And the Final Holiday Tradition: We're Glad It's Over!

Christmas was a success. I mean, if you can measure it by the level of tired I feel today, I'm assuming it was a huge success!

Zoey went to sleep early on Christmas Eve after being reminded that Santa never visits the homes of children who stay awake. Kind of made me wish I could throw down the Santa card more often. Anyway, she was fascinated by the concept of leaving cookies and milk on the fireplace for Santa...little did she know, shortly after she crashed for the night, the cats are the ones who made quick work of the snacks, not Santa.

Christmas morning, Zoey gave us the gift of sleeping in--all the way until 8 a.m. She then made a beeline for the cookies-and-milk plate, bypassing her gifts and stuffed stocking sitting right next to the fireplace. After jumping up and down for joy because "Santa ate his yunch!" (lunch), she finally noticed the special presents left out for her: a changing table and new stroller for her baby dolls (complete with newborn size diapers), AND a teddy bear. She made quick work of diapering every doll in sight and had to be reminded that she had other gifts to open.

The Big Family Christmas was held at our house this year, and after a quick clean-up and plenty of food prep, my extended family and Bryan's family all arrived with loads of presents and food. I had a brief moment of panic when my turkey timer popped out at 3:20 p.m.--I had planned dinner for around 4:00 but at no point in my family's history have we ACTUALLY EATEN AT THE PLANNED TIME, so I was completely unprepared for a meal at my house to be on the table on time. Luckily, my sister's vegetarian lasagna still had to cook, and we realized that Justin and Angela had forgotten to bring the card tables and chairs...when all was said and done, I think it was close to 5 p.m. when we sat down to eat. Thank God...as if I want to be the one setting the precedent for eating on time...

Gifts came shortly after dinner and I think Zoey is now the proud owner of at least a dozen new puzzles. (Which Mommy is grateful for, as the same old puzzle over and over again sounds about as appealing as the same book read over and over again.) Uncle Justin, who clearly doesn't understand what the average trip to the Urgent Care Clinic costs, bought Zoey a pop gun...fabulous. A new piggy bank from Oma and Grandpa Paul (huge hit), new jammies from Auntie Yissa (Alisa), tons of fun new books (the Lemony Snicket books from Auntie Abby and Uncle Tom look hilarious, and probably more fun for Mommy to read than Zoey), and on and on....

...Santa didn't bring me a wife, by the way, but my mother-in-law and her husband DID get us a Roomba, which is pretty close. Mom and Paul got us a nifty waffle iron, so if I could just track down a machine that plays endless hours of "doctor" and "diaper change" with a preschooler, I think I'd be set. Maybe next year.

So, the holidays were fun. Watching Zoey take in the magic of Christmas was the highlight of the year. But seriously, I'm glad Christmas is over...because I need a nap.

Best of luck to you!

Oma and Grandpa Paul have taken my child, and my niece and nephew, FOR THE WHOLE WEEKEND.

Because they are crazy.

Earlier in the week, my mom emailed and asked my sister and I to please send some tips on what the kids needed for the weekend, i.e. routines, favorite snacks, special needs, etc. I emailed her the following:

Mom, here is what you'll need for a weekend spent with my daughter:

1. Ice packs, band-aids, something useful for splinting limbs, and possibly a suture kit.

2. A copy of our insurance card, a medical release form, and a mapped out route to the nearest urgent care facility. BECAUSE ONCE I DROP HER OFF, I'M NOT COMING BACK.

3. Plenty of hot milk, the patience of Job, and a readily available time-out chair.

I don't know if that's what she had in mind, but I've received no phone calls so far, and we're nearly seven hours in to the Weekend Adventure at Oma's. And yes, I dropped Zoey off sporting a black eye (football injury) and a nearly-healed split lip (playground incident). And yes, I was the only one who left a copy of the insurance card. Just in case.

Tomorrow Bryan and I are going to Seattle to watch the Seahawks game, stay in a hotel, enjoy some uninterrupted sleep, and celebrate being married for five years.

I love you Bryan!

(And Oma and Grandpa Paul? I REALLY love you.)

The difference between moms and dads

Exhibit A:

My sister, Alisa, brought her four-year-old son Finley to Zoey's Christmas program several weeks ago. Zoey was overjoyed to have her cousin watching from the audience...and Finley looked dashing in his Christmas best, argyle sweater and all.

