I really love Christmas and relate personally to the passage from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens:

"...and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. My that truly be said of us, and all of us!"

I love to decorate the house, shop, bake, and eat. We try each year to participate in charitable giving or service above our ordinary contributions. I love Christmas music, concerts and events.

But, lest anyone think a picture perfect holiday is really possible or actually happening here, let me just review a few 'issues' we have going on:

Here is a photo of Coral with her trebuchet. It is assembled, but let's just say, we will not be knocking down any castle walls with it! Uncle Lloyd, we needed you-but, if you can see where we went wrong from this photo, don't call, don't write...it is too late.

Last weekend we attended the much anticipated MoTab Christmas Concert. We put some effort into acquiring the tickets-thanks, everyone, for letting me use your out of town addresses- and were very excited since last year's concert was pretty much life-changing. However, this time... we had horrible seats where the sound was totally coming through speakers-badly; we didn't connect with most of the musical selections and the style of the concert was not what we were expecting- a bit too 'jingle bells and happy holidays'. The guest artists were the King's Singers. I could tell they are really talented, but we will need to be exposed to them in a different setting to really appreciate their work. There were several impressive pieces on the program that I will look forward to watching on PBS next year-with the sound properly mixed- but after waiting for tickets, fighting traffic, and jostling with 21000 other people to get into the conference center on a bitterly cold night, we did not have quite the rewarding experience we were hoping for.

I have had trouble with altitude while baking my most treasured lemon cakes since we moved here, but this year they are inedible. I have spent time on www.baking911.com and have one more tweak to try. If it doesn't work, the neighbors will be getting boxes of chocolate covered cherries- JK- but we will need a plan B.

Niall has a friend at school whose parents are, apparently, opposed to organized religion. Niall has come home worried that Christmas is only about presents and that churches are bad because they make you pay to pray. I have reassured him that Christmas is really about 'vengeance'(a line from the Jim Carrey movie of 'the Grinch') and that tithing is voluntary.

We woke up yesterday, after a night of thawing and rain, to water dripping in the living room window. I seem to still be cross-wise with the Gods of Stucco and more sacrifices of time, money, and emotional energy will, I'm sure, be required.

And, last night, India walked in her dream-filled sleep, barefoot in jammies, out the door into the winter night, across and down the street to hide from Coral-who was trying to kill her-on a neighbor's porch. I heard the door open, but didn't get downstairs fast enough to see where she had gone. After looking around outside a bit and searching through the house, she saw me coming outside to look again and came home- not before knocking on the neighbors door to see if they would let her come in and get warm. I had PTSD for a good part of the rest of the night. We haven't heard from the neighbors yet. And, yes, she was really asleep. She didn't even remember it this morning until I reviewed it with her.

We will have a wonderful Christmas in spite of any ongoing drama, and I think we are smart enough to be enormously grateful for our fortunate circumstances. As soon as I find some caffeine and headache medicine, I will return to the kitchen to try to make the lemon cakes happen!