For one reason and another, I got messed up in my Christmas plans. I was going to have all of my baking done by the end of last week. I tried a new recipe for one type of cookies I was making and it totally didn't work. Unfortunately, I had made a double batch, so I had to throw away a lot of cookie dough. That put me behind schedule and our activities last weekend threw me off even more. I'm back on track now though, I think. I have one more batch of cookies chilling, waiting to be baked tomorrow, and the Cut Out cookies to frost and then I will have all my cookies ready to go into the mail. Then I have one more batch of Diamond Cookies to make for us and I think Alison and I are going to make Gingerbread Cookies just for her to decorate (since she's not going to get to help frost the Cut Outs). Then that will be it for the cookies this year.

I was also going to have all the presents that need to be mailed wrapped last weekend and that didn't happen, either. There was a mix up with the wrapping paper that Kevin's company prints. It was supposed to be ready last Friday, but because there had been a mix up with the deadline for the kids to get their pictures in, it wasn't ready until the middle of the week. And then, they didn't print as much as they did last year, so Kevin only got 15 sheet...5 sheets of the three different layouts. Which would have been fine, except that Alison actually colored some pictures this year, so we wanted to make sure that we used her paper for most of our presents. Unfortunately, despite everyone else having two pictures printed, she only got one of hers printed (and it wasn't the better of the two). We were kind of disappointed at that. Still, Kevin managed to trade 5 of the sheets that had somebody else's kids pictures on it for 5 more of Alison's. I think a lot of people were disappointed with how the paper turned out this year. Kevin's supervisor has two kids and they both put in two drawings and they got put on opposite sides of the same sheet of paper. Needless to say he was trying to trade to get more, too.

Anyway, my new target date for having all this stuff on it's way is Tuesday. Kevin has three days worth of use-it-or-lose-it vacation to take, so he's taking Tuesday off. That means he can take the packages to the post office for me and I won't have to try and manage them and Alison. I've done that before and it isn't pretty.

And here's my Christmas funny for the day. This afternoon, I wrapped most of the presents that we are going to be mailing out. As I finished them, I put them under the tree. When Alison got up from her nap, she came into the living room and saw the presents under the tree and said "WOW! Santa Claus came already?!?"

Tonight, after calling to verify that it was still taking place, we bundled up and headed to Dow Gardens for their Christmas walk. I think this is an annual event, but, as with the Santa Parade, we often forget to go to or are completely unaware of these things. There are so many things going on in our town this weekend and I wish we could do them all, but alas, time and money are in short supply. We have to miss out on The Nutcracker, but we made it to the Christmas Walk.

It was really very nice. There were light displays. They had luminaries set up along the path that they wanted us to follow. Many of the trees were decorated. There was an area of "stars," luminaries in one of the open areas sponsored by the Hospice. There were choirs, standing out in the cold, performing and sax and keyboard duo performing in the conservatory (two men from our church...didn't know they were playing until we walked in! Bill is behind all the greenery). It was very, very cold, but with the barn open as a warming area, where they were selling cookies for $.50 and hot chocolate for $1, and the opportunity to listen to the music in the conservatory, it wasn't too bad.

And since it was so cold, it meant our crazy trip to the mall was well worth it. After being at Dow Gardens for over an hour, Alison was still ready (read warm enough) to come home and play outside for almost another half an hour while I got supper ready.

We were supposed to be getting a pretty bad winter storm today. Last night, we had sleet, ice, and snow. This morning it was more of the same. The forecast was calling for the sleet/ice to change over to all snow later in the morning. It was also calling for snow to accumulate an inch an hour, 2 inches in some places, with a total accumulation of up to 9 inches. Schools all over the place were closed. (Alison has got to be the only kid on the planet that's disappointed when there's a snow day.)

Well, it didn't happen.

To be fair, the roads were pretty bad this morning. I know this because I was out driving on them. The car needed a little extra oomph to make it over the pile of slush at the end of our road and I did a little fish tail as I was making the turn. Why was I out driving in that crap? Because I waited until there was actually a snow storm (or a least the threat of one) to go out and get Alison's snow clothes. The good news is that, even though I couldn't find a coat/snowpants set, I was able to find snow pants and a coat that match fairly well, so risking life and limb wasn't all for nothing. At least I didn't have to try and find boots....I bought those in October. :)

Anyway, I thought that it would be better to go early this morning since we were expecting all this snow and the roads would certainly be horrible if I waited until this afternoon.

Wrong!

Well, at least we made it to the mall and home in one piece -- which is more than I can say for the car in the ditch that we passed on the way home -- and Alison was set to play in the little bit of snow we did get,