Christmas is next week!  It seems like it came so fast this year, but I am mostly ready.  I still have to decide what we are eating on Christmas Eve.  I am leaning towards a traditional dinner–which is very untraditional for me–of fried turkey, macaroni and cheese and some kind of vegetable.  Of course I will bake a cake or two, decorate Christmas cookies, and maybe try Darcie’s Toffee Oatmeal Fudge Bars.  A Spiced Kettlecorn recipe over at Goop.com looks great to eat while watching holiday movies.

I FINALLY tracked down ornaments for my family; they were tough this year!  My daughter changed her ornament from a sewing machine (impossible to find) to an artist palette because she loves art.

My son wanted an ornament to represent The Sound of Music since he was in a musical theater production this year and I was able to find an ornament of the Austrian flag.  I found both of these ornaments at Bronners.com.

My husband wanted an ornament to show his love of music and DJing from his computer on Friday nights; after much searching I found vintage record ornaments on Uncommongoods.com.  These are real records re-purposed into ornaments.

And of course we couldn’t forget about Chili Dawg; adding him to our family was a major part of 2009.  Judy over at Paws & Claws makes the best pet ornaments that I have ever seen.  When she didn’t have a cockapoo ornament the color of Chili Dawg, she made one; we couldn’t be happier because it looks just like him.

The gifts are bought and wrapped.  Santa brings the big gifts, but the kids do get a few gifts from us. I am absolutely stunned that Chili Dawg has not bothered the Christmas tree other than drinking the water, but I am not going to tempt him by putting gifts under the tree.  I KNOW that will be a bad idea as he has never seen paper that he doesn’t want to rip to shreds!  So this year we are putting the gifts on top of the TV cabinet; I made it look decorative so it’s not too weird.  As you can see, the wrapping paper and bows match the silver, white and aqua color theme for this year.

Besides our kids, we just buy gifts for our nephew.  I don’t think my husband and I have exchanged gifts very much since we’ve had kids.   One reason is that providing Christmas for our kids takes all the money and the other is that my husband is so hard to shop for because he buys whatever he wants for himself all year long (mostly electronic/technology stuff).   There is nothing left to buy him!   As for me, there is ALWAYS something to buy, but I’ve learned to just treat myself when I can.  Usually I wait until this time of year because the sales are good and special merchandise is available.  Like beauty products: the L’Occitane Hand Creme Trio is a good deal (normally $10 a piece, the trio is sold for $25) as is the Lovely Lip Gloss Coffret from Nars ($49 for 8 lip gloss colors that would normally be soooo much more; Nars is not cheap).  I had to give myself these gifts of beauty; I deserve to have soft hands and shiny lips.

Ever since I got my new Funkdivagirl.com business cards, I have been looking for a cute business card holder.  I emphasize cute because plain black or brown leather are easy to find–cute ones are not.  Early one day to meet my friend for a bit of holiday shopping and lunch at Neiman Marcus, I wandered into the Kate Spade store.  I had been in there before and found nothing, but I figured with the holiday season they might have in new merchandise and I was correct.  They didn’t have the color I wanted, my signature pink, but I was able to order it online (with free shipping) and it arrived nicely wrapped; a perfect gift to me, from me.

I love this time of year.  I have plans to get my hair, eyebrows and nails done later this week and I’m excited for our pre-Christmas get-away with friends.  I plan to enjoy it all because it will be over way too soon.