Grumbling about all the excess, and some other things

Black Friday came and went and we didn't buy a single thing! Ok, that's not true - we visited the tile store and kitchen and bath store on Friday, and then went to Starbucks to treat the kids for behaving - mostly :) Oh, and I picked up a Cricut personal cutter at 7am on Saturday because it was a SMOKING deal (now what the heck do I DO with it? Do I really NEED it?) but other than that, we didn't buy anything. There's not much in this world that will entice me to wait in a line for a store to open at 3am when I have the magic of internet shopping  and price comparison at my fingertips :) That said, if I had a partner in crime to head out with I would probably go - as it stands though, I'd be going it alone in the dark and cold and frankly that's just not all that appealing. Anywho!

We were supposed to have company for the evening Friday night, and they'd arrived at 4pm & were in the house all of 15 minutes when Evie threw up. They promptly said their good-byes and high tailed it out of there - not that I blame them! So with our evening suddenly free, Matt and I tackled the toy closet in the playroom & worked on purging some things. Christmas is in a month and my kids want for nothing - really. Evie has a room full of stuffed animals and yet it's never enough. I swear William doesn't know what any of the stuff he's asked for actually DOES; Sarah imagines things in her head that she'd like to have and then its my job to 'interpret' that and hope she isn't disappointed. Jason? Doesn't need a thing, but surely I have to come up with SOMETHING for him (other than the $90 Dance Star Mickey he saw on TV and has to have)...

Evie and William are about at the age where I really remember Christmas from my childhood. When I was around William's age, each year my sisters and I got  new winter boots, because we needed them. I remember we would each open the box, see it was boots, and chuck it aside to move on to the next gift. These days it seems like most in our circle have all the 'needs' met, and in most cases even the 'wants'. At what  point does it all become ridiculous?

Evie and William 'get' the fact that, even though they make lists, they aren't guaranteed everything. And we're trying to convey that point to Sarah - just because you ask for something doesn't mean you get it. Especially if you invented it yourself - Santa Magic has limits, although he does try really hard :)

Food is another thing that sort of gets out of control at the holidays. I remember my mom baking cookies with us, dozens and dozens of different cookies. She'd put them out when neighbors came over, take them with when we'd visit family, and freeze a bunch for us to have over the holidays. I feel the 'need' to continue that and bake all the cookies I associate with Christmas, but then I end up eating them all. Because while we all did the 'cookie swap' in years past with neighbors, that's kind of died off - everyone's on a diet, and everyone is doing their own baking. It's not so bad now that my kids are bigger and I have FOUR of them, but still - do we all need to be eating all these cookies?

I guess as we head into December, I'm wondering how to keep it simple and MEANINGFUL. I'm hoping this is the year we get it right, and don't go overboard, and make the mistake of setting expectations too high for next year. Because that's a downward spiral toward disappointment I don't want to get into.

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So William lost his tooth! All that wiggling during Thanksgiving dinner paid off, and by 6am Friday morning he was standing next to my bed telling me all about it. The other 3 front teeth are all wiggly too so I'm wondering if he will still be able to bite anything by Christmas :)

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I want to thank everyone for voting in my poll and telling me your thoughts in the comments! I really, really appreciate each and every one. I think I'm going keep shooting for twice a week, on Monday and Thursday mornings. That's a manageable number for me, and since the voting is pretty much split evenly between 'more' and 'whenever you get to it' we'll stick with the status quo - at least until maybe next fall when Jason starts preschool. Surely I will have a little more time then, right? Or have I drifted off into fantasy land again??