I went out for dinner with my friends Olivia and Kathleen for Kathleen’s birthday. They don’t like calamari. I didn’t want to find out if I did.
He said
As I sit down to write this week’s post, I am on day one of four straight days off before I need to be back into work. Now, mind you, one of those glorious days off is Christmas Day and the other is in lieu of working Boxing Day. But this is the first time that I’ve gotten the days off this side of Christmas. Typically I have requested and thought I preferred having the days off after, so I could have the time to recuperate after all the hullabaloo. Usually I work up to Christmas Eve and then take the days after. But thinking about it now I realized it always felt like Christmas was over before it even started it. So far I am really think I might grow to like the days off this way, more!
This week on the rower I crossed a pretty big couple of milestones for me. Earlier this week I rowed passed 200 kms since starting this attempt to get fitter on Halloween when we picked up the rower. Since that day, aside from days I have played hockey, I have rowed every single day on average for 5 km except for one day that I had some intestinal bug that zapped any bit of energy I had, taking an uncharacteristic two hour afternoon nap over the row. When I started this campaign, I was ten pounds heavier and generally feeling every bit my age. What I love most about it is that it’s to the point now where the notion of maybe I can skip a day is immediately squashed with the notion of how I’d be letting myself down and rationalizing it’s only 30 minutes, get to it!
For the first time in like I think ever, we are completely done any shopping well in advance of Christmas. There was one last thing we had to pick up this week and that was it. Mind you Emelia & I will pick up a small thing or two and some stocking stuffers tomorrow for Danielle as Emelia is super conflicted that Danielle has already gotten her Christmas present. But aside from that this is the first time that these days off leading up to the festive day will truly about relaxing and spending time together as a family. And not trying to navigate crappy traffic and overloaded parking lots. Tomorrow I am even going to go play some pickup hockey with a couple of guys from work for fun (and exercise).
Last night, after I was done work, we took Emelia and her besties (the twins) for a tour of the houses in London with the best Christmas light displays. There is a house on Guildwood Boulevard that we always start with as the light display is pretty legendary. The amount of lights on the house are very much like the Griswolds in Christmas Vacation. But there are a growing number of neighbourhoods that are really stepping it up and competing with it. By my parents house there is Jena Crescent that is where it started for us. When we first moved to London it was the street to see. For 30 years in London it’s been part of our Christmases. And Emelia got to show the twins her favourite house on Trafalgar outside the city that has the lights synchronized to songs from the Greatest Showman.
Today has been a wonderfully lazy day. Emelia’s gymnastics practice was moved up by an hour and while she was there we were able to get the usual Sunday errands out of the way and I even got in my row. With her ending earlier, we get a lit more of our evening back and can spend it together being lazy and hanging out. And the good news is, we have two more days with literally zero agenda and no alarms needed for the morning. And then, in three days the whole Teeter family is together to celebrate Christmas. And then next weekend we have Todd, Charlie and Marshall coming to spend some time with us for Christmas too! It’s gonna be one heck of a great Christmas I think!
She said
We are finally in the home stretch, I got all our shopping wrapped up last week for everyone, coaches, teachers, and small add ons for family. I am happy to say I am done our shopping for everyone, we even have groceries done, LCBO run done and I have done all the wrapping. There is one part of John’s present from Emelia to be wrapped up but this is a homemade present so it is just putting on the finishing touches. So needless to say we are happy to be in the home stretch.
Last week was a busy one, with gymnastics parties, last minute crafts and presents for the daycare kids and their families. The week was filled for the kids in ours lives lots of fun filled Christmas themed fun and it was amazing to see how happy the kids were all week. My last week of daycare before Christmas is typically a very busy one, the kids are so excited and we fill our days with lots of fun games and crafts. This year was no exception. Every year I plan a bigger keepsake craft from the daycare kids to their parents.
This year I had the craft planned out months ago. One of my clients just added their 5th little one to their family and I knew then I wanted to a craft that included all their children. Add in that many of my families have completed their family it seemed the perfect year to make sibling/cousin crafts for the parents. The end result turned out better than I had hoped. I had each of the parents bring in their older or younger siblings in over the last week so I could work on their part of the craft. The family wreaths were perfect. I got such sweet thank you messages from some of the parents, certainly making all the work worth it. I hope they cherish them for years to come.
This last week was also a big week for Emelia, she had her last week of school before the break. It was crunch time to get some school projects done but it was also a week of theme days at school, parties and excitement. The other big excitement this year was for the annual gymnastics Christmas party for the competitive teams at Emelia’s gym. The party was shorter this year and didn’t have a parents showcase as they have done in the past but the girls had a blast none the less. Emelia had a great time and got the most amazing card with letter from her much loved coach. We have been so lucky with the coaches Emelia has had over her years at Gymworld, its still a bit sad we will say good-bye this season.
The rest of the week was about wrapping things up and getting into the holiday spirit. And last night there was no better way to get in that spirit than our annual tour of the city looking at all the incredible displays. This year we brought Emelia’s best friends and the girls were in awe of all the displays. It certainly set the mood for the next week moving into the week of Christmas.