Christmas Happy Things

1. Driving through a Christmas lights display for Family Night last night

2. Precious and dear new ornaments for our tree - the kids and I made salt dough ornaments over the weekend. Henry made a hand print, Sophia made a candy cane, Amelia made a horse (of course), I made a doodle

in Kindergarten, Sophia made a Christmas tree

And two dear friends gave us ornaments to honor our baby

3. This super cool glass Santa cookie jar that I got at Savers for 99 cents

4. The giant box of cookies, some of which will go in the Santa jar (and some of which will be hidden in a very, very secret spot only Mommy knows). My great aunt in Austria is 90 years old and has been baking these cookies for years and years and shipping them all over creation to us. She and my great uncle owned a bakery (which has been a bakery since the 1500s - complete with a tunnel in the basement that used to go to the castle in town). I have so many great memories as a child of helping serve at their cafe, driving into the countryside to deliver bread with my uncle, watching the huge mixers... Probably my #2 favorite thing about Christmas every ear (after Christmas Eve services at church) is getting that box of cookies. My great uncle died this year, and it is a really sad time for my great aunt - her first year making all of these cookies alone. Times like these make me so sad that my family is so far away. But I know it makes her happy that the cookies make us happy, and boy do they ever!!

5. Christmas cards! LOVE.

6. My BFF Melissa is in town!!! She moved away for dental school ten years ago and never came back, so now I only get to see her once or twice a year. We're going OUT tomorrow night, and I can't wait!

Not so happy things... everyone in our house has a cold and today I had to get a root canal. Blech! Luckily it was Melissa's daddy who did it while humming Christmas carols, so I wasn't trembling in my boots like I usually do at the dentist.