Just Heather

Everything hits at once here at casa de Sokol. Little one’s birthday is in 20 days. But first comes the wonderfully fabulous (read:free) family trip to Florida for Thanksgiving. Somehow I have to find out how to get to Best Buy and Bath & Body Works on Black Friday for the super duper sales. Then comes Christmas with all it’s travel-to-7-houses-in-3-days glory. 12 days later, another birthday.

For the next week or so, I’ll be super busy packing and shopping. I like to be done by December, but it doesn’t look like that will happen this year. One because I’m just so busy packing (and by that I mean I’ve had a suitcase in my room for 2 weeks). Two, because I’ll be out of town on my absolute favorite shopping day of the year. Do you think the happiest place on earth will have Black Friday sales? And, finally, because no one will do the freaking name draw thing so I don’t know who I’m buying gifts for, much less what they want.

I love the holidays. Truly, I do.

It’s gonna be so fun at my water party. We’re gonna have a canon that can shoot out water. Well, you won’t believe how fun that is gonna be. And don’t forget there’s gonna be a castle! And also 200 water balloons. It’s gonna be so so so so so so so so (two more, she says) so so (one more) so fun!! You won’t believe how fun the water balloons will be. And don’t forget there’s gonna be water guns and we’re gonna play water freeze. And whoever gets squirted wif (she has a lisp sometimes from her missing front teeth) the water in the guns has to freeze and if they get squirted again they get un-freezed. That’s how you play water freeze. And we’re also gonna play balloon tag and who gets tagged with the balloon the person is gonna have 5 bags of 16 balloons. And whoever gets the most balloons is it. OK? And then they keep doing and doing it until their balloons are all gone. And don’t forget—call me if you can come.

The End.

Oh, I mean, there’s also gonna be lots more stuff.

Now The End.

I know this for 2 reasons:

1. My business is sales so part of my job is to make people freak out and starting adding gifts to their orders.
2. My daughter is 5 years old and forever asking “How many days until…?” Her current favorite is Halloween, though she then realizes that next comes Thanksgiving and then her sister’s birthday, then Christmas, then her birthday. So we end up doing a countdown to everything. Thus, I know how many days until Christmas at any given time from October to December.

Last year I set a goal to finish my holiday shopping by December 1st. This is because I was very pregnant at the time and had nightmares of trucking into busy retail stores with a newborn in my arms and an almost 5 year old running along side me as I ran around town in search of some elusive gift. I came close, though I did some running the week before Christmas (alone, I might add- Dad to the rescue!)

This year I have the same goal, but only because last December was so nice. We got to relax, enjoy the parties, and spend time as a new family. I printed out my holiday planner from FlyLady the other day to help me plan and stay stress free. It is partly filled out already- I love to make plans. The exciting thing was realizing I am nearly done shopping for my daughter, half done with the baby, and have several gifts stocked up for other people.

The holidays are so much fun when you aren’t stressed and pulling your hair out the whole month!