Exhibit B:

Finley's Christmas Sing-A-Long was yesterday, and though I was working, I encouraged Bryan to take Zoey over to his preschool to watch. Because he loves me dearly and knows my caffeine levels take dangerous dives early in the afternoon, Bryan stopped by work on his way to the program to bring me a Diet Coke. The following conversation ensued:

Me: Hi guys!! You brought me caffeine...yay!

Zoey: Yeah! Daddy said you needed Diet Coke!

Me: (taking in Zoey's ratty pink sweatpants) Thank you SO much... (upon closer inspection) hey, is that Zoey's pajama top?

Bryan: Yeah. She didn't want to take it off this morning.

Me: But...aren't you on your way to the program?

Bryan: Uh-huh.

*Pause*

Bryan: But we're totally going home to change Zoey's clothes first.

Of course you are.

You're taking her out in public wearing THAT?!?

Holiday Tradition #10: Giving back

So, it's the year of no disposable income. I think that's been fairly well established here. But I have on my hands a three-year-old who is just starting to revel in the Christmas spirit, and Target happened to be having a mad sale on board games the weekend of Thanksgiving, so I really wanted to buy at least a toy or two to donate to charity.

Normally, I'm all over taking a tag from the Giving Tree at the YMCA or the mall or helping to adopt a family through work, but this year...not so much in the budget. However, I DO think it's important to teach Zoey that, while we may not have tons and tons of toys under our tree, we still have a LOT more than some kids. This concept went completely over her head, as is evidenced by the following conversation. But that's okay...we'll try again next year.

Zoey: Mommy? What's this game?

Me: Oh, that's the one we're going to take to the store today to donate to someone who needs it.

Zoey: I need it. I want it. Can we open it?

Me: No, kiddo, we're going to give it to a kid who doesn't have many toys to play with. (*Long conversation ensues regarding how lucky Zoey is to have all her toys, and how some kids don't have ANY toys to play with, these are the kids we need to think of at Christmas time, etc etc etc...)

Zoey: (eyes glassing over) Can I go to their house?

Me: What? Who's house?

Zoey: The kids. The kids who don't have toys--can I go to their house and play the game with them?

So, we dropped off two board games in the Toys for Tots bin at McLendons Hardware. And, like I said...maybe next year she'll get it.

Holiday Tradtion #9: Preschool Christmas Program

I know you can't make anything out in this photo, but trust me when I tell you that MY child is up on that stage, preparing to sing (and hand-motion) her little heart out at her Christmas Program last week.

One thing I love about having Zoey in the Cascade Christian daycare program is that they still have "Christmas Programs", not "Winter Festivals" or "Holiday Sing-A-Longs"...it's Christmas all the way, with Jesus and all things religious being the center of what they're about. While Bryan and I are not terribly religious, we were both raised going to church and we both attended Cascade Christian preschools as well...in fact, Zoey's program the other night was in the same gym I used to sing in, what, 27 years ago? Anyway, the director of Zoey's daycare is a boisterous, cheerful woman who gets onstage at every program with a level of enthusiasm I can only envy from afar, to encourage us to 'PRAISE Jesus because our children are SUCH blessings and tonight you are going to be SO blessed by what your children have been preparing so hard to perform for you!' And then she inevitably introduces her assistant, Ms. Heather, who always looks exhausted and frazzled and kind of like 'aiy, this woman, I love her, but she told me two weeks ago about putting together a Christmas program!' Ms. Heather is the woman who gets it all done, you can tell, as she walks around behind the director picking up things that have fallen, been knocked over, or left in a state of disaster in the wake of such enthusiasm. It's always entertaining to watch.

But more on the program. Zoey's class was the first to perform two songs--Go Tell it on the Mountain, and Ring Those Bells. They filed in to the gym with jingle-bell wristbands and looks of total amazement on their faces. This was the make-it-or-break-it moment, when you could tell they were all either going to fall apart or totally ham it up for the entire assembled audience. Luckily, most of them began spotting their parents in the crowd, and there was plenty of jingle bell waving and shouts of 'Hi Mommy!' 'Hi Daddy!' Now, we've been listening to Zoey practice her songs for months now, and she wasn't about to disappoint, especially on her favorite song, Go Tell it on the Mountain. The girl had every word and hand motion memorized, although her lyrics deviated slightly from those I remember from childhood. For example, instead of "Go, tell it on the mountain, that Jesus Christ is born", Zoey prefers "Go, tell it on the mountain, that Jesus Christ is four". I hear that four is the new thirty.

