winter solstice

The first day of winter perfectly coincided with our children realizing that they were cold.


So they donned a hat and fleece bathrobe over their bathing suits.

This afternoon I rushed about town trying to finish our last minute shopping.

Then, while the children watched a Christmas movie (or three), I tried to complete the 120 Christmas cards I started last week. We would have been done with our cards sooner, if not for the Christmas picture copyright infringement fiasco that cost us two full days.

Charlie finally caved and drove an hour north - spent 45 minutes finding a parking space - another 30 minutes getting in to the mall and purchasing a CD - and another hour driving home.

And then another two hours uploading the pictures to the Costco website and driving over to pick them up once they were completed. If there is nothing else that you take away from this blog, take away that one tidbit.

ALWAYS PURCHASE YOUR PROFESSIONAL PHOTOS ON CD.

(Oh and also! Costco sells 100 $0.42 stamps for $41.75.)

I don't know how they do that.

Still, the whole activity of writing Christmas cards, which I always assume we'll be able to finish in a single evening, tends to take us three evenings. And that doesn't even include the time it takes to pick out the Christmas cards or have our pictures taken.

So, we've got one evening to review the "send to" list, figure out who has moved and who we haven't heard from in three years {have they moved? died? read our blog and decided they no longer want to correspond with us?} print labels and go to the store to buy more labels;

One evening to affix send and return labels to envelopes; affix pictures to cards; cut and fold Christmas letters; add stamps;

And finally, one evening to sign all the cards, stuff the cards in to the envelopes and seal.

Once upon a time not so long ago, I wrote an annual Christmas letter that would summarize the highlights of the year in a rhyming poem. But it seems that this blog more than satisfies the writer in me, so instead of spending a few days creating my annual masterpiece, my letter has been reduced to a few lines. This year I wrote,

"May the Spirit of the Season fill your heart with love and your soul with cheer… May you have an abundance of good health and joy for the coming New Year.
There is a lot more you can learn about us if you don’t already know… Just take a peek at our family blog. Merry Christmas, Ho! Ho! Ho!"

Because I absolutely must get our cards out in the mail tomorrow if there is any hope of them being delivered before Christmas, I couldn't let anything slow me down. Not even the baby that I thought for sure would wean before he hit 18 months old, but at the moment, I question if he'll wean before he is 18 years old. Hence, I unveil my newest skill. Signing Christmas cards while nursing a baby.

I am a multi-tasking extraordinaire.

(edited to add: During a final QA/QC, Charlie just discovered that several of the cards I wrote this afternoon [while nursing] I dated December 2006. As in ... two years ago. So. Uh. Perhaps my multi-tasking skills aren't quite so stellar.)