7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol. 23)

-1-

Sly's little shoes after St. Nicholas paid a visit the other night.

A candy cane, a toy cow, and a holy card showing St. Nicholas (since Sly seemed really confused when we remembered to tell him about the Saint, hastily, only two minutes before bed the night before!).  Enough to make my little two-year-old's day.

-2-

A lot of Catholic families I know do the St. Nicholas thing for December 6th, and also the Santa Claus thing on the 25th.  It doesn't really make sense that he comes twice.  And in traditional cultures, he wouldn't have.  I think we just have this weird situation because the origins of the "American Christmas" are so diverse, and  many ethnic traditions were just kinda stuck together.  I guess I can just explain to my kids that St. Nick comes for his own feast day, and then again later in the month to celebrate Christ's birth (which is more important, and thus...St. Nick makes a bigger deal about it too?).  That would make sense to kids, right?

-3-

Now that Sly's finally old enough to have simple conversations with and he can better understand things, it's getting so fun to hang out with him, teach him new things, and introduce him to new experiences.  Especially with Christmas coming, and all the traditions associated with it.  Growing up, I always hoped to have kids.  So there have been so many little ideas I've been storing up over the years, longing to do someday with my own children.  And now finally, we're starting to do some of those things, and I can't even explain how exciting and fulfilling it is.

-4-

 I'm so re-obsessed with Downton Abbey right now.  I had watched season one when it first came to DVD, and got hooked.  At the time, season two still hadn't aired in the US.  I missed the first few episodes when they were on, and I had starting in the middle of a season,  so I decided to wait until it came out on DVD.  Somewhere along the way, I got confused - let's just blame it on "Mommy brain", since I'm sure that's what it was - and came to believe that I had already seen season one AND two, and was just waiting for season three.  I recently realized my mistake, so I re-watched season one over the past couple weeks (it would have been quicker, but I had to go at Netflix one-dvd-at-a-time speed!), and now I am finally starting season two for the first time.  I watched the first two episodes last night, and it's so gripping.  I always love a good period drama or unrequited love story...and this has both.  I cannot wait until naptime today ;-)

-5-

I went to a cookie exchange yesterday.  I was grumbling about having to bake a time-consuming six dozen cookies, but the work paid off in the end.  The recipe ended up yielding double what it claimed.  So I stuck the other six dozen in the freezer, and now I won't have to bake again for the other cookie exchange I have later in the month!  Add that to my list of reasons why having a chest freezer is the best thing ever - at least in terms of making a housewife's life easier.

- 6-

Tomorrow is the big "room exchange" at our house.  Tom's uncle is arriving with a set of dining room furniture (given to us by another of his uncles) from Michigan.  We'll put it in our current living room, and convert the upstairs library (and I might as well accept that I will never again have the luxury of being able to devote an entire room of the house to books!) into the new living room.  Basically, we're just adding lots more stuff.  So it's going to be a challenge these next few weeks, trying to find other places around the house to jam bookcases, extra seating, etc.

-7-

A few days ago...
Sly: "Mommy clean ALL day" and a little later,"Sly poop all day"

haha...some days, this doesn't seem too far off from the truth :-)

Quick Takes is hosted at Conversion Diary