On Strike for Christmas! (no not really)

So I am sitting here on Saturday morning watching a movie called "On Strike for Christmas!".  Wow, it is like they wrote a movie about my life right now.  It is about a mom, with 2 teen boys and a husband, who is trying to make Christmas happen for her family.  You know, the joy of Christmas, decorate, bake, clean, organize, shop, etc.  She assigns her family things to do but they never have time or are too busy with "more important" things.  So one by one she starts doing things on her own because she wants Christmas to be the "best Christmas ever".  Well as she sees how little her family appreciates anything she decides to go on strike...I am not through with the movie but believe me the thought has crossed my mind.  Although as I sit here enjoying the beautiful lights on the tree (which I put up and decorated by myself), the thoughts hit me that Christmas is in a week and I don't think my family really knows except that they will get to open presents in a week.  Oh well...the tree sure is pretty.

So this week we went to Tabitha's choir and band concerts.  Sometimes I forget that we have moved to such a small town well, not at the performances.  It was very fun.  The band had probably 25 kids and was very heavy on sax and clarinet.  Tabitha even played a duet.  Then the vocals...the music teacher had the girls sing "Santa Baby".   Oh what fun to watch high school girls acting cute and flirty in front of parents....the red cheeks were so Christmasy.  There is no french horn in the band so I am working on getting Tiana to join to help balance the brass section.  The one thing about a small town band and chorus, the talent is more transparent and less hidden.  Some of the kids were really good.

We do have snow...not a lot but everything is very white and pretty.  The plows in Smiths Falls are awesome so the main roads are cleared  very quickly although not early enough for Wil, he has had quite the sketchy drive a couple days last week.  The countryside is beautiful and the lights are pretty against the white snow.  We will go looking at lights sometime this week.  Wil did a great job on our outside lights..the house looks great.  I have amassed quite a bit of stuff for Halloween, I need to turn my bargain shopping skills to outside stuff for Christmas.  The more the better...but I don't want to light up the neighborhood.  This picture doesn't do it justice because we have added more on the garage but you'll get an idea.

The girls have school until Thursday and then are out until the 10th.  Wil is off work starting on Thursday and I have next week off although without pay so that sucks.  I am working on making neighbor gifts.  Our plan was to make people puppy chow to hand out and maybe some chex mix...problem...I haven't been able to find Chex or Crispix cereal.  I will be looking at a couple more stores today.  I also got stuff to make spritz cookies so I think we will do that on Christmas eve.

Christmas dinner...hmmm what to make.  I asked my family for ideas and got....nothing.  So I saw a thing on TV about Turduckens and wanted to try that.  It is a chicken stuffed into a duck stuffed into a turkey.  Sounded yummy plus I love saying turducken...so I ordered one from the local butcher.  I will pick it up on Thursday.  I bought fresh cranberries and potatoes and Wil will make stuffing.  Not sure about dessert, Tiana is making fudge meltaways so that may be enough.

Then on to New Years..that's our anniversary.  We won't be doing anything though.  Wil and I decided that it would probably be smart to try to try to have a family party on New Years and maybe keep the girls at home on a night when there is bound to be alcohol galore around at kids parties.  I don't know if it will work but we are going to shoot off fireworks at midnight in honor of the Pikes Peak fireworks that I have watched for so many years.  We can do it in our driveway and there won't be the flood of mosquitoes that we had for 4th of July.  I will try to get pics or a video.

Well that is all for now...people are up and moving and I need to get around and get stuff done.  Love you all!