Christmas Eve is usually culminates in some sort of meltdown on my part. Today, crisis averted because my husband made the trip to the zoo of a grocery store, my girls wrapped presents [oldest wrapped the youngest’s and vice versa], and I had help doing things that normally would have taken hours and hours.

I’m not 100% certain, but I think the way I began my day helped my mood considerably. I headed to the gym for a 9 a.m. workout with my usual suspects. Our trainer dreamed up the second in a series of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” workouts. You move through the list of activities just like you would if they were parts of the infamous song. Fortunately, today’s workout did not include any fruitcake [burpees]. When I think about where I was a year ago fitness-wise, it boggles the mind. I had not even dreamed of starting regular workouts and I had not taken the Advocare challenge. Feeling pretty good about my prospects for even better fitness in 2016.

After handling the aforementioned business at home, we headed to my mother-in-law’s gathering this afternoon. We had to make it a quicker trip than usual given that my husband has to work tonight. Not cool, but things happen. His schedule is always nutty and the pipeline waits for no man–even on a holiday.

We had a nice dinner with my mother-in-law, her twin sister and the cousins. It was an easy drive home for me given the lack of wind, ice, snow or even a temperature that required a jacket.

One tradition we started several years ago on Christmas Eve was
decorating a gingerbread house. This morning, I realized as I ran through my mental prep checklist that I did not have a kit in my possession. I thought about stopping on the way home from my workout at Target and purchasing one, but I decided to spare the other shoppers my look [and smell]. My girls decided to try Walgreen’s and they were successful. Go big or go home seemed to be the mantra of their trip as my youngest latched onto a village kit–rather than the one-house kits we’ve made in the past.

I had the brilliant idea earlier in the week to use one of our six-foot tables as a staging area for wrapping gifts. It worked wonderfully and it also made a great spot to do the gingerbread houses–especially since the dining room table and kitchen table were otherwise occupied. The girls always do a good job, but I almost miss the pouting and tears of when they were younger and frustrated by their efforts. This year, the only one frustrated was Lily the Lab as she tried to “help.” Pretty much her “helping” was only to help herself to icing and any other stray sweets produced by the project.

The girls did a really good job and were even successful in moving the finished houses to the hutch where we have a rather festive table runner. Now the trick is just to keep the puppy from turning into Godzilla and destroying Gingerbread Village. I doubt we will be successful at that for very long, but the Gingerbread Village will be fun while it lasts.