it's that time of year....

i love christmas. i love the hussle and bussle of it all. i love seeing people with all their packages. i love thinking of creative gifts. i love the decorating. i love all the food. i love the christmas cards. i love giving baked goods to my neighbors. i love my christmas tree. i love christmas morning but i love christmas eve even more. but right now i am feeling a little down about christmas. last year i got my dad a branding iron. yes, a branding iron. i got it personalized with his initals TRH so he could brand all the meat he grills in the summer. tonight i find out he has yet to use it. here i thought i got this great, unique gift that he would laugh when he would use it. i knew he wouldn't use it everytime he grilled but for pete sake i thought he would use it at least once. i really put alot of thought into my gifts. i really think about each person and how i spent time with them through out the year. for example, my sister, got a pool for her kids this year. just one of those big infaltable pools and ethan spent alot of time in that pool. my sister said he even tried to surf with the cover of the turtle sandbox as his surfboard. remembering that story i found an underwater surfboard for him. i can so see him using this thing. hopefully, he will use it and not "tuck it away for memory sake."
in other christmas news i am thinking holly and i will get dresses for christmas eve mass this year. ususally we don't get super dressed up, it is just something we never did growing up, so i haven't done as an adult. but holly has expressed an interest in a christmas dress so i think i will take it up a natch and get a little dressy this year.
also, holly and i are starting a christmas village collection. we got our first piece yesterday at kohls-holly picked out the movie theather. i hope to have at least two other pieces before christmas. we are going to set it up downstairs in the basement on the glass table. i'll try to post pics once it is up.
this has been a word from nicole