What a great lamp!!!

Before the family update, some important information. Yesterday was our annual Holiday Walk at work. Before you start thinking "My what a healthy bunch you work with!", think again. We walked no further that the next food table. Being the central office for a state agency we are broken up into various sections according to work functions (i.e. fiscal services, community services, director's office, etc...). I am part of the Program Policy, Planning and Evaluation section. Isn't that a mouthful. Anyways, for the holiday walk, each section puts together a table of goodies, decks the halls and then we all walk around eating and socializing. There are contests for best food and decorations. Sounds nice doesn't it? This year the decision was made to cut down on the amount of food (which in past years has been obscene, you basically eat your way through the week before Christmas around here) and focus our attention to helping the needy. Each section was to create a sculpture made out of non-perishable food that could then be donated to a local food bank. Our section was stumped. We had no problem bringing in the food to donate, but what sculpture to make with it? We hemmed and hawed until 4:30 on Friday when we felt a decision had to be made so any last minute items could be purchased before Monday. A snowman? No. Train? No. Christmas Tree? Taken by another section. Then someone (not me!) jokingly mentioned, "Wouldn't it be funny if we could make the Old Man's Major Award?" Our eyes lit up, that was it!!! Some quick planning (we are planners after all!) and we had it. Check it out. To complete the theme we made sure to have the movie playing next to our display. It was a hit! We won for most creative AND most fun sculpture.

Katherine's fever broke during the night on Friday. She still slept quite a bit this weekend but she was back to her old self by Saturday night. My cold is just about gone as well. So far, so good for Ted, he's felt a little bad here and there but nothing major. We'll keep our fingers crossed that we stay healthy through Christmas. Speaking of which, our preparations are just about done. We are hosting my parents, sister, and her fiancee Sven this year. Presents are all bought, delivered, wrapped and tucked safetly away from prying eyes. The house is decorated and straightened up, it will get the big cleaning this weekend. The only thing that is left is to plan the menu. Decisions, decisions, what tasty treats should we make?

I'm hoping we can go for a brief ride around town this weekend to look at the Christmas lights. Katherine gets quite a kick out of all of the displays..."lights!!!" We also heard that Santa Claus came to visit preschool yesterday, to collect any last minute gift wishes! I tuned to ABC Family last night in the hopes of watching Rudolph only to find out that it wasn't the original Rudolph but some computer animated remake. