Triple Dog Dare

Our elf was inspired by watching "A Christmas Story," apparently.  Or at least Snowflake was - you can see here that there was a triple-dog dare issued, and now Jingle Bells has his tongue stuck to the North Pole!

We're busy today - shopping and wrapping and listening to Christmas music and watching Christmas movies and ... well, you get the idea.  We even made time to make these delicious Christmas cookies below!

These were so much fun to make.  They came from an "Ugly Christmas Sweater Cookie" kit, where you could design your own cookies.  Madison made the one top left, Daddy next, then Mommy.  Next row: Daddy, Daddy, Mommy.  Third row:  Mommy, Madison, Madison.  Last row, Daddy, Daddy, Madison.

We posted these online to see which one was the favorite, and Madison's gingerbread man cookie in the middle had quite a few votes!

We were watching a few Christmas movies as we decorated these - it took a long time!  But they came out really well, I think.

As for the shopping, it was fun too.  Madison and Daddy went out to get things for Mommy, and for the first time in a long time, we never had to leave Gainesville.  We found it all right here in the area, and came back quite triumphant.  Now it was time to do some wrapping!

The season is flying by faster than Rudolph and the sleigh.  We're hoping to have a little time to stop and enjoy things.  That will come soon.  But there's always so much effort behind Christmas, isn't there?  Christmas afternoon is so sweet sometimes, where you sleep in heavenly peace, all the things to do being done, and that blissful moment where you've finished the tasks and the kids are all happy.  We're hoping that for Madison this year most of all.  She's been very happy with all we've done this Christmas season, although we haven't been able to do some of our traditional things (we'll catch up on those next year).  Still, it's been good.  We're very glad we put the Christmas trees up earlier this year, that is certain.  With so much going on with the calendar, it was a very smart idea.

Okay, time to go off and read before bedtime.  And time to sleep!