What a festive time it has been! Decorations are in place, pumpkin and cranberry-orange breads are baked, most presents purchased, and now we are waiting for family to arrive.
One highlight of this season is that Ethan made his acting debut as a sheep for our church's Christmas play. He, along with his boy sheep cohorts, endured three performances. Let's just say by the third performance our beloved sheep had had enough, missed his que, and yelled at a shepherd that was poking him with his staff to "baa" on over to the other side of the stage. I will never forget poor Joseph, looking at his plastic baby Jesus, laughing his head off.
Thank you for taking part of another wonderful blogging journey with me. I am signing off from 2007 with this post and will happily meet up with you again in the new year. I appreciate all my faithful "fans" and without you- my words would just collect dust!
Blessings to you this Christmas. It is the most wonderful time of the year!
With love and cheer-
Gretchen
I've been thinking about averages this evening. On average, the boys lose two out of their seven marbles every day. On average, the boys find those two lost marbles every day. We spend, on average, $138 a month on gas. Regarding Jack's diapers, wipes, and other little essentials we spend, on average, $69 a month. On average we go through two gallons of 2% milk, 14 eggs, 3 heads of broccoli, and 7 cups of oatmeal- weekly. On average, I visit Target once a week.
Today while I was making Turtle Pretzels for a friend's cookie swap I listened to the Andy Williams Christmas Album three times. On average, we listen to Andy Williams twice a day. We also love listening to our other favorite Christmas music classics every day. These musical selections have been a staple in my life as far as I can remember except for the Charlie Brown Christmas that happened to get bumped up to "staple status" this year. I would say, on average, that we listen to Bing Crosby more than the others every day.
As a little girl I remember twirling around my Holly Hobby bedroom making up dance routines to Bing Crosby's Christmas in Killarney and Mele Kalikimaka- complete with home made Hawaiian dance moves. Although I relish in those memories of dancing to those songs I have to say my all time favorite Bing Crosby song is Jingle Bells with The Andrews Sisters. I don't think you can get any better than that.
During Ethan's first Christmas I remember dancing around to Jingle Bells with my sweet 5 month old in my arms. I had hoped back then that he would one day share my love of Bing Crosby. God answered my prayers because the Bing Crosby CD is on continuous play mode in his Lightning McQueen CD player! His favorite: Jingle Bells. He probably listens to the #7 soundtrack, on average, five times a day. I often catch him singing and dancing to this song very much like I did over 20 years ago!
The month of December is pretty much a month of Christmas music listening only. We listen to the 24 hour Christmas music station in the car and while at home we pop in Bing, Andy, or Elvis. The thing about Elvis doing Christmas music is sort of odd if you think about it- but he sure gets us dancing around the kitchen. So while we drink our 2% milk and eat our 7 cups of oatmeal each week we enjoy the company of these men belting out holiday cheer from Santa, to baby Jesus, to a fun little number called Mele Kalikimaka and smile, on average, 100% of the time.
