It's Looking a Lot Like Christmas Around Here

The kids all went "shopping" in my room today for goodies for each other in preparation for Three Kings' Day and now there's quite a pile of goodies under the tree waiting for Sunday. This is fun! Little ones sneaking around with bags of goodies and finding a place to secretly wrap them (and using way too much paper and tape of course!) is just making my week.

I decided with certainty that buying things ahead of time (I scour after Christmas sales and St. Vinnie's for goodies so that everyone can give a present to everyone) is much easier than shopping with the kids. For a lot of reasons. Not that I never take the kids shopping (believe me, I do!) but deliberate shopping with each child during this season would completely do me in.

Besides the Christmas fun with the kids, I'm working on Christmas cards. Really! I've been uploading batches of pictures to Walgreens.com so that I can include a family photo with each card (totally gave up on the Christmas letter idea) as well as some extra photos for those we've visited this year or things like that. I think some of these Christmas cards will also turn out to be thank you cards of sorts for the wonderful hospitality we've received over the year - particularly during our trip to California. Running through photos is a delightful way to finish out the year.

Funny how much of a photo year it's been this year. This is partly because of the new camera we bought this year. (I'm SO happy we decided to do that.) The other reason it's been a photo year is the quantity of celebrations that have involved photos. We're definitely photo people and tend to get involved with anything involving photos - like the photo boards for my in-laws' anniversary (which I also made into a blurb.com book for them and recently put together smaller versions as KK gifts for John's siblings).

I may have some more end of year wrap-up posting over the next few days, but in the meantime, Happy New Year!