tis the season

To be busy.  But I'm trying so very hard to not get caught up in the 'things' I have to do and really enjoy it all.  I found myself so caught up in cooking and the act of Thanksgiving this year that I realized that I spent only a little time actually being thankful and most of that was after the fact.  I mean, I did reflect on what I was thankful for and I did spend time with my family and our local 'family' but leading up to it was stressful and tiring.  I DON'T want Christmas to be the same.

Now that I'm the woman of the house the cooking and decorating largely falls to me.  For some reason I'm just now realizing that.  No more sitting back and enjoying the fruits or someone else's labor.  Cookie baking, holiday meal planning and preparing and all the other amazing stuff is kinda my duty now.  But I'm making it sound like I'm not enjoying it.  Cause in reality the complete opposite is true!  I love that I'm the one that gets to determine how we celebrate Christmas this year...and from now on.  With Stan's help, of course, I am shaping the Christmas memories that my boys will carry with them into adult hood.  So the greatest thing is that I'm taking all my favorite parts of my childhood Christmas', combining them with Stan's, adding in a little something new to make it our own and there ya go!  Pittman Family Christmas!  It's been great so far and we are still 12 days till Christmas!

This weekend we celebrated Bennett's b-day (which we decided to make the day all about his Birthday and not something totally Christmasy cause I don't want him to feel like he gets gypped each year).  Once the boys were in bed I went to my first Cookie Swap hosted by my friend E.  Seriously she is Martha Stewart's long lost daughter.  She made some amazing appetizers and we all swapped cookies (I took Granny Great's Secret Sugar Cookies) and we had a real ladies night party.  Pretty sure that was my first grown up ladies party since I moved here..it was wonderful.  Tonight we are hosting all our Sunday fellowship friends to come over for more appetizers, cookie decorating and some Christmas P&W.  Really exciting.  The best part about this whole weekend is that I promised myself that I wouldn't get stressed out and so far so good.  I have a little cleaning left to do and my daddy's sausage balls to cook up to serve tonight but I'm determined a little rest time will be thrown in there so I won't have to enjoy tonight running off of caffeine and sugar fumes.

Tis the season to celebrate the birth of Christ, the love we have for family and friends (even if we can't be with them) and to enjoy each an every moment of it all!