all I want for christmas . . .

Wow, it's Christmas Eve already, four o'clock in the afternoon, and I am getting anxious to get up and cook us homemade macaroni and cheese, which we are following with a bath, warm and cozy pajamas, and popcorn and hot chocolate while we read Christmas stories. The girls are so excited it has become contagious. But it took me a bit this morning to get out of my missing-home funk . . . this is officially our first Christmas as "just the three of us," and while I don't know how I will feel when I tuck them into their beds and stroll back out to the living room to wrap the last of the gifts and sip on some Cabernet, I talked to myself a bit in my head this morning and felt peace with the good old' saying that it takes as much energy to be mad or sad, as it does to be happy. I have never gotten used to a quieter Christmas. When I moved away and began celebrating the holiday away from my family much of the time, it was never the same, and never quite has become the same. I come from a large family that includes a plethora of aunts, uncles and cousins, and no matter what happens from December 26th of one year through December 23rd of the next, Christmas Eve and Christmas day we all came together, ignored whatever was going on in the background of our complicated lives, and we laughed extra hard, danced, ate, sang, and then did it all over again.

I am a sucker for a new year because I try my damndest to live life by the day, and not get ahead of myself with worry or fear or the what-if game, so when I find I have been blessed to date my checks and journal entries with two new digits at the end, I take it very seriously. This Christmas, to finish off what has been the most radically-changing year of my life, I want nothing more than to be better at every single thing I do, and to be rewarded for it. I want to work harder, and have my business grow further. I want to be a better parent, and have better-behaved children. I want to be a better friend, daughter and sister, and never stop telling my own how much they are loved and appreciated. I want to have stamps on hand at all times so I can send cards everyday if I want to, like my sweet sister does to me almost weekly. I want to continue to take life day by day, and each day make the right choices personally, professionally, financially and emotionally to take care of business, and go to bed content, and happy.

I also want a set of Henckels knives, straight, non-frizzy hair, a Nikon D700, a tilt-shift lens, to lose 5 more pounds, and world peace. ;)

Merry, Merry Christmas to all of you. I am truly so blessed.