Christmas is coming...

The moment December hit, I was busy being festive. I had set up a schedule of what I needed to do and by what date, so that my Christmas preparations wouldn't turn out to be a frantic rush 2 days before the big day.

On December 1st, we put up the Christmas tree. Audrey helped for the first time, which gave me great anxiety as the majority of my ornaments are glass and/or highly breakable. She got bored after a while and eventually got sent to her room for a time out since her boredom oozed out of her in the form of a dozen demonic toddlers terrorizing the living room. My advent house was put out and one of my little nativities right next to it. We still need to put up the garland around the walls, but we'll see if we get to it at all this year.

I also started working on Christmas gifts for family. I decided fairly early on that buying gifts outright wasn't going to be fiscally responsible, so I've been working on home-made items. One of my big projects was to make bath salts. It took several afternoon nap times to put together enough bath salts for my sisters and sisters-in-law.

I had fun with the colors and scent mixtures. Now it's just a matter of waiting for the bath salts to "cure" a bit and they'll be giftable.

While I was talking to Mom about my first attempt to make bath salts. I was very excited about the prospect of making something that would normally cost $5 to $20 to buy... PER PERSON. She looked at me incredulously and said, "People actually USE bath salts?" I tried to explain...

"Yes, Mom... you know, it's the relaxation thing.. the.. 'Calgon, take me away!' moments..."

"People have time to relax?" came the query.

Sigh.... oh well. If no one wants any bath salts, I've got about 12 pounds of them to last me the rest of my life. At least I'll smell good.