christmas. CHRISTMAS!

Oh, I am starting to feel the pressure of The Christmas. I was so proud for having done a whole lot of our shopping early this year. I felt so on top of things. And, well now… not so much. My cards are addressed, but waiting for stamps which my husband has set out to buy on no fewer than 3 occasions but managed to return home without. Our Christmas tree lumberjack adventure was thwarted on Sunday due to rain, so we are a week behind there. The tree farm is only open until 5, so we can’t go on a school day, which means that we have to do it on Saturday. Because of the snow, we’ve been unable to do outside decorations. I’ve not baked a single cookie, AND The Children’s Place has a crappy selection of pajamas this year, so I have to go on a hunt for the perfect matching jammies for Christmas morning.

But wait, there’s more!

The kids have been obsessed with pillow pets this year, and my mother bought them for Christmas gifts. Initially, she bought Liv the Bumble Bee one, but after seeing the commercials, Liv decided that she needed a “Pink Pig Pillow Pet”. And nothing else. My sister-in-law found one on Black Friday and picked it up for my mom. My mom decided to give the bee to my niece so she would have something to open while the kids opened their gifts. Yesterday, I took Lucy to my mother’s with Liv because she was sick(ish) and while on the internet she told Liv that there were no more Pink Pig Pillow Pets. They were out of stock! (boy am I glad she can read) And then she made Liv pick out another one that she might want, which in this case is a panda bear. So now she is telling us “There’s no more pink pig pillow pets. Now I want a panda bear!!”. She might give my mother a heart attack.

And finally, the big gifts this year for the kids are Nintendo DSi’s. We initially purchased one for them to share, and then FIL said he would pay for a second one so they could each have one. So before the first one even came, the one that I pre-ordered thanks to a tip from Want Not, we ordered a second one. When we had the snow storm, we didn’t get mail or UPS or anything for 4 days, so I wasn’t overly concerned that the package hadn’t arrived. When I looked at the tracking a little bit closer though, I realized that USPS said it had been delivered the day before the snow storm. It seemed fishy, so I talked with Amazon. They asked me to give it another week because sometimes USPS says things are delivered when they are not. (we did speak to our mail carrier and she knew exactly what packages she’d delivered to us recently—that wasn’t one of them) So I did, only to find out when I checked back in to say still no DS, that the bundle we originally ordered was no longer available. And sorry, but we’ll give you a refund. I realize that Amazon can’t control that once it shipped it never arrived…I get that, and I appreciate the refund with no questions asked. But I was pissed that I had been told to wait and because of that, I missed out on what I wanted. I told them so, and they gave me a $10 credit off the new, more expensive DSi that I now had to order. Basically, that covered the shipping, because I wasn’t about to go super saver again. So, it will arrive tomorrow and Christmas will be saved. And even though it’s probably better that they will have identical units with identical games to avoid fighting, I still can’t help but to be miffed.

There has been some good though.

When we finally started getting mail last week, my package from Shelly came, which included coffee and gloves and foot warmers for me, and a ton of stocking stuffer things for the kids. It was a small box packed with a bazillion things. Totally made my day.

We had family Christmas with my mom’s side of the family last Saturday which is an off-shoot of the Polish Wagilia my Gramma had every Christmas Eve. We get together before Christmas now because the cousins are all grown and have their own families and new traditions, but it is so nice to still have Christmas with some of my very favorite people in the world. We spent the evening playing games, and eating pierogies, and an over-abundance of chocolate desserts and having a great time.

We took the kids to the mall for dinner and to see Santa on Sunday because of the rain, and we actually got an ok photo, PLUS the mall Santa people have partnered with Shutterfly, so with my package, I also got a $20 gift card to spend on anything I want over there. (I’m looking at you, desk calendar…)

Hub and I are finishing up our shopping on Friday morning, an annual tradition of getting the last minute things, plus the perfect wrapping paper to identify each of the kids’ Santa gifts. Then we have plans to drive to Syracuse this Friday, as soon as the big kids get off the bus, for Lights on the Lake, which is a huge Christmas light display around the lake there. This is really for Liv who screams “I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!” every time she sees Christmas lights.

We’ve made plans for New Years Day to do Christmas with my BFF and her family.

And we’ve decided to have a sledding party for Bud’s 7th birthday (7!! OMFG, my baby will be 7 in like 3 weeks) because he wondered why he couldn’t have a big party in the park like the girls do every year. And really, why can’t he?

Everything will be fine, I know it. We just have to get through these next 10 days.

What about you, are you ready for Christmas?