I picked Zoey up in her classroom after the program and told Ms. Nicole how impressed I was that all the kids seemed so in to singing their songs, and she told me she was happy, too, because last year her class got up on stage and not one child sang one word of one song. This year, apparently, she got a class full of performers.

Christmas programs are by far one of my favorite holiday traditions!

Holiday Tradition #8: Christmas cards

Here is where I sat this afternoon while my child was clearly not napping in the room next door--at my desk, working on the Christmas Tradition I Love to Hate, or, the prepping before mailing of Christmas letters.

Holiday letters, in my opinion, are for sending to nearly everyone in your address book, regardless of whether you have talked to them in the past year or not. Or the past five years. Like the guy who married us five years ago and his wife, whom we have not seen in, well, five years. Every year, this means that my fat pack of 100 holiday photo cards is always waiting for me at the Costco photo center in late November, despite the fact that no matter how lofty my goals, they will not be mailed until a week and a half before Christmas. Because honestly, going through your address book annually requires a lot of fact checking and always makes me wish I could hire a personal assistant...let's see, Aunt Louise passed away in July, and did Bryan's cousin Dawn move this year, or was it last? Anyway, you can see the amount of work involved, not to mention the hand cramping and OH MY GOD, do you have any idea what a postage stamp costs these days??

I know, I know. *whiner*

Anyway, address-research and carpal tunnel aside, I always enjoy sitting down to write the annual Christmas letter, although I'll admit, I'm struggling a bit with it this year. I'm never one to go the 'let me present to you my perfect life' letter, as in something way too perky with too many exclamation points and statements like 'our daughter is just perfect! a little princess! never has temper tantrums and she potty trained in two days, can you even believe it?!' that make you want to stick a fork down your throat. Of course, there's always the opposite approach, the one where you touch on every misfortune ever graced on you and leave people questioning humanity in the wake of this festive season. But we all know that's what I have this blog for, so don't worry about wanting to drink excessively or anything when my letter arrives in your mailbox, okay?

Some years it's harder than others to hit that happy medium, and this happens to be one of them. And since giving up the binky appears to be the catalyst for my child also shaking that pesky afternoon-nap-habit, I will be finishing the work sitting on that desk sometime in mid-January and oh, my Grandma will be disappointed.

Sleepless in Puyallup

Scene: our bed, 5 a.m.

Zoey: (whispering at the side of the bed) Mommy? Mommy?

Me: Mmmpff. What, sweetie?

Zoey: Mommy, I want to be two again. I don't want to be fwee (three).

Me: What? Why?

Zoey: Because. I just don't want to be fwee. I'm only two.

Me: No, Zoey, you're three. Do you want to get in bed with me?

Zoey: Yes...but I'm just two. (Snuggling in next to me.)

Me: Why don't you want to be three? Three means fun things! Like...like...singing in your Christmas program! And...getting your own library card! (I have no idea if this is true or not. But it sounded good, and grown-up, and better than 'you can start drinking coffee!' while in the moment.)

Zoey: I don't want to be fwee. I just want my binky back.

Saddest. Thing. Ever.

Last night, while she DID manage to nod off without aid of sucking on her fingers, she still was awake until almost 11 p.m. Which pretty much guarantees she'll be in a stellar mood all day today, especially for her three-year check up, which she has suddenly decided she wants no part of.

*sigh*

Do braces really cost that much? Does anybody know?

Grieving the loss of the binky

Sobbing.

Calls of "I just want my binky!"

Sadness, tears, etc.

All of the above can be heard from my daughter's bedroom right now. I'm letting Bryan field this particular episode, but if nap time was just a preview of what our night is about to be like, I'm moving out.

'B' Day

Today, B stands for binkies and birthdays. And baby dolls.

To say that I am regretting the decision to take Zoey to Toys R Us on her birthday and let her "buy" a new baby doll with her binkie would be something like the biggest understatement of our year so far.

Want to know what time I put her down for her nap today? 12:30 p.m. Want to know what time it is now? 2 p.m. Want to guess who has been in her room for the past hour and a half, alternately hiccup-sobbing and sucking desperately on two fingers from her left hand?

I'll start at the beginning.

