… a frenzied Momma preparing for the holidays while working full-time (and then some), taking care of baby, trying to get quality time with Handsome Hubby and counting the days and hours and minutes until my super-dooper Christmas vacation traveling through New Jersey and Massachusetts.

Phew.

No wonder my licked Christmas card envelopes are going to smell like Pinot Grigio.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am, underneath the build-up of stress and anxiety and the apprehension and absolute joy and excitement about our travels, I am still the little girl who wrote to Santa, bribing him not with cookies and milk, but with a beer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am overjoyed every time we receive a new adorable photo card from our friends and family with little ones.

 

I feel at such peace running my hands over the ceramic Christmas tree my mother made with her hands years and years and years ago.

 

 

 

 

I gaze, with Zack, at the lights on our tree — those lights that are turned on first thing when I walk downstairs in the morning and stay on until we go up to be each night.

 

 

And the Christmas music that is probably driving my mother-in-law absolutely crazy when she’s over baby-sitting still hasn’t gotten old to me.

 

 

I am in a beautiful place in so many ways. And I still bribe my “Santa” with beer.

And promises of a lifetime of love and all that stuff, too. Oh, and cute babies. REALLY cute babies with mohawks.