Oh Christmas Tree

 

Are we already eight days into December? The little doors on the advent calendar keep opening one by one. I find myself having a hard time avoiding both the stress and merriment that comes this time of year. While part of me would love to join the bears in winter slumber, another part is swept up in the sea of tinsel and lights. I feel both excited and overwhelmed. My brain is like a Christmas cracker, ready to explode with holly jolly garbage! There are so many things I want to make and very little time. I want to make the holidays simple and yet I feel this need to make it spectacular. I know it can be both, I just have to shift priorities. With two young kids, it has become even more difficult to achieve my dream of an entirely handmade Christmas, but that's okay. I'm trying to give myself permission to buy things when there's just not the time to make all I want to make. It actually gives me a little sick feeling in the stomach to not make something handmade for those I love, but especially with a nursing baby, there's just not the time. Still, I try very hard to stay out of malls this time of year, and find what I can locally. I'm mostly limiting my handmade gifts to my two little girls this year, because there are a few special things I really want to make them.

Oh my, here I am rambling on about Christmas, and I forgot to mention this little lovebug/ Christmas helper turned seven months on Friday. Oh, and what's she doing these days, you may be wondering, well, let's see:
- saying mama and dada!
 - sitting up - scooting
- lifting that butt off the ground
- doing lots of baby babble
- grabbing for everything
- eating solids as of six months
- making Mama her every moment slave.... (oops, gotta go, my master calls)