It is Christmas Eve morning and I’m at work. It’s not that I have any actual work to do, it’s more that I’m required to be here. It should be noted however that they are only making us work a half day. Now for the facts of this particular Christmas Eve:

• My brain is swirling, swirling, swirling. It will not stop. I keep trying to grab things and write them down before I forget them but I still feel things I’ve forgotten waiting at the edges of my consciousness waiting until it’s too late to pounce.
• The lights are still not on the tree.
• The house has not been cleaned.
• The baking has not been done.
• The food shopping for tomorrow is not done. I was suppose to do it yesterday but instead spent the evening at the doctor’s with the 10 year old. Earache and possible strep. Every year one of them is sick. It seems he is the chosen one this year.
• I only have a couple of gifts left to wrap.
• A Hanukkah miracle has occurred. The older two received Cranium WOW for the first night of Hanukkah. We have all played it twice since then. The miracle? My FOURTEEN year old played and had fun and was animated and excited to play a board game with his family. Trying to hold on to that memory. Who knows when it will happen again.
• I have a late-breaking gift for one of the children which has thrown off the whole fairly even, fairly fair gift piles. Now I’m trying to figure out how to work it into the rotation. What I’m not willing to do is buy 3 more gifts. What to do? What to do?
• I really need to relax and approach my shopping without a frantic edge. It’s all about state of mind now. I always make sure to not have to go to the store on Christmas eve. I hate the kind of crowds out there and yet here I am making lists of food for tomorrow, last minute needs and last minute chores. I’m afraid there isn’t enough time left to get it all done.

Have a Happy Holiday! Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! May it be fun and stress-free.

Today is my oldest’s birthday. He is 14. This is a problem for two reasons. One, how can my baby be 14? And two, how can I be old enough to have a 14 year old child? How did this happen?

Since his birthday is on a school night he has planned his own get-together with his friends. They are coming over to a adult-free house after school and playing snow football. Now the reasons I have allowed a bunch of unsupervised teens in my house is this, there will be no girls as they don’t usually like snow football, they will be outside most of the time and he is fourteen (gasp) and he and his friends are pretty darn responsible. Please do not take the time to tell me how foolish I am. I’ll be home approximately two and 1/2 hours after them. I’m guessing I will find them playing Madden ’09 on the Wii.

Tonight is also the second night of Hanukkah. The kids gifts went over well last night – in fact the game (Cranium WOW) I got the older two went over better than I thought it would. Two of the boys gave me a pair of lovely earrings. It seems my second born has impeccable taste. Or at least he always knows exactly what I like. The earrings are dangly and it’s weird but I haven’t worn dangly earrings since the kids were born. Or at least only when I was dressed up. I forgot how much I enjoy them.

The only disappointment was the gift I got my husband. He always tells me not to get him anything and of course, I always do. Get him something, that is. He always acts… what is the best word to describe it? Respectful? Thankful? Annoyed? Never, ever excited. I’ve never, ever seen the kind of smile that you just can’t repress when you receive a great gift (like the one I had when I got my flash for my birthday). It’s been sort of my mission to get one of those smiles out of him. I thought I had finally nailed it. I really did. I even got an amazing deal on it. Turns out? Not so much. I actually think I may give up. I mean, I can’t. I just don’t know what to do anymore. Accept he’ll never be happy with the gifts I give him? Not try to find the perfect gift? Just give him underwear and socks? Gah! It should be noted, he shows proper excitement when other people give him gifts. It’s just the ones from me he seems resigned to. Maybe I’m just a terrible gift giver. Seriously? If the Christmas gift I got him doesn’t do it, nothing will.

I have decided tonight is book night. The kids and everyone get books. I try to arrange the nights very carefully to maximize excitement and things to keep them busy. I do themes each night and I think only once did I do a misc. night. There is ALWAYS a book night – or two. This year we had game night, tonight is book night (the children have been complaining they have no good books to read which 1. is a lie and 2. there is a library 1/10th of a mile down the street), tomorrow we are celebrating with their Grandpa so no gifts from us, Wednesday is clothes night (so they will be comfy over the holiday), Thursday is Christmas so no gifts yet again, Friday we are going to rent their ski equipment, Saturday is celebrating with Nana and Aunts, Uncles and cousins. I have no idea what to do on Sunday. By that point they will have a present hangover. Maybe I should divide the giant stacks of books into two nights. Guess I better figure that out pretty quickly.

As for Christmas, my mother and I have decided to go with mini foods in a buffet. Oh, and ham. Crackers, cheese, hummus, mini quiches, mini pizzas, meatballs, cookies and whatever else I find at BJ’s tomorrow night. We all get too full off snacks on holidays anyway so why bother with the sit down dinner? Snack, drink and pie. Must not forget the pie. Crap! Must remember the ingredients for my traditional Christmas morning coffee cake. This is the only time a year I make it.

As for the cookies? I’m thinking the week AFTER Christmas is a good time to make them. What are your plans for the holidays?

WARNING: Apparently 3.5 hours of sleep is not enough for my brain to function.

Yesterday I crashed my site. Complete meltdown. Nothing showing up. Nada. I spent many hours fixing what I’m sure a fourteen year old could fix in about 15 minutes. Many, many hours. As in late into the night or rather, into the early morning. I also installed WordPress. I may even like it. I can’t really tell you though because my brain is not actually connected to the rest of me at the moment. And yes, I do have a 14 y/o. But my 14 y/o can’t do such things because apparently when you have a mother who knows even a little bit about computers, you don’t feel the need to learn anything about them yourself – much like cooking.

