Happy Holidays! I guess it's been almost three weeks since I've last posted. Sorry, life took over a bit, just didn't get a minute to catch up. So much for being totally organized and having a Martha Stewart Christmas here at Chez McGann. I truly intended to get it all done, including some baking, early wrapping, etc. so that the last five days wouldn't be kooky. Went to the US for a week, which threw a wrench in my plan, and arrived back last night. Have finished my shopping for the most part, except for a couple stocking stuffer items, and will hopefully get the tree up tomorrow. Wrapping...still shooting for the 22nd-23rd so that I can actually sleep Christmas Eve for a change. Baking...maybe one day next week if things work out. We are leaving the day after Christmas for a week, so I don't want to have too much food sitting around anyway. Even with the impending craziness, I'm still very much looking forward to the next few weeks. We are having friends over on Saturday for some holiday cheer (i.e. drinky-poos). In other fabulous news, our very good friends, the Feketes, are arriving in Budapest from Moscow on Saturday. They have been living there since August and we are missing them alot. Hopefully Sunday we will head downtown to see the holiday festivities, including the live nativity scene. When I mentioned it today, my darling son Riley could reflect only on 'that time when we saw the sheep peeing'. Keira actually went to see a live nativity here in the village today and was very excited to tell us about the baby Jesus and his mommy. Why can't they just keep some of that innocence?

Next topic of conversation - shopping in the good old USA. Unbelievable, the deals you can find. Granted, we hadn't planned for me to go (see last post, where I explain all that), so the plane ticket was an expense, but I am just shocked by how cheap everything is there. I would venture to guess that I easily paid for my plane ticket with the savings I had shopping. I'm not sure if that's rational thinking or not, but I had to go anyway. And let me just say, Kohl's rocks!! It has been my favorite store on the planet for some time now, always bargain basement prices and good stuff, especially for the kids, but I had an epiphany as I strolled through there last week. There just isn't better bang for your buck, anywhere. If you haven't become a Kohl's believer, you need to get that on your to-do list. Sorry for those of you in Moscow or Ontario, where that may not be an option (try http://www.kohls.com/). Anyway, example. I bought a beautiful black leather jacket for myself, comparable to anything coming out of a decent retailer these days. Ticket price was $180, it was on sale for 75% off, and I had another 15% discount coupon off of my entire purchase, so I paid $38 for it. On top of that, I got 'Kohl's cash', whereby you get $10 back on every $50 you spend, so one could say that's another 20% off and therefore I paid $30 for the coat. How can they do that and still make money? Ok, enough rambling about Kohl's. But WOW! By the way, I'm getting no kickbacks for my promotional activities.

What else is happening? The boys are very excited that they have one week of school left. Technically, it's only four days next week, as Friday is 'bring your games and play' day. Riley brought his report card home yesterday and we are very pleased. Strangely enough, two of Liam's friends had their's as well today, but he has no idea where his might be. Think he may be pulling a fast one, but will wait until Monday to inquire further. It's hard to imagine that he could be so sneaky so early in the game, but I'm not putting it past him. They both know that if the grades head south, the first thing to go is tennis and football. They finish school on the 22nd, the same day that Bill finishes working. Can't believe the day is finally here where he can walk out of that place for the last time. He is having lots of mixed emotions at the moment, I know it is really tough for him. On one hand, 'good riddance', on the other hand, 'boy am I really ticked off about how this all went down, screw you rotten human beings'. I'm not much help when it comes to dealing with the latter, as I've been hoping for 'good riddance' for going on two years. It's just time to move on, and it gives him the perfect window of opportunity to get out of the corporate rat race and do something totally different. Still no official word on his next move, but he will definitely be home for the next few months relaxing and decompressing (not sure what that entails, but I like the word). I'm also hoping that we can get a few things done around the house. Really need to buy new faucets and have tile put down in the bedrooms. We have carpet now, which is incredibly inefficient since we have floor heating upstairs (i.e. the heating is basically insulated and kept in by the carpeting). We also need to get the inside of the house painted, but I'm thinking that will be a Springtime venture. Bill's Christmas present this year is a wine refrigerator, which he has been dreaming about since before I can remember. They will deliver it tomorrow. Apparently it holds over 200 bottles of wine, which I'm guessing will be the next investment. Hungarian red wine is very yummy and still pretty reasonably priced. Guess we will both be total lushes by March after he's home for a few months with nothing to do but manage the wine inventory :)

Suppose I should close for now so that my day won't be shot tomorrow (it's 3:48am and we have to get up at 6:30). I have another 'jingle bells' practice session at 9:00am at Keira's kindergarten, getting ready for the Christmas program on Dec.20th. Will attempt to get back here for some more mindless rambling in the next few days, but in the event that I don't, Have a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Super Kwanzaa, whatever. Hope that you get a chance to stop and reflect on all the amazing things in your life and that you can take some time to relax and enjoy them over the next couple weeks. xoxo.