OK definitely a jam packed holiday with more stuff than we have room for ….so obviously I went looking for a solution.. The closet.  Oh no , not gonna happen.  To much stuff in the closet already, so I clean it out to discover, 1 hour later, that there is more room for my clothes in this than on the rolling rack make shift closet I had been using that broke.  So grab the hubby , head to Menard’s…..$150 and 1 hour later, walk out with a makeshift closet organizer that still needs to be cut.  Fast forward to 4 hours later, Hubby give me the green light to start loading clothes. 1 hour later….Still can fit more clothes in there but I was getting tired. Plopped down on the couch and looked about the room at all the stuff from Christmas…..Isn’t this where I started my day?

Whew…. rush rush , wait in lines, rush rush , wait for the ding…Christmas….and then it is over.  THat is how I viewed Christmas this year.  

It started in October when they placed the Chrstimas decorations right next to the scary masks of Halloween.  I think it desensitized us all and made us feel like we had all the time in the world and in reality…. not so much.

But in the end, all the cookies were baked, presents were wrapped and tied with preety bows…plus the bonus this year was that I put names on them and I didn’t have to guess which was which and went to whom.

We even made it to mass on time… Now that is a different story all together… 

We are sitting in mass and in walk the little children dressed in their nativity clothes ( looking so cute by the way)  I hear from behind me “oh no this cant be good”  Now I knew exactly what he meant adn started to chuckle because I was thinking the same thing.  We are in for a long haul.  Dont get me wrong I think the children’s masses are adorable and all the little kids make it quite interesting , but I feel they ( the church) do them wrong.   1 1/2 hours later my kids are hanging by the kneelers asking when it will be over.   This was a children’s mass? Heck 1 1/2 hours I wanted to hang on the kneelers.  In addition to the living nativity, there were the regular readings, and songs and special night readings and songs and 1 homily for the adults and 1 for the children.  (Whew)  Granted we are not your regular church goers but heck I didn’t want to do a years worth of masses in one night either.  We survived. We all need a little Jesus in our lives ( that is what I keep telling Grant) Boy you need a little Jesus in your life…he looks at me like “Yeah, whatever you say mom” and moves on.

Talking with several of my friends though. it seems that the Wii was the gift of the season along with either Guitar Hero or Rock Band.  We opted for the Guitar hero.  Michael and I had a blast.  I stink, he is better ( we both cant get through a song on the first try ( Tommy not even after watching you play did we pick up any tips, you make it look easy on stage)   We are rethinking the whole guitar hero for 7 year olds though.  Im going to look up and see if there is some other version that might be right for them.  If anything it is a great game for the older (kids) LOL.

Another game we purchased (IMO) so not worth the $49, was animal crossing….. I sat there 1 hour and didn’t get it.  Maybe it was just me?  If you “get it” could you please email me.  

Acme (bugs bunny) arsenal was like Doom?  but with bugs going after Taz or Marvin the martian.  Very Dark

Grant loved it of course.

Now the question really is ….where are we going to put all this stuff?

Ok, let me set the scenario, Kids bedrooms a nightmare all week, up to my eyeballs in flour and sugar for the cookie exchange, Dogs being just whiny, dishes in dishwasher  ready for round 2.. and Grant asks the MOTHER of all questions ( excuse the pun)  Where do babies come from….. now as an educator , I have been trained in this, As a mom I have thought about this moment….planned what I would say….well let me tell you…. NOTHING prepared me for this and no words came to me other than… “Mommys and Daddys decide they want to have a baby….. ” Well luckily he latched onto that , and asked how long we wanted to have a baby….which lead to more questions but never back to the original. I feel a little guilty about having skirted the issue…. Believe me “Go ask your Dad” was screaming in my head yet never came through my lips…. I need to tell Michael to be prepared because the first missle has been launched on this topic and Im sure there will be more……

I recently wrote back a friend and in the response to something he said, I went off on a little tirade that I wanted to repeat here. ( thanks John)

“In 2009 I I am going to use the word “Simplify” and apply it to all aspects of my life. 

• Simplify the storage : get rid of the crap that made it through 3 moves that never saw the light of day
• Simplify the clutter.  No explanation needed
• Simplify being a mom: Don’t sweat the small stuff
• Simplify the housework: Haven’t figured how to do this one other than Hire a maid. If you have a   suggestion I am open to ideas.
• Simplify the wardrobe: I have clothes in the closet that I had when I got married
• Simplify my Time: I have my hand in too many pots… as my mom would say Jack of all trades Master of none.  Saying no, will go along way to achieving this part of the goal
• Simplify my Vocabulary: NO   ( LOL)

Now the true test to this, would be the implication of the above simplifications in my life….