This morning started off famously--Zoey was up early, happy to be the Birthday Girl, and even happier to open the presents that have been waiting for her for several days. (Thank you to everyone who sent gifts despite the canceled party!) My Grandma came over, we met Alisa and her kids for donuts, and then it was off to Toys R Us...Zoey getting one last final moment with her binkie in the back seat, all the way to Tacoma.

She was having no part of giving up the bink until we actually hit the inside of the toy store. And once we found the Promised Land of baby doll aisle, she was all for giving up anything, if it meant picking a new doll. Ushering her quickly past the Baby Alive section (boasting a horrid array of dolls with creepy eyes and disgustingly real dirty diapers), we started scanning for a new member of our family made entirely of plastic. Because, in my daughter's eyes, taking that doll in the bath tub with her was going to be the pinnacle of her existence. And then...we saw her. With packaging printed entirely in Spanish, she was the holy grail of baby dolls (if you happen to be Zoey): plastic, complete with her own small bath tub and bottle, sporting her very own runny nose (because on the scale of dolls-with-gross-bodily-fluids, this was at the bottom of the spectrum), and--AND--a nurse's cap, glasses, and syringe, for all those occasions that warrant taking your baby to the doctor's office in the 1940's when nurses actually wore caps. And glasses, apparently.

Spanish baby also carried a price tag of $39.99.

But Zoey was hooked, so this was the baby we chose to go home with. And my daughter, God love her, marched proudly up to the counter where, after scoping the scene for the kindliest cashier I could see, she placed her binkie in a plastic bag and turned it over. Just like that.

She was rewarded with a Geoffery balloon and paper crown, while I was busy being swindled in to buying nine dollars worth of AA batteries. (Because the doll talks, did I mention that? Isn't that neat?) And we were off.

And I am not lying when I tell you it took nearly 10 minutes of cutting, sawing, cursing and pulling to release that freaking doll from the evil clutches of plastic-and-wire packaging.

Zoey was totally thrilled with her new baby for approximately 20 minutes. Then it was time to choose a birthday lunch: Cheerios and peas, because she's weird like that. After lunch, she announced she was ready for bed, although now that we're two hours in to the process of getting her to sleep, I'm wondering if she was just hoping her binkie would be lying there in bed waiting for her the minute she crawled in for a nap.

So, it's looking like the trauma of giving up the binkie is going to be every bit as awful as I had imagined, possibly resulting, in the end, with a finger-sucking habit.

And you can't turn your fingers in for a new baby doll. Or so I hear.

Because the right color animal cookie is KEY.

It is 10:24 p.m. on a Sunday night. I just returned from driving to three different stores to find pink and white Circus Animal Cookies for Zoey to take to school tomorrow as her birthday treat. After striking out completely at the first Safeway, running to Albertsons and thinking I had scored with the Holiday edition cookies (no pink to be found, but look Zoey, red and green sprinkles!), only to be met with a disgruntled 3-year-old insisting "NO, Mommy, I want pink!", and not having the heart to argue with said 3-year-old who missed her birthday party this weekend, I finally hit the jackpot at Safeway #2.

She will be hearing about this later on in life.

As in, "I labored for 17 hours before giving birth to you, and on your third birthday drove to three separate grocery stores in 29 degree weather to find precisely the right animal cookies for you to take to preschool".

But at least she's on the mend!

Holiday Tradition #7: Cookies

How many of my Holiday Tradition stories so far have started out with "My Grandma...." Well, here's another one.

Grandma is known for her Christmas cookies. Dozens and dozens and dozens of them, every single year. Everyone has a favorite, and every year, shortly after Thanksgiving, Grandma sets out to bake everybody's favorite cookie. And because we have something ridiculous like 29 relatives living nearby and clamoring for peanut blossoms and wreaths and chocolate mint cookies and (my personal favorite, which I hog from the cookie platter every year) spritz, she's kept busy with the baking right up until December 25.

Now, I can bake a mean cookie if I do say so myself. But, with the exception of the Holiday Season of 2006, in which I was nesting and very close to giving birth to my lovely daughter and so I baked somewhere in the vicinity of 14 different kinds of cookies, some of which have no ties to the Christmas holiday at all, and made it so nothing besides cookies could fit in our freezer for weeks afterward, I don't usually come close to the sheer volume of baked goods that my 72-year-old Grandma can generate each and every year. (One of my favorite memories of late November 2006 is waddling through Barnes and Noble with my sister Abby, who found me in the cookbook aisle yet again, perusing Martha Stewart's Christmas Cookie Collection. Abby staged her own version of a one-man Intervention and basically told me that if she wasn't able to start storing her soy products in the freezer any time soon, she'd be moving out and wouldn't I be in a world of hurt then? Who was going to roll me down the street to Dairy Queen, huh? QUIT WITH THE COOKIE BAKING ALREADY.)

