so much prep, and then it's over

it's so hard not to give in to post-christmas letdown when you've spent the last five or six weeks immersing yourself fully into the holiday spirit.  i love all the decorations and lights and excitement and anticipation, and then you find yourself sitting back at the end of christmas day all like, that's it?  all the gifts were opened in about an hour - and that was stretching it out - and the yule log stops playing on the screen and the radio station switches back to regular music and wads of wrapping paper gets crumpled into a giant trash bag and boxes are broken down and placed in the recycle bin and the delicious dinner is in everyone's bellies and the christmas pajamas are in the hamper.  sigh.

like, i went through dozens and dozens of these:

and a few of these:

and made some of these hot cocoa cookies that i'd forgotten all about:

made the bean model these lovely chapeaus for me at party city:

 took the girl scout troop (solo!) on our annual shopping trip to buy toys for a local toy drive:

and then the next week all three of us who lead the troop celebrated at a tea parlor with them:

i did a good bit of sewing, including these fun unicorn and dragon (the bean says it looks more like a devil) pillows with a pocket in the back to hold a book, an iPad, pajamas, what have you:

my co-leader and i split gifting duties for the girls and made them pajama pants in girl scout fabric that they'll hopefully wear during our first campout...whenever that may be.

i even got to do a couple of those mermaid tail blankets that somehow kids still like:

and i busted out a pair of pants in this plaid fabric that i was hoarding.  wore them to christmas eve dinner with my folks.

we made one last trip to hallmark for our annual ornaments.

and the bean made some cookies for santa.

a couple of days before the big day, the hub carved out a nice chunk of time for me to get all the presents wrapped by scooping up the bean and taking her to a movie.  that helped immensely, and instead of being up till 2am on christmas eve, i managed to get to bed around midnight.

phew.  it was hectic and crazy, but i wouldn't have it any other way.