Santa Clause is Coming to Town!

whew....i can't believe xmas is almost here...just around the corner. i wanted to journal the month of december and unfortunately this is the first opportunity i've gotten. we have pretty much had every weekend and most of the weekdays planned. i love the holidays so much that i think i try to cram in too much. i made sure to shop early enough but for some reason something always comes up and i end up shopping until the last minute. i was not planning on getting any of the guys in the office anything or even our close neighbors but then i changed my mind. after all this is the time of the year to really show the people around you how much you appreciate them. i will make sure to make myself some notes on the things i missed this year or slacked on to be better prepared next year. and i will make sure to have most of tony's gifts done early. i waisted so much time last sunday driving around looking for parking just to pick up tony's hiking shoes. i should have done that sooo long ago and i just didn't. i am done with his gifts but i wish i would have been better prepared. argh! one of the things i was really glad that i did was automatically transfer money away every week for the people we were giving money to instead of waiting until the last minute. i tried to plan a nice dinner menu for tony and i and that didn't turn out too well...not enough time... of course we did have some nice meals this month that i cooked but i thought i would have more new recipes to try out...no worries though there is plenty of time...next year of course. i did get to make us our own thanksigiving dinner which was nice and i even made cranberry sauce...so kewl!

i'm glad we have decided to continue our family xmas dinner which we used to do before. every year right before xmas we would all get together and pick out a nice restaurant to go to and treat ourselves. for some reason or another we stopped doing it. i think it's been a couple years. well i asked my brothers and they were all for it. instead of going to a pricey restaurant we have decided to try a more low key restaurant without the high sticker price. we're either going to do chili's or cpk. i hope it will be fun and no one will end up arguing over something stupid.

i think the only thing t and i didn't get to do or haven't done yet is the chinmo lights, griffith park light display and candy cane lane in woodland hills. we might be able to check those out before xmas or maybe xmas eve when we check out the other light displays in pasadena. we went to the xmas village @ knott's but it's closed on the weekends. oh well, we can always go next year. i cannot believe that my mom has not been putting up a fight to go out to eat with us. she actually let us take her to northwood inn and from there we went to hastings ranch. i am so glad that she is turning a new leaf and trying to be more positive and actually enjoy life without worrying about imposing on us. thank god.