It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Black Friday shopping plunged me headfirst into the Christmas season, as our calendar filled up with holiday events and activities. Isabelle and Olivia kept us busy attending 7th grade basketball games, and choir and orchestra concerts;we had dinner with friends, attended parties, and spent the 17th celebrating our 48th wedding anniversary.

We were especially excited this year to get tickets for The Woodlands Civic Ballet’s production of “The Nutcracker,” as Isabelle had been selected to dance the part of Clara. She and Olivia both danced multiple dances in beautiful costumes, and are truly talented and graceful ballerinas.

By Christmas Eve we were ready to head to Sigh-Bar for a Grand Christmas in the mountains of northwest Montana. Tara came with us, but she flew American Airlines with a plane change in Dallas while we flew Alaska Airlines direct to Seattle. We had a long layover in Seattle so Tara got Lee comfortably settled in the club then she and I walked thru every terminal. The SeaTac Airport was so festive — completely decorated for the holidays, filled with people, and had musical performers throughout. There was even a Christmas parade! We found the Qdoba restaurant so we didn’t even have to miss our traditional Christmas Eve holiday nachos!

It was dark and cold and snowy by the time we made it to Sigh-Bar, so we turned up the heat and climbed in bed. Santa found us after all, and we sipped hot chocolate and sat by the fire while we opened presents and emptied our stockings. We really were not surprised to find that nothing was open on Christmas Day, so our only option for dinner was what we could find at the gas station. Thank goodness for frozen burritos and pizza from the Zip Trip! We enjoyed a beautiful, quiet, wintry Christmas Day but had no time to lose the next morning to fill the fridge, stock the cupboards, and prepare for our Grand Christmas.