Priorities

We took down Christmas today, December 23rd. Santa visited our house yesterday, but today you would hardly have known.  It's weird.  It feels like Christmas is over, but tomorrow we'll be winging our way to family and friends and, possibly, snow.  We're giddy with anticipation.  Santa was sort of an afterthought this Christmas and I think I like it that way.  The only item on Ben's list was, "be with my family and Byrdie" (one of his besties back home).

So today, possibly my last blog post of the year, I decided to leave you with two things that have gotten me in the Christmas spirit.  We read "A Christmas Carol" for the first time.  I admit I was anxious to see how my boys did with the vocabulary and writing style, but thanks to Mickey Mouse and the Muppets they were familiar with the story, so they adjusted just fine.

Also, a pair of mitts I've been knitting for Sadie.  Fast, and satisfying, and oh so adorable.  They match her aviator hat.  I should be packing.  I can hear Dean sighing from down the hall as I type this.  It is an early flight, but I refuse to be a Scrooge and I think I might just be able to finish that last mitt before the flight.  Finger's crossed.

I'll leave you with a few of my favorite passages...

“It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.” 
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.” 
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. "But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change.” 
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Merry Christmas!