Christmas stress

This picture sums up how I'm feeling right how. I have totally taken for granted all those years my mom pulled off huge, fabulous, perfect Christmases. How did she do it? The month started out great. Since the Japanese don't celebrate Christmas, December here is no big deal. I keep reading on people's blogs about how crazy busy December is for them and my calendar looks like this:










ward Christmas party











that's it. And although I wish we were a little busier and I miss the recitals, parties and all the other Christmas hoopla, it's kind of nice that it's up to us to figure out how we celebrate Christmas. This year we started doing a Scripture Candle each night. I think the kids like playing with the melted wax more than the scripture stories, but it's been fun.

and then a package disappeared. Literally. Amazon shipped 9 items to Expat Express (a shipping company that ships to Japan) and Expat Express says they only got 1 item. No one can figure it out and I'm short 8 Christmas presents. Getting your gifts internationally adds another whole level of stress.

One of Emily's presents is backordered and won't make it for Christmas.

Our BIG surprise this year for the kids was going to be a trampoline, but come to find out (yesterday) there are no trampolines in all of Japan. Why? I have no idea. Japan is funny sometimes about not keeping seasonal things in stock year round. So we are 7 business days away from Christmas with a shortage of presents.

solution: call my parents in a panic, sending them to the store that night to buy a ton of stuff, promising to pay them back, and asking them to mail it ASAP. will it make it in time for Christmas? I hope so!

And why don't we just buy all our stuff in Japan, you might be wondering? because it's rediculously expensive, anything with words, instructions, games etc. are in Japanese making it not as fun for the kids, and they don't play with "toys" here. like the do in the US. hard to explain. but we took the kids to Toys R Us and told them too look around and see if they could find anything they wanted to put on their Christmas list. and all 3 of my kids found nothing!!