Every day is Christmas around here! or: boy is January going to be boring

Hooray for not sounding like a 'sexy chipmunk' (as a friend told me I did) anymore. The snot is gone, though the cough remains and continues to make sleeping difficult. Or maybe I can't sleep because of the snot induced snoring of my husband and son. Wait - why am I telling you all this? Why do I think you care about the state of our mucus?

BOOGER FREE ZONE:

The past few days have been a blur of Christmas-y activities - preschool parties, office parties, gift making, gift buying, and the biggest one of all at our house this year: advent calendar opening. I have been meaning to start this tradition for years and thought that it would finally be appreciated this year. The question was - make one or buy one? I usually opt for 'making' but I found this one on sale after Thanksgiving and knew that a bunch of little tiny doors to open would in itself be the best Christmas gift I could give to Ben. With some inspiration from the 'net, I came up with 24 gifts/treasure hunts/family activities with which to stuff the little boxes. It has been a smashing success, if I do say so myself. Things were touch and go when he realized that not every single door yielded a piece of candy or a present, but he has come around nicely to the idea of family activities. And who wouldn't when they include such gems as "Eat dinner in a fort," "Take a family bubble bath," or "Get in jammies, load up car, and drive around looking at Christmas lights." The only trauma we've had is that he wants to open more than one door each day and screams, "BUT I CAN'T WAIT THAT LONG!!!" when we tell him that he'll get to open it tomorrow. I'm sure anyone who's ever parented a three year old will find that shocking.

Luckily the Christmas tree is up and acts as a beacon of shiny objects with which to easily distract him. We have given up ever having a normal looking beautiful tree and just let Ben and the cat have at it - batting, removing, and playing with the ornaments. Thank god for cheap plastic. I don't know what people used to do when ornaments were made of glass and little eyes lit up at the sight of them. I suppose those people stuck with popcorn garland and pinecone ornaments.

So the holidays have officially begun in Anarchy-land. How about you? What traditions are in full swing in your neck of the woods?