Christmas

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. I had meant to take some pics of our tree and post them, but I haven't managed to get around to it. It's worth looking at because there's almost no green visible.

I've been out of town for almost a full week and just got in this evening. We had a lovely visit with Scott's family and even though it was cramped driving, we even enjoyed the drive there and back. We also managed to cut back quite a bit from previous years' excesses and that made it even nicer. Somehow instead of making Christmas more exciting to get and give more presents, even for the kids it becomes simply overwhelming. A doll that you might have loved or an art set that may have thrilled you is simply lost amidst the sea of toys. So Scott and I have worked hard to resist trying to make Christmas perfect by spending more money, and even to some extent more time since it usually backfires by making us exhausted and grumpy with the kids. Instead we focused on family, on giving to charities, and on explaining why we celebrate.