This year, I have partnered with the matriarch of the family and Abby will be thrilled to hear that my house is quickly becoming Cookie Central once again.

Grandma dropped off her cookie sheets and a tub of chocolate cookie batter yesterday, which I wasted no time turning in to a batch of yummy chocolate mint cookies. And, you guys? I am not joking when I tell you that I made the best batch of spritz cookies I've ever tasted this morning. Seriously, I think it might be the cookie sheets...like some type of 1960's Teflon-coated magic. The trick--and I'm beginning to wonder why this tidbit of knowledge has been withheld from me for all these many years--is to keep your cookie sheets in the fridge between batches of the yummy little butter cookies, so the butter doesn't begin to melt before hitting the oven. They melt in your mouth and totally make all the work that goes in to cleaning the f***ing cookie press afterward worth it. Serious.

Grandma, I'll be returning your cookie sheets sometime in January.

Maybe.

Holiday Tradition #6: A visit from St. Nick...or, our cousin Nick.

New tradition in our house!

Yesterday, I was trying to think of ways to cheer Zoey up for having to miss her birthday party (and, I'll admit, some way to cheer myself up too--everybody was feeling a little bummed around here) so I decided we'd celebrate St. Nick Day a little early.

I explained (or, rather, TRIED to explain) the concept to Zoey: you leave your shoe out tonight, and St. Nick will come fill it with goodies while you're sleeping--kind of like a Santa Claus warm-up. This quickly led to confusion, as she assumed our cousin Nick would be dropping by sometime in the middle of the night to leave her a present. I clarified, several times, the difference between St. Nick and Cousin Nick. Totally over her head. But she was excited about the overall idea.

So, shortly after 7:00 this morning, Zoey was thrilled to find that my Aunt Cindy's 17-year-old son had snuck in late last night to leave her a Dora DVD, a Snoopy ornament, and some blue jelly beans.

Thanks, Nick!

Couldn't you just get H1N1 like everyone else?

I'll interrupt my festive holiday posting to update you on why Zoey's birthday party has been canceled:

Last night, right around 2 a.m., Zoey shows up in our bed hotter than hell and telling me 'everything hurts!' No good. A little Motrin and a few hours later, she and I both drift off to sleep. Luckily, I was scheduled to have the day off, you know--TO GET READY FOR HER PARTY. And to help with my mother-in-law's surprise 60th birthday party, which Zoey and I should be attending...right about now.

So, I'm no dummy. It's taken me roughly nine months of living back in Puyallup to figure out that if I want Zoey to have an appointment with her pediatrician, and not the janitor who will charge me $100 to tell me she has nothing wrong with her, I had better get the office on speed dial at precisely 8 a.m. SHARP. I am quite sure I was the first phone call answered by the receptionist today. I explained what was wrong and was rewarded with a coveted spot on Dr. Grubb's schedule at 10:15.

Of course, at this point, Zoey is walking and talking like nothing much is wrong. In fact, she looks pretty darn smug that she's fenagled an extra day at home with Mommy, instead of going to daycare. I retreated to the shower to begin the debate in my head...do I take her in? Keep her home? Cancel the party? Load her up on Tylenol and have everyone come anyway? How in the name of God can someone charge you $100 when nothing is wrong with your child? Why did I choose the insurance plan with such a high deductible?

We kept the appointment, if for no other reason than I totally trust Dr. Grubb and if he told me she was completely fine, at least I would believe him. And I knew he would spend a good 15 to 20 minutes in the room with us before charging us an arm and a leg and sending us on our way.

Now, the thing is, at 2:00 this morning, I could have sworn my child had the flu. Or was well on her way to getting the flu. With no H1N1 shot on board, I thought 'well, this is what you get for not standing in line all day with the rest of Pierce County and your anxious two-year-old to maybe-possibly-if-we-have-enough-but-we'll-probably-run-out get a vaccine that is in such high demand. I was totally willing to accept that, and the five to seven days of confinement it would take to get her back on the mend. Lord knows enough of my friends and my friend's children have had the freaking flu bug this year for me to know what to expect.

