Merry Christmas! I hope this blog finds you contentedly curled by the fire, filled with the sleepy joys of turkey and tryptophan. The only thing that would have made it better would have been snow...but alas, it was 56 degrees outside and nary a snow cloud in sight.

My family and I went to midnight mass last night, and as our priest blessed the creche and put baby Jesus in the manger, I was reminded of probably one of my biggest holiday pet peeves...people putting Jesus in the Nativity scene before Christmas day. Now, I'm sure many of you are guilty of this major Christmas faux pas...amid all your holiday spirit and decorating adrenaline, in a rush to get all of your lights and garland and big red bows in their proper places before the end of the day after Thanksgiving, you throw down the figures of Mary and Joseph and the cow and the donkey and the shepherds and all those cute little sheep AND, because you're not thinking, you place in the little baby too. OOPS. Yes, he doesn't belong there yet! Stop jumping the gun and keep him in a drawer or the box or somewhere [just don't lose him! I'm pretty sure God might be a little offended...] until the 25th, please! Everytime I drive around and see all of the too-early-completed manger scenes in front yards [and I must say, some of them are very cute and well done, minus that one rather BIG detail], it rather irks me. I think one of these Decembers I'm going to go around and kidnap all of the baby Jesuses and leave a note saying something along the lines of, "Dear Household, Be not afraid! I bear tidings of...well not great joy, but nothing too terrible either. Your baby Jesus will be kept safe until his proper time of appearance, and will be returned to you on the 25th. Sincererly, [insert some clever Jesus-stealing name here]" Perhaps it is rather dramatic, but I can't help my OCD perfectionism. And I'm in the right anyway. And while I'm on the subject, the Three Wisemen don't belong there either! They don't appear until January 6th, so back them out of that manger scene! It's always fun to make them travel around your house [or yard, for those who have theirs outdoors] if you want to be really accurate =P

 p.s. my dad looooooves cranberries on Christmas, and the jellied version is really rather gross...it has a consistency very similar to jello, only it isn't as fun, and it slides out of the can with a very distasteful PLOP and SQUISH. Not appetizing at all. So I decided to make it more appealing and festive...see above pciture. [He thought it was "cute," and then asked if this is what results from the thousands of dollars they are paying for me to go to college]