It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

No one is going to confuse me with Martha Stewart anytime soon, but I'm happy with my Christmas decorating attempts this year. Okay, so I still have two wreaths and a roll of ribbon sitting on the floor, silently waiting for some attention. And there aren't actually any presents under the tree yet. But we have enough garland, lights, and ornaments to give the place a holiday feel.

Other holiday elements that have fueled my Christmas spirit:

• Operation Shoe Box and Angel Tree shopping
• Studying the book of Luke to remember the real reason we celebrate this season
• Ornament exchange and fellowship with the girls from church (It's actually called the Women's Ministry, but that sounds like a bunch of ladies with orthopedic shoes and shawls.)
• Christmas radio on pandora.com
• The Nutcracker movie - pretty cheesy, but it held the boys' attention for at least 15 minutes
• Other Christmas kids movies - Netflix has TONS of them
•  Peppermint hot chocolate at Panera or Starbucks - not a bad way to drop five bucks
• Christmas cards in the mailbox. I debated about sending any this year and finally settled on boxed cards from Walmart with a picture of the boys placed inside. I took hundreds (okay, maybe tens) of pics of the boys in front of the mantle before I got a decent one. I had to bribe them with candy to get them to quit tickling each other. Here's the one I finally chose. It's a little blurry, but I think it's a pretty cute shot of my two favorite boys.