single digits and Christmas

We are in the single digits until new house becomes crazy house and we are living amidst more chaos of the unpacking variety.  Seeing our house nearly complete made it seem slightly more real - how it isn't real  yet with the life we are living and the countdown that has been carried on for months, I have no actual idea.  We chose a lot of our things from teeny, tiny samples, so to see it all be married together in the life size version?  Unreal.

As we drove away from our new town, back to the land of our boxed life, I was so sure of our decision to move.  A house where the girls have already christened the floors with the pitter patter of tiny, precious feet - that can run from one end to the other and never have to turn!  New City is a place that is dazzled in twinkly-toned Christmas cheer.  Nine days, nine days, nine days.

I have Christmas presents that are in the best hiding places ever - I likely won't find some until mid-February this year, which means more celebrating will just have to happen.  Ordinarily I would have been done with Christmas shopping long before now; this has to be a record for me.  

Speaking of...

That pretty much went exactly the same as last year's brief encounter with the jolly man.    I'm suspecting this will look fairly similar for a few more years - I told the poor photographer (which seems to take on more than one meaning) to hurry up and snap one quick because I didn't want her to be traumatized.

Ruby chose the year that she made a lot of connections with Santa to ask him for a dinosaur of all things, which means I'll probably be in line with the other unprepared people searching high and low for the specific gift that should have been purchased long before Christmas Eve.

There's something so magical about being Santa.

Unless you are Eisley.