After all, there's only one more sleep 'til Christmas..

Or so sings Kermit the Frog in the Muppet Christmas Carol, which is ALMOST as good as Muppet Treasure Island, but hey, I'm a big Tim Curry fan (let's do the Time Warp again...)

So it's Christmas Eve, I've already written about traditions whereas at this point I have images of Topol in my head doing that funky dance around the barn singing "traditiooooooooooon! tradition!" Oh wait, the funny dance in the barn was from "If I were a rich man" No matter, it's still all good theatre. Gosh I'm rambly today, even more so than usual, probably due to the annual midnight wal-mart-ing that occurs anywhere after 12:01 am on the 24th. Due to various complications and technical difficulties, said fun did not begin until 2am-ish, ending somewhere at 5:30 to 5:45 AM!!!! Funny moments include me trying to squeeze in a power nap at midnight or so and the only free space at Nanny's at the time was in James' bed, so I totally pulled a Goldilocks. At one point he was sleepy so his sister tried to send him to bed, he pads back in the living room with an, "Erin's already asleep in my bed." Whoops- sleeping on the couch never hurt anyone.

This year for some reason, I've had more memories of growing up flood back to me, probably the whole "life-is-more-poignant-since-I've-had-cancer" thing. Anyway, last week, driving back from Lakeland with Daddy (it's about an hour and a half away) and we took all the backroads, the Florida I know and grew up with (and yes, I've ranted on this one before). With the orange trees (how I used to go out with papa sometimes while he checked on the grove workers, and I'd end up climbing a ladder and picking a few oranges while I was there.), and all the green-houses, (where we used to burn the big heaters inside our greenhouse and the big diesel stack-things outside in the shadecloth part, to keep all the plants warm.) Of dirt roads and the "muck farm", all that was part of my growing up and it's funny how we forget the little things. High school is not very prevalent in my memory but driving around Orlando, the light pole decorations remind me of those days, mostly driving around after play practices, and doing the shopping while I was "in town." (for clarification, Apopka is a little town that's north of Orlando - lived in Apopka, went to school in Orlando.)

Funny moments of today have included trying to wrangle a comforter set into a space-bag with Daddy in the hall and then vacuuming it down. See, it's the little things like that that make the holidays so fun! So Merry CHRISTmas to all and to all a good night!!!