HOLIDAYS ARE HERE!!!

I love Christmas. I love the fall, but I LOVE Christmas. When I met Brett, my holiday traditions expanded quite a bit though, because now, in addition to celebrating Christmas in December, I also celebrate Brett's birthday and his mom's birthday. So Christmas has always been a busy time of year for me, but now... well, busy may just be an understatement.

I am so, so, so, happy to say though, that I am very happy to be working at the school. Anytime you add children into the equation, a "busy" holiday can become hectic. It's true in families, and it's even more true in a school. We have been gushing Christmas at the school for about a month now. We put up the tree two days before Thanksgiving! But it has been wonderful. There are Christmas lights outside, Christmas displays in the office, and Christmas decorations on everyones door. This Christmas lover has been very happy indeed, as have all of the little ones who smile at the little Santa on the way out of the door each evening, and point at the lighted tree outside, every single day! It has made for a busy few weeks, but also joyful.

The Christmas play was last week. I am the only person in the entire school who didn't get to see it, but I heard it was wonderful. Then, last Saturday was our Christmas staff party. SO much fun! We did Secret Santa for two weeks at school, and then the secrets were revealed at the staff party. My Santa was AMAZING! She TOTALLY read my mind, which is amazing because she barely knows me! But the first day, I got brownies. Chocolate iced brownies! The entire staff enjoyed them, and I only had to bring home a few, so I indulged, but not overly. My next gift was lotion, which was crazy because I TOTALLY needed lotion that day! How did she know? I also got some awesome candles, two Christmas ornaments, which are dangling from my tree as I type, my favorite magazine, holiday slipper socks, a mocha frappaccino from Starbucks, and my all time favorite candy, peanut M&Ms. And then my big gift at the party was a $25 gift card to Michael's! Hello! I love to craft! These were all perfect gifts for me! It was so much fun.

The staff party was at a country club, where we had a delicious dinner and insane chocolate cake. Then we went to the owner's house, which I had never been inside before, and we did the reveals and then played two games. I won first place in the first game (Christmas movie trivia... um, hello!) and got a Best Buy gift card as my prize! Then they gave us all gifts, and it was a long sleeve t-shirt with the school logo in Christmas colors, and a really cute wallet that I love! It's going to go perfect with the purse that I want at Target. I plan to buy that purse the day after Christmas with whatever Christmas money I get. I could just ask Brett to get it for me for Christmas, but I have already told him 2 things, and that is enough!

I also got a few gifts from parents this week, and that was really touching. This jewelry set is CRAZY cute. I can't describe it, but I will try to take a pic in it this week and post it. And our choir teacher gave me this beautiful angel as a thank you for helping them in rehearsals. I just took it out of the box... she is lovely!

Getting gifts is fun, but I absolutely LOVE giving gifts. I love the shopping, I love the wrapping, and I love the giving. I am actually about to wrap a couple of gifts when I finish this post. I almost feel spoiled that I get to wrap presents for the holiday AND two birthdays all in one month!

I feel pretty good about Brett's birthday. He is turning 40 and I really wanted to make a big deal out of his birthday, but none of his closest friends live in the area, and it's not a good time to ask people to travel, so I came up with a few ideas, and I hope that he enjoys it all. I want to post about it, but just in case he reads this tonight, I won't just yet. But it should be fun!

I am off to wrap a couple of presents and then find an outfit to wear tonight. It is our Christmas concert. I feel like I have found the right attitude about the whole choir thing. I have been in choirs my whole life, but being in a choir at a new church has been quite lonely. But our concerts are tonight and tomorrow and then it will be over and I am going to email the guy about getting in the praise team rotation. I will know a couple of people there, and it will be easier to befriend the ones I don't know because it is a small group. AND if I am just in the rotation and not on the weekly team, which I won't be because he already has 3 singers for that, then it means practice once a month, not once a week. Perfecto!

I hope everyone is having a blessed season so far, and that this week brings tears of joy and lots of laughter!

P.S. I have lost 24.8 pounds so far. The last 2 weeks have been really good. The new WW program is a really good fit for me, and having the reset was a nice refresher! A fresh start before January 1st! Nice!