Lizzard Loves Christmas.
Time with family, the lights, the tree, fires in the fireplace, the snow, cozy days wrapping gifts, Chris' crazy Christmas suit,decorating the house, drinking hot chocolate, ice skating on GR & Tara's rink and the Ribbon at Maggie Daley Park, skiing, celebrating with friends, trains running around our tree, shopping for stocking stuffers, cooking, cooking cooking, and baking zillions of cookies, Owenn's Christmas sweater, homemade eggnog Chris makes, homemade treats of all stripes that everyone else makes, Lynn's cookie exchange party, the Evanston Christmas tree lighting, lots of Belle Plaine Bread, Mom reading this out loud to us on Christmas night, beautiful Christmas Eve mass at the church I grew up attending, Carols at the Bean downtown, ZooLights, Winter Wonderland Express at the Botanic Gardens, so many delicious meals made by my Mom, decorating cookies, visits from old friends, the whole kit & caboodle.
Some photos of this year's Christmastime fun, in no particular order:
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| Christmas Carols at the Bean (IN THE SNOW!!) |
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| Chris' man cave Christmas tree |
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| Helping with the decorations at GR & Tara's house |
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| No time to cut down our own tree this year, to Anton's we went (just like when I was a kid!) |
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| First floor decorations are up! |
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| Inside view of our main tree |
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| Members Only Night at ZooLights with Chris, Tara & the kids |
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| Fuzzy ZooLights selfie |
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| Lynn's Cookie Exchange |
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| Evanston Christmas Tree Lighting |
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| It is SNOWING!!!! |
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| Owenn's first snowy walk |
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| This dog LOVES the snow :) Its a good thing since we do too! |
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| Skating on the Ribbon |
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| Owenn's first cross country ski |
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| Biscotti bonanza |
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| Elfing :) |
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| The boys enjoying their eggnog |
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| O-man's Christmas sweater |
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| Peppermint hot chocolate with homemade marshmallow |
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| Cookie baking with the cookie monster herself! |
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| Skating at GR & Tara's rink #cousinlove |
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| Christmas night fondue |
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| Christmas Eve dressed up for church & dinner |
So all of those wonderful, warm, fuzzy things said...........I'm looking for advice on this post though. It seems like I average approximately 1.5 meltdowns/ annual Christmas season. Full fledged, stress driven, crying mess meltdowns. (My poor, patient husband). As much as I love Christmas time, it always seems too short, too busy, too much. And the expectations- I dread the high expectations that I can't seem to keep in check. Meltdown could be why our Christmas cards went out after we rung in 2017......#sorryaboutthateveryone
My ask here is this - do you have ways to handle your pre-holiday/during the holidays stress? How do you manage it all & enjoy yourself too? I do pretty ok for 90% of the season - but its a whopper of a 10% that puts a crimp in my Christmas enjoyment!
Any/all thoughts/jokes/tips on this are most appreciated - I have almost a full year to prepare for the next Christmas season & I need all the help I can get!!
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