Christmas is Coming

While driving home from work today, I received a call from a friend who was picking her daughter up from school.  She informed me that the elementary school was under a lockdown.  Apparently there was a helicopter hovering over the school and cop cars swarming the community.  "I can't see any children coming out," my friend explained.  "I don't know how much longer they'll be locked inside."

"Wow!"  I answered as I stepped on the gas.  "As long as they're safe inside, I'll have some extra time to get stuff done at home!"

Not sure how to respond to that, my friend replied that she'd talk to me later and hung up.

I walked into the house hollering to Les to quick get out the wrapping paper because we had a few minutes to ourselves.  Clearly we are in the throes of pre-Christmas preparation.  In the past two weeks, we've been to two violin concerts, two "Parents'Days" at the ballet studio, the Christmas pageant at church, and dozens of rehearsals.  We're shopping and baking and cleaning and decorating.  The dolls have to have their own Christmas pageant and even the cats must receive gifts.  Of course, we're having a wonderful time.  One of my most enjoyable moments so far was listening to Lacey try to phonetically pronounce "Xmas."   We actually let her go at it for about 5 minutes because we couldn't stop laughing.  Another winning moment was when Lacey told me that she had asked Santa for a "hex bug."  She leaned toward me and whispered, "Don't worry.  You can find them almost everywhere!"

I guess I almost reached my limit this afternoon.  The girls had finally made it home.  Lacey was reading her homework aloud while Les cranked up the stereo so that he could hear the Christmas music over the TV.  Cassie was busy making recyled crayons for her friends, which required her to use the oven and about three-quarters of the kitchen.  I had just finished digging through the freezer, pleased to have found two salmon burgers, a few taquitos, and some curly fries.  "Leftovers!" I proclamed to anyone who could hear me.  "Blue Christmas," my all-time, least favorite Christmas song, was rocking our house.  Les grabbed me and we began dancing around the kitchen.  This is another one of those scenes that you know I couldn't make up.  The only thing missing was a dog, because this would have been the perfect time for a dog to leap through the air and grab our dinner from the table.   But, really, I think this is how it's supposed to be.  And, somehow, we'll get everything done. 

Visiting with Santa