angels come in all varieties

I currently have both apple butter and pot roast cooking in my kitchen. If ever there is a time I feel like Betty Crocker, it's when I have pots bubbling on the stove.

Suddenly it's December 5th. I'm not sure how that happened but here we are. I've been getting snail mail and emails saying "Last minute deals for your last-minute gifts!" in a very bold and panicked font. It's 20 days until Christmas. I don't consider that last minute. I'm never in a rush to finish shopping by December 1st. I spend all year making notes and gearing up for the gift-giving season. I consider birthday gifts throughout the year to be warm-up for the Iron Man marathon of Christmas time. I live for this time of year. Don't be telling me I have mere minutes to wrap up my shopping! 

I finished up my Christmas cards last night. I plan out the card in my head for several months and spend many an afternoon perfecting it. This year's card is not my shining glory. It's fine but I could have made it better. Christopher and Elizabeth both told me it's good but my inner perfectionist was screaming it was borderline boring and blah.

The house decorating has been a little rocky. There's a stack of fake greenery, little village houses and fake berries in the corner of the living room. I'm trying so hard to get everything put together, but I feel a little less Christmasy this year because I was so hoping to buy a stocking for baby Elliot but now I can't. We put our fake tree up on Sunday and Lucy climbed to the top of it and knock the angel off. Her weight, slim though she is despite all the food she sneaks, is bending and breaking some of the fake limbs. I spent part of the afternoon twisting together pipe cleaners that look like greenery and jerry-rigging the tree back together. 

I do love how the mantle turned out. The lights from the mantle and the lights from the tree make the whole living room glow. 

Speaking of Christmas and winter, while my family up north are shoveling snow off their cars, we FINALLY have enough leaves to jump in. AB insisted upon bringing her wooden chair out and jumping off it into the leaves.

 When you can't make snow angels you make leaf angels.