Which is why, when Dr. Grubb pointed out how abnormally huge and horrible looking her left tonsil was, it kind of threw me for a loop.

Seriously? Tonsilitis?

The weird thing (I guess, me not knowing much about tonsils) is that when only one tonsil becomes really large (like, large to the point of wondering how in the world she's gone on swallowing all this time), it is at an increased risk of developing an abscess behind it. I was sent home with the following instructions:

1. Keep Zoey home, resting, and hydrated
2. Monitor for signs of trouble swallowing
3. Call Dr. Grubb right away (as in, ON HIS CELL PHONE OVER THE WEEKEND) if she starts to drool, spikes a high fever, or complains of painful swallowing

I have never been given a pediatrician's personal cell phone number before. It was the most alarming part of the entire visit. That, and his parting comment. "I'm sure we'll be chatting again this weekend."

Great.

So there you have it. No surprise party for Grandma tonight. No birthday party tomorrow. Only a new Curious George DVD as a consolation prize. And the knowledge that you won't be seeing your mother wear anything but pajama pants and ratty sweatshirts alllllll weekend.

I am planning to reschedule her party for sometime in June.

Holiday Tradition #5: Premature Christmas Tunes

Yes, that is my favorite ornament. Which has nothing to do with this particular post, other than I could not find a picture of the Oakridge Boys, circa 1980, to post here and I'm trying to keep up with the holiday photos coinciding with holidays posts.

I need a digital camera. Because I know that's a Starbucks ornament, but I'm wearing my glasses. I can just see my mother right now, backing away from the computer screen and squinting...go get your readers, Mom. Because Santa has a much, much bigger order to fill this year and 'digital camera' won't make the wish list until 2010.

Moving on.

Family lore states that when my Mom and her siblings were kids and living overseas due to Grandpa being in the military, Grandma always wrote her Christmas letter sometime around Halloween, to make sure it would arrive back in the States by Christmas time. In order to get "in the mood" to write a festive holiday letter while her kids were surely running around dressing up like witches and ghosts, she'd crank up the Christmas tunes and get busy with her writing. Sounds crazy, but the tradition stuck, and (at least in my Mom's branch of the family tree) we see nothing wrong with busting out the Manheim Steamroller and the Michael W. Smith and the Burl Ives sometime around, oh, say my birthday. In early October.

Oh sure, there are variations on this trend. Some, like Alisa, want to gradually ease in to the holiday music, warming up in October with the Manheim Steamroller, maybe a little Jim Brickman--stuff that's more seasonal and less blatantly Christmas--before breaking out tunes like 'Thank God For Kids' and the soundtrack to Charlie Brown Christmas in the more sensible month of December. I'm more of a whole-hogger myself, gleefully setting up an all-inclusive 'Christmas Music!' playlist on the iPod faster than Costco can get their trees out on display in mid-October.

So next year, before you go snickering when I call in to the local soft rock station mid-November, demanding to know when my Christmas music will be hitting the airwaves, just think of my Grandma. Doing what needed to be done to get those letters out on time. Because nobody appreciates a Valentine's Day letter, am I right?

Holiday Tradition #4: Wake up early, stare at tree

I think traditions that surround the Christmas tree are my favorites. Which totally didn't occur to me until I realized that three out of four Holiday Posts have centered around the selection of, decoration of, and now gazing at said tree.

I remember as a little kid waking up early in the morning for school, curling up on the couch with only the Christmas tree lights on in the livingroom, and thinking it was a very peaceful way to start out a day. Fast forward 30 years, and I still feel the same way. Maybe because this time of year feels like it's enveloped in SO much darkness...you know, when you think 'hey, I go to work in the dark, come home in the dark, and NEVER see daylight?' All that darkness is made tolerable by the presence of Christmas lights, which explains the dozens of strands of small white lights we have going on in our house right now.

So this morning I woke up about a half hour before Zoey, snuck out to the livingroom with my coffee, and just sat and stared at the tree lights. For, like, five whole minutes before I remembered I could be checking my email and reading some of my favorite blogs at the same time. But for those five whole minutes, while my mind drifted over all the upcoming daily activities, I felt very zen. And zen is something that is seriously lacking in my life lately.

So I think we'll keep the tree up until March. Maybe August.