Christmas 2014 activities, celebrations and plans

[5 Little Monkeys]

That all sounds wonderful and so much fun!! The Santa/dinner thing is something I would LOVE to do as I am like you, love feeding people! lol. However, my need/want to keep my 2 lives separate makes me hesitant haha.

I was off for 3 weeks (oops, mean I felt off, wasn't off work ) extreme exhaustion, fever, nausea, dizzy etc. and we never did figure out why. My doctor thinks I was just exhausted and it was my body's way of telling me. (Not sure why I had a fever for so long but it's gone now so I'm happy!) I'm still tired but it's back to my normal tiredness now lol. I've started taking a prescription sleeping pill instead of OTC ones and it seems to be helping.

Due to that I was a bit lazy the beginning of this month but in the past week or so, I have got my butt in gear and we did lots! Baked sugar cookies, rolo cookies, fudge, nuts and bolts, cupcakes and brownies to give away, made cinnamon and clay tree ornaments, picture frames, lots of Christmas art and letters to Santa. I also got a new play kitchen, toy shelves with fabric bins and new mats for my daycare. I used to have colourful ones but now it's teal and brown and the kitchen and shelves are darker so it's a lot less "busy"...I LOVE it!!

I sent home their parent gifts from the kids this week....they got nuts and bolts, sugar cookies they decorated, the cinnamon and clay ornaments they painted as well as a picture frame with a picture I took of them with Christmas wrapping paper as the background. They turned out cute! I am sending home one child's gift today as tomorrow is their last day (dad and older sis are sick so just in case she doesn't come tmr!) and than next Monday is PJ day and all my other ones are here. It's the last day for another one for the week so I will send home their gifts then after they open them up here. I only have 2 on Christmas eve and am closing at noon so we will go out somewhere that morning. Either a play place or to my in-laws as they like to visit the kids.

I've been spoiled this year already and have gotten 3 gifts from the parents. One parent gave me a tree ornament with my favourite tea in it and another one gave me a $50 card to the Keg and an awesome owl candle holder (I'm in love with owls). One day I only had one child so we went to visit the mom on mat leave (the one child I had was her son's best dcfriend) and she had a gift for the child and a gift for myself, hand soap and a candle! So nice of her to think of us still

This is my 4th Christmas with the dc and it's the first one where I don't have all kids on paid holiday leave. At first I was kinda disappointed because my other half gets school holidays off so it's been nice to have holidays with him but due to my exhaustion, I'm okay with it now as we aren't leaving town for long this year so I may as well be open and getting full pay. One child is gone for the 2 weeks and a few others are gone a day or two so it won't be too bad. Two 4 day weekends will be nice too!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!!