When Christmas Jumps the Tracks

Is your Christmas train rolling along on schedule or veering out of control?
If you're like me, you have this beautiful idea in your head of all the things your family must do together before you can check the box that a nice Christmas was had by all.
Things like decorating gingerbread houses...

Check.
Or decking the halls, (check) or taking a drive to see the lights. (Check, even though somebody in our car got grouchy.)
Sometimes I'm so in the throws of getting all these things organized that I end up doing something stupid. Yey for stupidity, because it stops me in my tracks and forces me to S L O W down and remember what Christmas is really for.

What stupidity, you ask?
Last night I spent forty five minutes trying to find gifts for the kids that I had hidden entirely too well. I did finally find them, thank goodness.
But my Super Big Stupid Thing of 2009 happened on Monday. At at the hour we were supposed to be sitting in the cold roasting marshmallows and having the grand solstice celebration I had bragged about on Monday, I was a twisted mess on my bed, trying not to faint or throw a fit while my husband tried for an hour and a half to get a splinter out of my right pointer finger. I got it in a mad rush to cross one more thing off my To Do list. I was just going to clean the extra leaf of our dinning room table and rammed a splinter of veneer into my flesh. I'm not a good patient and it really hurt, but my sweet husband is an incredibly patient man. I'm so thankful for him.
So after it was out, I sat on the bed, held my poor finger, and watched Christmas movies. And you know what? People showed up and sat with me. It was just what I needed.

We moved solstice to Tuesday night.
It was a roaring success!


The s'mores were worth the wait.

Now on to other things...
I love that Christmas is full of surprises. (Though I'd be glad to stick to the happy ones. No splinters, please.)
I got a big surprise yesterday!
I entered a little contest over at thepioneerwoman.com on Monday (before the splinter) and guess what! I won a $250 gift card!! Whoo hoo! Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman herself, randomly picked my name. Do you know Ree? I've known her from way back (okay, maybe a couple of years) before she published her cookbook and got all famous, jet setting to appear on TV with Paula Deen and Bonnie Hunt. The cookbook looks great, doesn't it?

Thank you, Ree!
Are you feeling lucky? She's got a couple more drawings this week. Why not enter? And while you're there, explore her blog a little. She's great at keeping life real, showing the dirty dishes along with the gorgeous food.

Today I'm happy that Christmas comes whether our house is in magazine style perfection or life is a royal mess.
Have a wonderful Wednesday, y'all!
Love, Becky