It seems to be up and working today. It’s actually working much better than my brain. I was even an hour and a half late for work this morning (one of the 3.5 hours spent sleeping was when I am normally getting ready for work and getting the kids ready). Just know, there is not enough coffee in the world right now.

In other news, I have had my own personal Christmas miracle. I would say more but there is always the chance that one of my offspring will read this. A small chance but who wants to blow the miracle now? Just know that miracles do happen. And remind me to tell you about it after the holiday.

I seem to use the phrase, “In other news” much too often.

I have to ask, are your children, assuming you have them or have spent some time with some recently, insane? I mean really. Mine are driving me mad. They are fighting and teasing and whining and WILL. NOT. STOP. TOUCHING. EACH. OTHER. I get that they are excited but lay off already. When at least one is in tears at a near constant rate it may indicate you should leave your brothers the hell alone. For those of you who don’t know what I refer to, it goes something like this:

1. One brother (any brother) does something he knows will annoy the snot out of everyone. Or just one someone.
2. Said brother is told to stop behavior.
3. Repeat step 2.
4. Repeat.
5. First brother is attacked physically by other brother(s).
6. Melee ensues.
7. First brother ends up in tears.
8. First brother tries to garner sympathy from parental units.
9. NOTE: Step #8 NEVER works yet child keeps doing it.
10. Repeat steps 1-9.
11. Repeat steps 1-9 with different brother playing the part of First Brother.
12. Repeat steps 1-11 over and over – even while parental units scream, yell, and send everyone to their rooms.
13. And keep repeating until parental units are dead on floor from apoplexy.

There is no amount of wine that will take the edge off this chaos. Believe me, I’ve tried.

Work? What work? Was I suppose to be working?Ah, I thought I was suppose to be mucking around on my web server. Foolish me.

I’ve been trying to come up with something to blog about but have realized there is just too much swirling about my head to form coherent thoughts. I decided that I would try letting a little of the crazy out and maybe make room to string 2 thoughts together. Wishful thinking, I know.

• We have a tree. It is not decorated. There are no lights on it. The good part is we sort of have a tradition of not decorating it until Christmas eve. Yes, this was born of laziness one year and the children have opted to live by “tradition”. That and the Chinese food we eat on Christmas eve. I say go for it. Don’t need to stress about decorating the tree in a timely manor and don’t need to cook. Win-win.
• Holiday cards are printed. Envelopes are ready. Still needed are stamps and folding. Lots and lots of folding to be done. Also, I am NOT FUNNY. This makes me sad.
• Still trying to redirect the old site to the new. Not going well.
• Have realized I am also not funny enough to twitter. I LOVE twitter. I just am bad at it. Again, sad I am not funny. Funny = FAIL.
• Spent the majority of yesterday redesigning a logo type thing for work. A logo type thing everyone claimed to love when I first designed it about a month ago. Realized on my way to work yesterday that it was AWFUL. So, so bad. HATE with fiery hot passion bad. Did about four new versions and hated them all. Office chose favorite and now I must use it because the printing is due by the end of the week. Design = FAIL.
• Wow, didn’t realize I had such a high fail rate this week. Instead of making myself feel better this is kind of depressing me.
• Last band concert of the season is tonight.
• Have not yet found time to make cookies for holidays. Also just realized I haven’t put together a shopping list for ingredients for said cookies.
• Weight is skyrocketing.
• Wow. More failure. I think I should go before I depress myself.

Happy holiday making to you!

PS – All images have disappeared from this site. WTF?

I am finally playing Christmas music. I’ve been neglecting the playlist on my ipod and sort of skirting around it. I’m not sure why. It could be that I’m afraid of burnout before the actual holiday. Am I waiting for decorating or baking or wrapping? Who knows. And no, I have done NONE of those things yet.

The holiday newsletter is ALMOST ready to print. Yes, I’m one of those annoying people that send out a newsletter. I know. I’d like to stop but I have had complaints when I did. This year I did something a little different. I made the boys write their own blurbs. I have to say it’s not nearly as funny as I had hoped/expected. They may actually be more boring than me. If anyone has ideas to spice it up I’d appreciate it. (and so would the recipients)

In other news, I realized I’ve gone a bit crazy with the gifts this year. It’s the first year in 14 that I’ve been working full time. FOURTEEN. YEARS. So to say we have a little more cash to work with would be an accurate assessment. Not that I can go completely insane but I can actually shop without the palpatations of the past. The downside to this, I just realized, is I have to now WRAP all the gifts. I’m not a talented wrapper. And I really want to do it up right this year. I got the gifts and now I need to make them look like the treats that they are. The big question… do I even have wrapping paper? And where does one buy nice paper? My kids are out of preschool and to be honest, most of my wrapping paper purchases came from their fundraisers. I’m a bit of a wrapping paper snob in that I like a nice heavy paper. That flimsy stuff just pisses me off. Don’t even get me started on the stuff you can see through. Who the hell thought that was a good idea? Cheap? Yes. Worth it? NO.

I suppose I will have to plan a wrapping/decorating weekend. It also seems it will have to be this weekend as I’m starting to run out of time. Hanuakkah starts in a mere 11 days. The good thing is the kids’ Hanukkah gifts don’t get wrapped. I bought big, blue gift bags one year and decorated them with the kids’ names with a silver sharpie. Since then I have had to replace them once but for the most part I just drop the gifts in and hand them over each night. Since Hanukkah is not as big a celebration on the nights it’s just the immediate family and we’re usually short on time (school nights you know) it works well.

Now I just have to get the husband to take the kids somewhere while I set up a little workshop for myself to crank out the gifts.

Hope your holiday plans are moving along smoothly.