Holiday Happiness

I just experienced a Christmas miracle! I was watching TV with JP and a bowl full of Snickerdoodles and announced that I had a craving to see Love Actually. JP groaned and was very thankful for the fact I never spend money on DVD's. He then started flipping through the channels (apparently he was not as immersed in Rachael Ray's Chefography as I was) and what did we come across on the Oxygen Network but Love Actually! I may or may not have squealed. My chick-flick avoiding husband is now at the kitchen table working on his business plan and I am on the couch alone with my bowl of Snickerdoodles. The cookies and I are enjoying each other's company.

My mom texted me last night to ask what I'd gotten JP for his stocking. I had to admit I haven't gotten him anything and I'm quite sure he hasn't gotten a thing for me. Ever since we joined finances a few months before we got married, we've been really bad about not spending money on each other. This is probably also due to being grad students with loans and not having expensive taste. My mom, who always manages to find the perfect gifts, on a budget, for people who didn't know they wanted anything, sounded a bit disappointed in our lack of effort, so today I dragged myself out to the stores and found a few stocking stuffers. (To clarify, I already bought him his "big" gift, and I'm so excited about it because I know he's going to love it!) The shopping itself wasn't so bad, but MAN are there some stressed out people out there! I have never found the holidays to be very stressful, maybe in part because of our low key gift giving.

(Quick aside: Oh how I love this movie, where else do you get quotes like this: "There was more than one lobster present for the birth of the baby Jesus?" and "The octopus costume's taken me months. Eight is a lot of legs David!" How does JP ignore the magic?)

Other projects for today included baking 8 dozen Snickerdoodles for a cookie exchange party I'm attending tomorrow. I don't bake all that often- I can't give myself too many opportunities to eat that much raw dough. JP walked in with Landon to find me carefully licking every dollop off the electric mixer beater, something he said might be sexy if I didn't already have cookie dough smeared on my nose and cheeks (hey, beaters are tricky). I used this recipe and they came out perfectly, I highly recommend it. Tomorrow I will come home with four each of 19 kinds of cookie. I'm not sure if that's a good thing. I also mailed all my Christmas cards, with a family letter and personalized note. They take too much time, but I love getting them too much not to send them out.

(Oooh! It's starting over! Now I can see the taping of "Christmas Is All Around" with Billy Mack, and everything else I missed in the wonderful first hour of the movie. I believe JP just groaned again from the kitchen. He's not getting any Snickerdoodles.)

We also went to PetSmart to buy some stocking stuffers for the dogs (my mom asked about them too). Rosie is getting a pretty new collar and Tex a delicious new bone. It is going to make him a nervous wreck to get it in the presence of three other dogs (my parents have two younger labs, it'll be quite the furry gathering at Christmas). He's going to walk around eyeing everyone suspiciously, alternating between hiding his bone and then finding it again only to look for a better spot. Poor guy, he doesn't know his owners are just trying to show him they care.

Speaking of caring, this was Landon giving Tex a hug this afternoon:

He does this often, resting his cheek on Tex's back and sighing a little. It's ridiculously cute, like much of what Landon does, and makes me so thankful we are here in our big house and accompanying yard. Because without those things we never would have adopted two big labs, and then I wouldn't get to see Landon love them so much. Lately I've been having days where I miss Chicago so much it hurts- I miss the city, miss the snow, miss the hustle and bustle and crowds. But I love it here too and I'm very grateful for my dogs and the fact that Christmas with my family is an easy three-hour drive away rather than a complicated flight out of O'Hare. It's also supposed to drop fifty degrees tonight- taking our temperature from a ridiculous 81 to a more seasonal 28. The holidays are coming!