It's finally beginning to look like Christmas!

Due to things beyond our control, like payday and weather, we just now put up the Christmas tree and I just now finished the Christmas shopping, what very little I had to do.

One of my favorite things to shop for is the Christmas Eve book. We started a tradition when our children were small of reading aloud a book on Christmas Eve rather than the traditional Christmas story from the Bible. The book was always a story that somehow was about the Christmas story but yet, not in the traditional sense. The Little Drummer boy song would be an example of what I look for. One year, that lives on in infamy, I picked up One Wintry Night by Ruth Belle Graham. That book was 70 pages and took us some time to read. Each year since the question is brought up, "Is it as long as One Wintry Night"? The first few years after we adopted our youngest daughter we did revert back to the real Christmas Story from the Bible until she fully understood what Christmas really was. But in the last few years we've gone back to our tradition. Last year we read Santa's Favorite Story. Our kids all love to read so they take turns reading while I sign it for our youngest. And it has to have pictures, great pictures. This year I picked out this book:

And finally! Our tree. Since the older kids have married and/or moved out, I've decorated the tree with a "theme". I was going to change it up this year and do red and white with candy canes. But the weather here, what with all the snow, made me stick with the snow and snowman theme from the past few years. Maybe next year?

And we're on pajama count down. I started with the hardest ones. Not my brightest moment but with a migraine I wasn't thinking clearly. These took longer than expected. I had to do a little ripping and re-adjusting. Again, I had a migraine and couldn't think. I wanted to curl up with a hot washcloth and tea but....I.must.sew.