Seeing those oodles of Pretzel Hugs packaged up & ready to deliver to friends & neighbors!

 

My new favorite thing I started doing this year was putting up my Christmas cards around my entry way mirror.  Before I'd just get them, read them, love them & then stick them in a basket by the door.  But NOW??  A friggin' work of art. Srsly.

(Note: several more have been added since I took this photo a few days ago.  It's now filled & I'm having to stick them on the mirror itself.  It brings a tear to my eye.  I'm not kidding.)

I also love putting up the ornaments on the Christmas tree.  So many memories are in these ornaments.  Sentimental value up the yin-yang, people.  Growing up, my mom would give us all an ornament every year.  She labeled it with our name and they year we got it.  When I got married, she gave me all my ornaments from over the years so Gty & I would have some ornaments for the tree.

This one is the oldest one I could find.  It was given to me by my Grandpa Jeppson in 1978.  I love that it's his handwriting on the tag too:

I love this one from 1983.  My mom made it, of course.

And I have many others spanning the years from 1978 to 1996 when I married Gty and "got off the payroll" as my Dad liked to call it.  I love getting them out each year and figuring out how old I was when I got them.

Then there are some more recent ones which melt my heart each time I get them out of the ornament box.  They are, of course, the ones made by the boys in preschool and have their pictures on them.

Wook at dat 4 year old!!  Cutest senior-pictures-chin-rest-pose ever.

And....be still my heart...

A two year old TBone.

I stare this little squirt for at least 10 minutes every Christmas ::staring at this picture of a picture cuz I can't help it::

Beebs is bugged there are not ornaments with her picture on them.  I'll have to fix that this year.

And, since last year, no Christmas will ever be complete again until this bad boy gets put in the tree.

I hope you all are enjoying the holidays. Coming up on my baking/cooking/making list.... Magic Cookie Bars, Anita's Famous Orange Rolls (I had to go to a class to learn how to make those puffs from heaven), wassail, Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies, my Best Sugar Cookies, Peppermint Bark (Costco is all out now--booooo) and probably a banana cream pie (just cuz I'm in the mood).

So, if you see a person on the street who looks kinda like me but is a good 20-30 lbs. heavier just wave and act like nothing's changed.  It's just easier.