Christmas wrap-up

My completed advent tree with all 24 paper cranes

Well, well. Happy New Year!
I kind of forgot to post about Christmas this year. For one thing, I was really in poor spirits after the Newtown tragedy. I actually found it hard to feel the Christmas spirit, which isn't like me - I love Christmas, and I am rarely in a bad mood (I'm sure my husband begs to differ). Some things are just so sad, though, you can't easily overcome them.
Despite the enormous depression industry in the United States, it's okay to be sad sometimes. It doesn't mean you're sick. There are sad things in the world, and the correct response to them is sorrow (and maybe also anger, anxiety, frustration, or confusion). Medicating to remove that response is like taking an ibuprofen so you can run through pain. Not right.
Besides just general sadness and less-than-Christmasy mood, I was also very busy for the past two weeks. In addition to Christmas, we had two big events:
1. David's dad retired after many years of hard work.
2. My little brother Joey came home on leave! He has been in Afghanistan for 9 months (followed by a month back at base) so I haven't seen him in almost a year.
Plus we have friends in town and extra church services, so altogether we haven't been home at night in over a week!

Espresso + Christmas cookies: what a delicious snack :)

This was the Christmas of the kitchen for me. I scored two new kitchen appliances from a dear friend (not really Christmas gifts, just niceness on her part - how sweet is that?). We are enjoying our espresso machine AND I finally replaced my revolting crockpot!

Old horrible crockpot missing one handle and stained with red beans. Oh, and the broken switch required you use pliers to turn the darn thing on.

New shiny crock pot - much larger but still fits on my kitchen shelf, yay! Storage is such a big issue in my tiny kitchen.

I also got some Christmas gifts for the kitchen, including dishes to complete my fine china set (the pattern is being discontinued - how could it, it is just white with a platinum band?!) and canisters for my flour and sugar. I have been hunting for perfect canisters for years, and David bought some from a restaurant supply store. I am picky about them having a wide mouth and airtight seal!

I treated myself to a run on Christmas day, too, although it was short and slow. Unfortunately Christmas day decided to be high 70's with hot rain, flash floods, and thunderstorms - so it wasn't the beautiful and peaceful Christmas morning runs of past years.

I hope all of you had a merry Christmas, a happy New Year, and have big plans for 2013!