a peek inside the fishbowl

Day one: We made a fine mess making our paper snowflakes. We made another kind of ornament as well, and they turned out supafine. In fact, I’m thinking of leaving them up all year round. They’re pictured on the floor in the photo above, to Emma’s left. They’re hanging in our dining room. I’ll take a photo of them tomorrow.

Day two: We purchased two hens and a rooster from World Vision. We do this every year. We spent a lot of time talking about What Kind of Gift Would Be Best. It was hard. Is it best to help educate a girl in China? Or outfit a classroom with school supplies? Later, I froze my tail off at the toboggan hill. Even later, Mark (who is recovering from his own case of the barfies) and the girls hung up the Christmas lights while I shopped for caulking at Home Depot.

I would love a hot water bottle and a glass of Bailey’s right now. Oh yeah, we’re out. Dang.

re: the shoe poll. I am surprised so many of you are voting for the pointy shoes. Hmm.

So here’s the story. I bought a new dress, and although I may appear to be a confident gal who is all tra-la-la, I am torn about footwear. I need your help! Check out the photos below and let me know what you think. I’ve affixed a poll to the bottom of this post (it’s untested… I hope it works!).

I’m wearing this dress to a not-entirely-formal office party (not my office) which will take place in an Italian banquet hall on Preston St. This is not a swishy do at Rideau Hall or anything like that.

Thank you Marla for all your awesome suggestions. I could totally get lost in the Zappo site. Phew.

Btw, Mark thinks I’m being totally vain. I’m not vain! Just concerned, okay? :)

First, the photos:

ETA: I am totally laughing at myself. I seem to have the same panic attack every year.

I was in my usual spot, watching, on the deck, while the girls were having their swimming lessons. I was scribbling away in my notebook.

“It’s really loud in here, isn’t it?” said the lady sitting in the chair next to mine.
“Yeah, it is really loud. It seems like there’s more kids here than usual.”

(a couple minutes later…)

“My son found all the Christmas gifts, and showed his little sister,” said the lady.
“Where were the gifts?”
“In my closet.”

She has three kids, two boys (the one who was snooping in the closet was nine, I think) and the little sister was six.

“So what are you going to do,” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It kinda makes me want to take them all back, you know what I mean?  And I was so happy my shopping was all done.”
” …”
“Well, maybe it’s a good thing,” she continued. “I bought my daughter a Little Mommy, and she said it was the wrong one anyway.”

She told me her children had put really pricey toys on their lists to Santa. She’d warned them that they were too expensive, but her little boy reasoned that since Santa made all the toys in his workshop that cost didn’t matter.

I’m not sure if I gave her any good advice. I think she was upset, and this was all fresh in her mind, and she needed someone to talk to about it. What would you do, if this happened to you?

My Christmas needs to be less about the gifts, and more about having fun as a family… which is why I’m liking my advent calendar the more I think about it.

This is what kids crave anyway, right? Time with their family? If I ask my kids what they love most in the world, it’s not their Barbies or their bins full of Polly Pockets. They love making cookies with their Nana, stealing Papa’s slippers, roasting marshmallows by a fire, building sandcastles, feeding the ducks… This is what Christmas should be about. But how can we make this change if we have it stuck in our heads that we need to have a huge pile of loot under the tree in order to make it a happy Christmas? Do all these things we buy ourselves really bring us happiness … not to mention joy and peace and goodwill to all man?