The Eve of Christmas

Wow. So we've determined our household has been operating about a week behind the calendar. Yup, a solid week behind schedule; it should be Christmas a week from now, not tomorrow!?! Don't get me wrong, it's not that we have a ton of stuff left to cross off our to-do lists. We're actually in okay shape compared to previous years come the holiday time; the house is all decorated and all clean; mopped and vacuumed, dusted, etc., and the laundry all caught up and put away. Every holiday candle holder in he house is loaded n' ready to burn a candle, and we'd located the 20-odd Christmas albums we own several weeks ago, so there's been a steady rotation going for the last couple weeks. All the presents are wrapped and under the tree --something that's so not our norm by Christmas Eve night. And all the shopping that could be done is done, including our grocery shopping, but man, it can't be Christmas already!?! I haven't done any baking yet, but that's because I'm only taking stuff to Utah, and that's not until next week. Otherwise, we don't need the sweets this year, so yeah, no bakin' or candy makin' this week. Even still, we're just not ready. I don't know how to explain it, but, we're just not ready. [A related 'corrective' post included HERE]

My honey-man normally creates a grand French Canadian inspired meal for Christmas that has him in the kitchen for a day, cooking away, but this year's holiday really snuck up on him -or us rather- real super fast. I knew yesterday morning when we got up that he had NO IDEA what the following day was, and when I told him, he looked like he'd been struck dumb, utterly confounded. This morning we decided to hold off on the Montreal feasting tradition and wait until the angel boy-O joins us on Sunday the 27th.

I think this year is just so new and different for us. For instance, this will be our first Christmas spent in Vegas, which isn't a shocking piece of trivia for my honey-man, but for me, well, I've lived here for TEN years now, and I've never spent Christmas here, nor in my own home, not ever! And of course, this will be our baby girlie's first Christmas, and that's very exciting, even though we know she won't ever remember a bit of it. It feels a bit odd though to celebrate the holiday season with our new darling babe now, but without our other darling babe included.