December already!

Wow, where did November go? As usual time is flying by rather quickly around here. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. My parents were in town so we had a great meal together and even did some Black Friday shopping! I did not get up at the crack of dawn but instead left around 8:00 am and was home by 9:30 am. I did not find any amazing deals but I did get a pizza oven for $30, which we've been thinking of buying for a while now. Did you do some shopping on Friday and did you get any amazing deals?

Christmas will be here before we know it and I just read a great blog post by Emily over at Remodeling This Life.

I follow quite a few blogs about homes, decorating them and do it yourself projects. I love the ideas that I can get from them and seeing how creative people are but I also sometimes feel like I"m playing "Keeping up with the bloggers." I don't live in a $400,000 home and I don't shop at Anthropolgie or Pottery Barn. So I am so happy to read Emily's blog and how she's stepped off the treadmill of keeping up and instead is keeping it simple.

I am hoping to spend time baking cookies with my children, putting puzzles together, playing games, watching some movies, reading some books and just having fun together as a family. I'm sure we will also drive around and look at Christmas lights because that's a tradition of ours that I love! I want my children to remember Christmas as a special time of togetherness, giving to others who have real need and the birth of a Savior. Not toys, Santa, want, want, want and the endless parade of stuff that we don't need.

What are your plans for this Christmas season? Are you going to jump off the treadmill and enjoy the short few weeks before Christmas? What do you want your children to remember about Christmas 2010?