No more dreaming, it's definitely been a white Christmas!!!!

We're Minnesotans and we're tough, but snowstorms at Christmas are a bit hard to take.

We missed celebrating with my family and now my husband's family. This is getting old real fast! All that good food, great fellowship and just, well, being together.

But Mother Nature had to have her say. While we didn't get as much snow here, the travel and winds and snows were worse around us.

So on Christmas Day, when normally we'd be visiting with my side of the family, we instead stayed bundled up at home. The boys were enjoying their new netbooks, Doug had plans to watch something with a ball in it on TV and me...well, I had an inkling to go to a movie.

I don't mind going to a movie by myself. All those years I did the power-commute thing for work taught me that sometimes you just have to do things by yourself. And I do enjoy movies. Doug doesn't like sitting in theatre seats and the boys have now decided it's not the coolest thing on this earth to go to a movie with mom...she can drive you out there but then you try to separate.

I don't mind. I can pick where I want to sit and what movie I want to watch and laugh as loud as I want or wipe away the tears in private without worrying if someone is going to see me.

So I saw It's Complicated. Good movie although I was surprised to see so many men attending what I thought was a chick flick. There were husbands and wives at the movie and, in one row, three guys...just guys no dates, no wives...interesting.

Christmas was a bit unconventional. How many times have I gone to a movie on Christmas day? Never until this year. And I saw that there were many people I knew who felt the same way. My best bud and her family were there. They went to another movie but there was something comforting knowing their plans had changed as well. And once I got out of the theatre, some church friends were waiting to see the same movie I saw.

When it snows at Christmas like it did this year, you have to expect the unexpected and go with Plan B!

Christmas Eve shoppers UNITE!!!!

Most people would be in a panic by now....six days till Christmas. But this is the time frame that gets my adrenaline flowing.

I am a regular Christmas Eve shopper, you see. I have a few things purchased...a few things for the DILS (daughter-in-laws), know what we are giving all our boys and have my present purchased to me..actually it's my present from my hubby but Doug told me to get my own present since I told him I wanted some Hillcrest gear. He said, "Buy it from me and wrap it for Christmas."

It works. At least I can get it in the size I know will fit and not some imaginary size Doug either wishes I'd be or some oversized thing he thinks will fit me but I will swim in...so I'm not complaining.

And about my Christmas Eve shopping, well, it's in my blood.

You see, growing up, my sisters and I would plan our Christmas Eve trips to either Alexandria or Fergus Falls. We had a list of who we had to buy for and some ideas. You see when you shop like this you have to have ideas. You can't have one thought in mind like those little hamster things that EVERYONE seems to be buying, except me, obviously.  And you go for things people can use rather than the popular faddish things.

I remember going into the department stores and we'd try several types of perfume for a gift for mom or check out the different tester bottles for cologne for our brother or dad or uncles. One year we all got sick to our stomachs on the way home, no urping, but it still made our stomachs churn as we smelt like a combination of Stetson cologne and Chanel perfume. YUCKO!

It was the only time in the winter that we drove with the windows down!

Once we got home to the farm, we each went into a different bedroom to wrap, wrap wrap, finish chores, take a bath (we had no shower. Oh, the humanity!) and get ready to go to Grandma's house. Amazingly, all the hub-bub seemed like a well-planned event. We enjoyed the evening, the surprises of the gifts and all the food. There was always more than enough to eat.

Ahhh. Busy shopping, preparations and a late night. We slept really good once we got home.

So maybe my Christmas Eve shopping events aren't really something I HAVE to do but it's like baking sugar cookies and listening to Christmas songs...it's tradition! And you don't want to mess with mother tradition now, do you?!

Oh Christmas Tree humbug

Like many households, we got our Christmas tree up after Thanksgiving.

It's artificial, but like real trees, it has its imperfections. The top branches seem thicker than the bottom ones and the top branch, the one that's supposed to stick straight up, has a bend in it. I could bend it straight, but it gives some realness to its unreality.

Regardless, like the Christmas decorations of my youth, this tree will be up until the 12 days of Christmas or, in other words, through Epiphany. We're so quick to celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus in the weeks coming up to Christmas, we fail to honor the whole Christmas story including the wisemen!

And so the decorations are up for the duration.

My nativity scene has been scaled back some, though. Not because of any cost cutting measures. The reality is that some of the figures have fallen on hard times...they've fallen on the hard floor and have broken.

Some of their falls were due to grandbabies who got ahold of the figurines before Gramma could grab them. Some fell victim to my clumsiness. No matter what, they're toast, plain and simple.

So it's a bit smaller party in the stable scene. There's a donkey, cow and sheep. there's a wiseman (note the singular term) a shepherd and Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus. The important thing is the three main characters remain.

My girlfriend told me her family had received a nativity set carved from olive wood. They lost baby Jesus and replaced him with a swaddled napkin complete with pen-placed eyes, nose and smile.

I got my Family Christian bookstore catelog today and there were other nativity scenes to purchase. There's even a Veggie Tales one!

No matter what the characters look like, it's the story that counts. The fulfillment of prophecy. Our Savior is born! Alleluia!