No Whining Allowed

 We have  slowly been getting things done around here. Working things in between a lot of snow and sub zero temperatures. Because that is when I yearn to get in and out of my car 47 times in one day. I think my face was chapped on Monday.

We have a small family, and therefore, not a ton to shop for. Plus, we have tried to scale back this year. Because, quite frankly, our needs  are not many. And Honey needs  for us to give him some piece of mind and stop with the spending. We will be implementing the Ford Fiasco Financial Planning Budget on January 1, 2009.

Mainly,  I have been finishing up the few Christmas gifts that I made. That I will show you after Christmas. Just in case the gift-ees happen to stumble on over to the “blob”. Oh, that and making  peanut butter fudge, shortbread, cut out cookies, and as of last night, the Girls and I waded into chocolate covered pretzel territory. I personally  love a good chocolate covered pretzel. And considering that the Girls are now 19 and 14, the mess was not catastrophic. As it surely would have been several years ago. Our main problem was due to the dog. Who was totally underfoot, as usual, waiting for a dropped schnibble. She dusted the floor on several occasions. Accidentally, of course. What part of “GO LAY DOWN” was she not getting?

We decided to break all the pretzels, therefore ensuring maximum chocolate coverage, except for the small part that was being held. I can’t wait to try the ones we dipped in crushed candy cane. Cause I wasn’t in the mood to taste one when we finished at 10:30 last night. Super easy and fun. We will do it again. And we will keep our eyes open for new and improved ways to make them tastier and more attractive. Maybe we will become known  for our extreme chocolate covered pretzel ways!!!!!! Or it will all fall by the wayside. Who can tell?

This afternoon, we are going out to lunch with our dear friends, The Hostlers, and then this evening we will do our family thing. That involves Honey setting up the tripod, the kids whining that they don’t want to be on camera, one of the kids reading the Christmas story from Luke, and having our Happy Birthday Jesus party. This year, our special “cake” will be Honey’s cookie creation of snow covered mountains, considering God made all mountains. And the sun.

And then we open our presents from each other.

I don’t have a ton of work to do, cause I’m not sure if I mentioned it or not, but we are OFF this Christmas!! We are heading over to Beeve, Stacey and Goomba’s house for Christmas day!!!!! It’s good to be OFF!!!!!!!

This came in a little RBC thingy that we get daily on e-mail. Just so someone won’t think I plagiarized  or something.

Paul wrote that God is at work among people of all nations “so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:27-28).

We should be alert for the Lord’s presence where we least expect to see Him. Jesus may invite Himself to any Christmas party. After all, it’s His birthday. —David McCasland

Merry Christmas to you all. Praying you experience the true meaning  of joy, peace and love. Jesus, the real  reason for the season.