1.  On the drive home from South Carolina (12 1/2 hours thank you very much holiday traffic and rain) I made everyone listen to Christmas carols the entire way.  We have XM satellite radio and they have five, count ’em FIVE different Christmas channels.  Whenever Silent Night came on Owen made me change the channel however as he found it too sad to listen to….

2.  Owen rarely closed his mouth on the entire 12 1/2 hour drive.  He did sleep for about an hour or so but other than that he was either putting food into his mouth or talking…..and talking….and talking….or singing….or talking.  I wish I could remember all the topics of conversation.  They ranged from fondly remembering his outing in Nashville to Jesus Christ to what part of your body dies first when you die to the concept of a rotating Christmas tree so you could see all the ornaments, etc.

3.  As we sat down to Thanksgiving dinner Owen screwed up his face and said in puzzlement, "who was it that had Thanksgiving with the Indians?  Was it the Russians?"  Judi attempted not to laugh.  I’m more used to it so I just calmly said, "no, honey, it was the Pilgrims."

4. Judi also had  a hard time not laughing when Owen complained that Leo was calling him "the butt in the hood."  Of course it was a Christmas or two ago that Judi laughed and encouraged Leo to keep calling people "slowhead" as he was doing.  She’s not always a lot of help in these instances….

5.  Leo is desperate for a Lego train set for Christmas (thank you very much Don).  Now mind you, the child has a Lionel train set, a HO train set, a small Amtrak N gauge set and still uses his Brio wooden train set.  I’m embarrassed just writing all that but they just creep in one by one.  The last thing he needs  is another train set and yet who knows what Santa Claus will do because the boys seem to be on some kind of Lego high lately.  Yesterday they built Lego houses (they were neighbors) complete with bags of groceries on the kitchen floor and a computer with a mouse.  Owen was working on building me a laptop because he knows I want one.

6.  My father continues to worsen but I haven’t even written much about it because I just want to bury my head in the sand.  When I called my mother the other evening she was struggling to get dinner for herself  because my father had decided to put his pajamas on at 6 p.m. and go to bed.  She tried to convince him to eat dinner first but he had taken his hearing aids out and couldn’t hear her.  Then at 9 p.m. when she was going to bed he wanted to get up and get dressed.  She managed to convince him it wasn’t morning.

7. I think I’m going for two Christmas trees this year.  It’s not that I have room….but I just want to.  I think I’ll move the sideboard in the dining room a bit and just squish one in there…..  Time is going so fast these days that I’m just going to throw myself into the holidays.  Try not to get stressed about it and just enjoy the things I love about it…..decorating the house, playing Christmas music, watching the boys shudder with excitement, make Ernie do the holiday baking, have a Christmas party, hope for snow…..