Summer has ended and school has started. The past month was full of summer's last hurrahs: slip-n-slides, bouncy houses, water parks, $1.00 movies and popsicles. And now the days are filled with pencils, erasers, notebooks, crayons & Elmer's glue. Something about school supplies just makes me downright giddy. I guess it's the nerd in me, but I have always loved buying journal-sized notebooks and finding the perfect pen, and oh, the intoxicating scent of magic markers! Don't worry, I'm not an abuser, it's just one of those scents that I 'sparingly' love!
If you know me well, then you know my favorite season is arriving. Oh the yummy fall! Amish cookies are just waiting to be made (a family tradition my mom started when I was a teen, oh so long ago) and enjoyed with a cup of hot tea. My extra blankets have been freshly laundered and are ready to be pulled up to my chin and inhaled just like on those detergent commercials! I'm just about to break into the box of autumn deco in its rich kaleidoscope of fall colors to make my house match my mood. And I can't wait to hear Kellan try to pronounce 'cornucopia' again!
I've even started counting the days to Christmas and driving some people crazy with my anticipation for the Holidays. It's funny, just about this same time last year the Christmas fever hit me, but then Emmi started it that time (
click here to read that blog). We have been in the process for a few weeks now of going through Holiday music to start preparing our singers and musicians for Christmas. Donnie & I were up until 3:00 one morning last week robustly singing Christmas carols. Thank God we didn't wake the kids when we were singing Silent Night, because it wasn't very silent!
I can't wait to get started on some crafty Christmas projects that I've got planned. Surprises await a chosen few this year! Don't worry, it won't be an ill fitting sweater or a macrame plant holder. Closer to Christmas I'll post pictures of the fun stuff I'm making. I'd do it now but I don't want to spoil the fun for the people I'm forcing my handiwork on! And yes, I'll make all the family favorite goodies including the Amish cookies too. Fudge with walnuts, Great Grandmother's Icebox Fruitcake, Donnie's Pralines and maybe some Divinity this year too. Yum, yum and YUM!
I've been closing my eyes at night imagining how we will decorate our trees this year. Yes, I said 'trees'. We have 4 trees to be exact. Ummm, can you tell we love the holidays? Between mine, Donnie's, all the Christmas decorations we've inherited from my mom, his Maw-Maw and what we've acquired together in our 8 years of marriage my head spins to think of the plethera of Christmas boxes we have collected. Santa Clauses and snow globes, ornaments and lights, trees and bows, wreaths and nativity scenes. It goes on and on and on (and on and on and on).
Last week I went to pick up Kellan from school in the stifling heat and lost my Christmas high for just a moment as I touched the burning hot steering wheel and screeched out a higher note than I thought was possible for me. But that didn't last long. I just can't control my thoughts from drifting back to Christmas! I even started searching for year-round online Christmas stations while imagining candy canes doing a chorus line dance in my head. That's close enough to the sugar-plums from 'The Night Before Christmas' isn't it?
But I guess I'll have to endure the remaining 106 days, 9 hours and 42 minutes until Christmas arrives. In the meantime I'll be gathering supplies for my Christmas crafts, practicing for our Christmas program, and making my house smell like cinnamon and pumpkins. Oh I love this time of year!!!
