Since When Is Christmas Only 6 Days Away?

For real?! Where has the time gone? I'm usually a bit late when it comes to preparing for Christmas (a holdover from my university days where everything waited until after that last final exam) but this year has been the worst yet. Part of the reason is that we've had few of the usual early Christmas season festivities - Christmas banquets, home group parties, extended family gatherings - to jumpstart the process.

Plus there's the whole "massive changes to the family routine" issue of late. We're slowly starting to settle in to the new schedule. The Boy only kind of hates school, and The Husband is simply stellar and usually has supper on the table by the time I get in the door. Mornings are still tough, but I'm pretty good at having everything ready to go the night before.

(Of course, that only works if I remember the kids' breakfast waiting in the fridge. Sigh. Yesterday took a detour when it was discovered only blocks from school that the day's PopTart/Fruit Bar/Chocolate Milk package was still at home. Fortunately there was a Caribou Coffee nearby. Unfortunately, breakfast for two children cost an astronomical nine dollars.)

Work is going super-duper-terrifically well. On the work environment front, it's a great office. Lots of perks (frozen yogurt day tomorrow!) and extremely nice coworkers. On the job responsibility front, it's pretty much perfect. Style manuals, templates, information-presentation guidelines - everything I do is governed by at least one standard if not two or more. The attention paid to consistency makes me want to weep for joy.

(I've often thought I should have been born about 125 years sooner than I was. The Victorian society, with its "a place for everyone and everyone in his/her place" mentality, would have suited me much better than this loosey-goosey social mobility we've got nowadays. Mind you, Victorian social immobility wasn't so hot when you were a charwoman. Or any kind of woman, for that matter.)

And we are cautiously optimistic that we may have found our new church. We "kid-tested" a local Mennonite church this past Sunday and it passed with flying colours. There are three little girls The Girl's age and one other boy who is exactly three days older than The Boy. Not a huge number, but they were all fast friends before the morning was over. We were fairly bowled over by the welcome we received. It's a very small church (about 65 or so) and a bit more traditional in their worship and older in their age demographic than we are used to. But we think it's a place where we could be quite comfortable, so we shall see what the new year brings.