The Day After...

The Taylor Family Blog is taking off a day today.  Not really since there is a blog here, but relatively speaking, this blog is going to be about nothing.

I'm sitting here, the only one up in my family, at 9:30am, looking at the aftermath of Christmas.  The kitchen table is full of the stuff that just gets dropped there when we come in the door.  The sink is full of dirty dishes because the dishwasher is full of clean dishes.  They are both full because of the cooking/baking frenzy that has been me the past three days.

The living room is a virtual minefield of toys, clothes, boxes, stocking stuffers and the like.  I managed to get up most of the wrapping paper and empty boxes, but the gifts are all down here and Jenna's are strewn from here to yon.

When I put Jenna to bed last night, I had to dance around to avoid the random items in her floor.  More on this later, but Chase got her an entire art studio for Christmas.  Like, acrylic paints, glow in the dark paint, brushes in every size and shape and even a professional looking easel.  All very nice and Jenna loves them, but she has nothing but paper to paint on.  She also has $50 in cash she racked up this Christmas among a large variety of gift cards.  So she is really wanting to go out to buy some canvases and paper to paint on.  I think I'm going to have to bribe her into cleaning her room if she wants to go out.  I have to work the rest of this week, so if the house is going to get clean, it needs to be done today.

I love Christmas.  Some years it takes me forever to get into the Christmas mood, but this year I was ready and I attribute it to doing most of my Christmas shopping the weekend before Thanksgiving. We (OK, Steve) even got Christmas lights up outside this year.  That hasn't happened in years.  But every Christmas, no matter my level of Christmas spirit, by the day after Christmas, I'm ready for it all to be gone.  I am a creature of order (though many times I am far from orderly) and schedule.  So by the time it's all over, I'm ready for my house to be back to normal.  Somehow, the dark Christmas tree with no gifts underneath is depressing so I'd rather it be gone all together.  I am sad to see Christmas go this year...seems like there wasn't much time to enjoy it before it was here.  But gone it is and now we look forward to 2012!  YIKES!

So, for a post about nothing, that was quite a long one.  Thanks for lasting this long.  I promise, there will be posts to follow with picture of our various Christmas celebrations.  But for now, this is what you get.

Also, if you think about it, pray for my friend Jennifer.  She and her husband just traveled to China in October to bring home her daughter home.  Last night she had to take her husband to the ER where they found him to be in congestive heart failure due to a serious problem with his kidneys.  They were doing a biopsy on his kidneys this morning to see what the problem is.  Hopefully, they can figure out what the problem with his kidneys are, fix that and reverse the congestive heart failure.  However, he is in very serious shape.  Jennifer and Jeff have 3 boys in addition to their new daughter from China.  Please pray for the doctors to have wisdom in fixing what is wrong.  I'll keep you posted as I know more.