'Twas the Monday before Christmas

About this time every year is when I fall off the blog wagon. There is just too much life happening to spend hours writing about it, but by the time the Christmas dust settles the idea of catching up feels overwhelming.  It's a Christmas conundrum.

So while I'm waiting for daughter2 to rise and shine (no worries, there's plenty of time) I thought I'd share some Friday Fragments. On a Monday I know, but see paragraph above.

Christmas is coming!

Just thought we'd get the big one out of the way right off the bat. And that picture was taken last week when we were blanketed by a most beautiful snow. We've been in the 60's all weekend, but it's supposed to drop about 30 degrees before tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow...I  have my whole family coming and I can't wait. Just have a few
hundredthings to do before the first wave arrives on Christmas Eve, yet somehow I know it will all get done.

The magic of Christmas.

More like a mom armed with lists and fueled by coffee, with a grown up daughter in tow to bake cookies and cheer her on, but that's kind of magical too.

Daughter2 flew in from South Carolina on Friday night. She's a teacher and will be home for a nice long break, which makes her sister only a teensy bit envious. She's also tired, because third graders the month before Christmas...self explanatory, right?

Saturday we stayed in and she baked while I wrapped and hubs dealt with the never ending Christmas light drama. Outdoor lights on Saturday, indoor on Sunday. Our outdoor lights tend to go out when there is a lot of wet weather due to some pesky fuse design, but I think hubs finally got that sorted.  They were working last night so I suggested we all take a picture in our head just in case the fix isn't permanent.

Sometime after dinner on Saturday I noticed the tree lights were out. Well, not all of them, because the very bottom of the tree was lit, but the rest had gone dark. Bother. 

My mantra this Christmas is not to let anything steal my joy, including a partially lit Christmas tree, but that was put to the test when hubs said we'd have to take everything off the tree to find which strand was bad. FYI-undecorating a perfectly decorated tree four days before Christmas was not on my to-do list. Sigh.

Daughter 2 suggested I take pictures so we could get the ornaments back in place pretty quickly, and fortunately we didn't have to un-do everything. We started at the bottom and discovered the first strand was the bad one so whoohoo!  Course that meant hubs had to go to Walmart, which is not his favorite thing to do anytime let alone the week before Christmas, but he dug down deep for his Christmas spirit and got 'er done.

Sunday evening we attended a Christmas cantata, and all was right with the world once more. Absolutely beautiful!  We all loved the music so much, and it just reminded me how important it is to have more 'Christmas'-less Walmart in this very special week and in my life year round.

I leave you with a link to one of the songs we heard last night...it wasn't Kari Jobe singing, but wow! the woman in our church did such an amazing job with this song.

"...and redemption begins with a stable in Bethlehem..." 

Wishing you a happy Christmas from this side of the pond!