Christmas Eve

Liz and Sean arrived late Monday night.  The next morning Liz and I drove up to Emeryville to shop at Bay Street.  I enjoyed spending time with her, seeing her interact with the brow stylist at Sephora, the dressing room helper at Banana Republic, and others.  She is friendly, laughs easily, and talks a mile a minute.  After lunch we came home and worked a Charles Wysocki puzzle, which I haven't done in a long time.  In years past there was often a puzzle in progress on the coffee table; all three girls have liked doing jigsaw puzzles since they were tiny and still do.  I hope e will have many hours of fun with puzzles, too, as she gets a bit older.

Yesterday morning I practiced organ, which took longer than usual because I have two services to play tonight, and while the carols are the same for the family service and the choir/later service, the preludes and postludes differ because the choir director and I will play flute/organ (or piano) duets at the later one.  The church's heating system is on the fritz; Sunday morning the temperature was about 58 when the service began.  They've been working on it but have not been able to diagnose the problem yet, so I plan to wear my long underwear tonight and my gloves with the cut-off fingertips.

Last night I hung the Christmas stockings on the mantel.  K's needs to have his name cross stitched on; of course the only time I think of that is when I'm about to hang it up, but maybe this year I'll finally stitch it.  Last week a friend asked if I was still writing on the tree skirt each year, and I replied that I tried to but sometimes forgot.  So I pulled that out and saw that my last entry was 2007.  I looked at old holiday newsletters and photos so I could update the skirt with memories from each year.  It is so much easier to do this each year, instead of playing catch-up.  I had no idea I was so far behind!

The half batch of date nut pinwheel cookies I baked Monday is just about gone.  Today I plan to make my usual cherry almond wreath coffee cake and maybe a cranberry brunch cake.  Tomorrow Liz and Sean will come for an early dinner, then the four of us and Sean's folks will go to the new Star Wars movie.  And yes, we've already bought tickets.