Seasonal Breathlessness ...

... and today, it's not from anticipation or excitement.

It's from exhaustion.

Oh, the things we do in the few days leading up to Christmas! All of the last minute preparations: gifts, food, things forgotten and quickly remembered. Yesterday after church was the rehearsal for the Christmas Eve program, and this year Aidan has a speaking part: Isaiah 9: 2 and 6. I'm proud of my little guy.

Today's tasks were unreal: laundry, grocery shopping (not my normal day, but there's no way I'm going on Christmas Eve Morn), dishes, cleaning up after Grace's trail of toys, ice chopping, poop patrol in the yard, gathering a few last-minute gifts, and then ... Christmas Cookies.

I like to bake, but man -- it can indeed be tiring! I made a double batch of butter cookies, lovingly written in my grandmother's script. I love seeing tidbits of relatives gone, like a recipe in a familiar hand. Tray after tray of cookies came and went from the gaping, steaming oven-cave, sprinkled with red and green. These cookies have destinations of their own: a small tin to his teacher, teacher's aid, and his new friend Mr. Bill the Bus Driver. He wrote the little tags himself, in his cute boy-scrawl, curlicues now decorating the ends of his letters. The rest I wrapped up, ready for Christmas Day dessert (among the resulting items from Round 2 of Baking on Wednesday ... sometime ...)

I am wiped. This is the first time I've placed my butt on a chair pretty much all day. As soon as I hit "publish post," I'm popping something in the oven for our dinner and I plan on relaxing for the rest of the night. Tonight I'm pulling out the kids' favorite card: Family Movie Night. I can't handle a normal dinner round the table. We rarely do this -- dine before the tube -- so it's an extraordinary treat for the kids. I'm planning on Miracle on 34th Street -- for selfish reasons I haven't seen it in decades, and I hope the boisterous ones don't protest. I doubt they've even seen a black and white movie ...

Don's in Lancaster at the moment, visiting his very ill mother in the hospital. Her bout with the flu a few days ago turned into something potentially fatal, and for a day or two we thought our Christmas would bring about a funeral. Thankfully, though, she's turned a corner and is doing well. It's going to be a long road to recovery but she should get there. Don had to take the day off for the long trip to PA, but I'm glad he had the chance to go. He won't be home until much later tonight, which is partly why I'm breaking out the DVD, since I'm flying solo for the time being.

Time to raid the food stores and then pay a delightful visit to St. Nick ...