Holiday prep – the final stages

Our homeschooling group had its annual Christmas party on Friday. It’s always fun, with lots of good food and laughs. We get to see some of the same friends we see throughout the school year, but we also get to see friends that don’t often get to come out the rest of the year.

It’s always nice to have that party, one last chance to get out and have some fun before I come home and get busy with final preparations for Christmas. Today is my last fully relaxing day before I get really busy. Tomorrow, I’ve got grocery shopping and laundry (laundry would usually be Thursday, but I’m switching it up this week to get other things done). Thursday, I’ve got to prep a few dishes for Christmas dinner. Lots of kitchen cleaning, dish washing, and fridge rearranging, too.

I’m also working on plans for our New Year’s Eve celebration. We always stay home – I always have, even when I was young and single. Now that I have kids, though, we spend the evening listening to music, watching movies, playing board and card games, and having snacks, sodas, and other treats that the kids don’t always get to have. We watch the ball drop at midnight, and a few minutes later, we all go off to bed. New Year’s Day is the one day a year that the kids let me sleep until 9. Or, it used to be. Then we got the cat, who gets breakfast at 7, and will sit outside my door and cry until I get up unless one of the kids feeds him. Thing is, he doesn’t wait for 7. He’ll sit outside my door and start crying at 6:45. He’s lucky he’s so cute.

What have you got on the schedule for the rest of this week? Plans for New Year’s?