Christmas Is Coming, the Goose Is Getting Fat*

I'm almost afraid to type---will that gentle tap tap tapping noise wake the Fragile Sleepers? Guess I'll soon find out.

I've vowed not to whine too much about the past few nights. Suffice it to say that Allie's cold (croup, the pediatrician proclaims) and Sean's mysterious, on-and-off again insomnia have wrought some fairly sleepless nights. To complicate matters, Jeff's been away on a 2-day trip for work; around 1 a.m. this morning I silently (or did I say it out loud?) wished to trade places with him. Allie seems better tonight, so perhaps cautious optimism is in order.

Anyhoo. With Christmas looming on the horizon, I'm trying to staunch the usual panic that sets in every year about this time. I'm not in a Christmasy mood at all: no shopping to speak of done yet, only two measly wreaths hung. But there's plenty of time left, right?

This year I decided not to distribute a wish list of gifts to my family. Instead, I sent them a link to What Goes Around. It's kind of a charity registry---you pick charities that you'd like to donate to or have others donate to in your name, and then you circulate the list. Don't get me wrong---I enjoy receiving gifts as much as the next conspicuous consumer, but this year I'm feeling so blessed with all I have that asking for more seems like overkill to me.

With no small sense of irony, I'm now off to Amazon to start some shopping.

*I love the Muppet version of this Christmas carol. Just thinking about Miss Piggy singing "If you haven't got a half-penny then God bless you" makes me grin. I need to find "John Denver and the Muppets Christmas" on CD! The cassette tape I had when I was 9 is long gone.