Is it Christmas Yet?!

Nine days until Christmas, and I keep singing this line from a Blues Traveler song over and over in my head:

There comes a time for Christmas, and I really have to ask

If this is feeling better, how much longer must it last?

It's not that I'm totally not in the holiday spirit, but it just feels like there is so much to do, and I'm staying up late every night trying to get it all done, and I'm just tired.  I finally got all of my shopping done last Thursday, and let me tell you, it's not easy to find stocking stuffers for a 9 month-old.  If Zach weren't around, I probably wouldn't even do a stocking for Drew, but I think Zach would wonder why Santa didn't bring Drew a stocking if I didn't do one.  I ended up getting him clothes and a few books, because those will fill the stocking easily.  Shopping for Zach was hard on an entirely different level- I could think of about a million things he'd love, and I had to really use some restraint to not spend a ton of money on him.  Even still, as I was up late wrapping presents the other night so I could ship them to my parents' house and have them there in time for Christmas, I felt like I kept finding things I had bought weeks or months ago for Zach, and I'd go, "Oh, yeah.  I forgot about this."  Oh well.  Mostly I have a whole bunch of books for him, so I'm not going to feel too guilty about buying him all those.  Books are educational, right?

This past weekend was a busy one!  In addition to finishing my Christmas shopping and wrapping all the presents, I also did a ton of baking and hosted a Tastefully Simple party.  About 7 years or so ago my sisters and I started getting together for a big holiday cookie baking weekend, but the past 2 years it just hasn't worked out for us to get together.  So this year, I told Mike that I wanted Saturday to be my day, and he was in charge of the boys.  I made 2 kinds of bars on Thursday night and a double batch of sugar cookie dough on Friday night.  Saturday after breakfast, I got started on the sugar cookies, rolling, cutting, and baking.  Zach helped some, which was better than I anticipated it being.  We had a few stressful moments in there, and I had to explain to him that Mommy likes her cookies perfect (which probably didn't matter, because I think perfect in my mind and perfect in Zach's mind are 2 completely different things), but overall it was ok.  

Here's my little chef in action.

After the sugar cookies were baked, Mike and the boys left the house for a while and I made a double batch of spritz, but not until I had gone to the store for more flour, because the bag of what I thought was flour in my cabinet was actually sugar.  Ugh.  Here are the spritz.

And here's Zach smelling the spritz while covering his mouth so as not to sneeze of cough on them.  That was his idea, not mine, but I appreciated it!


After the spritz, I made a double batch of pizzelles, and once Zach was up from his nap he was more than happy to help apply the powdered sugar.  

We then had our neighbors over for dinner, and after the boys were in bed I wrangled Mike into helping me make cornflake wreaths and frost sugar cookies.  

And just like that, after 14 hours straight, all the holiday baking was complete.  Whew!  It was a good thing that we got it all done that night, because Sunday morning was busy with getting everything cleaned up and put away so that I could host a Tastefully Simple party that afternoon.  Then Sunday night things still didn't slow down, and I was up until almost midnight doing the presents, as I mentioned earlier.  

I don't know why this feels like the busiest holiday season ever.  Maybe it's the addition of Drew or something.  Yesterday was my birthday, and I was thinking about my own mom and wondering how she felt 31 years ago, when it was just a couple of weeks before Christmas, and she was 40 weeks pregnant with her third child, and trying to get all the Christmas shopping and preparation done for my sisters, who were 6 and 2 and a half at the time.  No offense to my dad or anything, but I'm guessing the majority of the shopping and everything fell on my mom's shoulders, as it seems to with most families.  I thought about the stress I feel right now and then thought it's probably not so bad compared to what she was feeling.  I used to think my birthday was stressful in college because I'd have finals.  Funny how your idea of stress evolves as your life evolves.  

Let's see, I've been thinking about this post for days now, and I had other things I wanted to write, but now I'm struggling to remember them.  I think I remember a couple, so here come some random stories.

Oh!  Big news- Drew is getting his first tooth!  It started poking through on Sunday, and it's just barely poking through.  It's his bottom left tooth.  I can't wait to see it more!  I looked at Zach's calendar and found that he got his first tooth at 9 and 3/4 months, so Drew is only about a week or two ahead of Zach on that.  Also, Drew is playing peek-a-boo now.  He started a couple of days ago.  He does it with his bib while I'm feeding him- he pulls his bib up over his head and then I say, "Where's Drew?" and he just giggles and gets all excited.  After a little wait, he pulls the bib down and I say, "Peek-a-boo!" and he just gets cracked up.  Also, tonight it seemed like he was waving.  I was taking him upstairs for his bath and bed, and Mike said, "Good night, Drew," and Drew started waving his hand up and down.  He did that 3 or 4 times in a row after Mike and Zach said good night or goodbye.  I don't know if it's intentional or a coincidence, but it's cute!

Zach, Drew, the dogs, and I were delivering cookies to some friends yesterday and we were listening to God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, a song which Zach and I love (the Barenaked Ladies w/ Sarah Maclachlan version) and which Zach knows lots of words to.  After the line Born in Bethlehem, the son of God by Name, I heard Zach say to Maggie, "You know who they're talking about, Maggie?  It's Jesus!  Because Christmas is when we celebrate baby Jesus being born!"  It was sweet how excited it was about it.

Sunday night Zach and I were playing Old Maid for the first time.  I had explained to him how you don't want to have the Old Maid in your hand at the end.  So we're playing, and he goes to pick my last card, which is a match for his last card, but he has the Old Maid in his hand.  So before he picks my card, he sets the Old Maid down on the ground.  It didn't take me long to figure out that he put the Old Maid down so that she wouldn't be in his hand at the end.  I got all cracked up that he thought to do that.  Such a simple solution for when you don't want to lose! :-)

Tomorrow is Zach's preschool Christmas program, and I can't wait.  He keeps mentioning little things about the song his class is singing.  So far I've figured out that their song is about baby Jesus, and what to give him as a gift.  Every time I ask Zach what he should give Him, Zach says, "A bottle."  But then he says, "But we don't have much money."  Eventually he tells me that we should give Him our heart.  I'm anxious to see if Zach or any of the kids actually sing at the program.  Should be fun!  I'll be sure to post some pictures and maybe even a video if I can figure out how.  

Last night Zach and Drew were playing together, and it was so cute.  Zach would roll the basketball down the hallway, and they would both crawl after it.  Then Zach would roll it back the other way, and they'd crawl again.  It was cute to see them playing together.

Now I must go to bed, because  the last few late nights have worn me out!