Today I sit next to our Christmas tree, it’s quiet. We slept in until 9:30 this morning, but we didn’t have any reason to rush. We did all our celebrating on Christmas Eve. My daughter and son-in-law flew out last night to visit his family for a few days, so we decided to open presents yesterday morning.

We also had a wonderful celebration last night with family and friends, and then my son and I drove them to the airport to catch their flight late last night. It was a great drive as there was almost no traffic on the roads anywhere. Parking lots were totally empty, stores were all closed. We had fun singing and listening to music on our way to and from the airport.

I am not a huge fan of having the house decorated. If it was left to me, we would have a small tree, and very few other decorations. But my kids love it, and they are willing to set it all up, so we continue for now. I do love the decorations, but I don’t like the mess, the rearranging of furniture, the work around of all the decorations, especially the tree losing it’s needles every time you bump it.

This year the dog enjoyed sniffing everything regularly. She never touched the presents or undecorated the tree intentionally. But once in a while she would sniff things and then turn around and wag her tail at us, and the ornaments within range would fly off the tree, and there would be a shower of pine needles, well, more like a whirlwind of pine needles, scatter all over the room. She seems to enjoy having a tree in the middle of the living room though.

Plans for the rest of the week are pretty low key. I need to finish up business paperwork for my husband’s and my businesses so we are ready for taxes. Eventually we need to undecorate and restore order to the house. I also bought a 1000 piece puzzle for after Christmas, one of my favorite ways to spend the time between Christmas and New Years. A friend also gifted us a 1000 piece puzzle, so now I have a challenge!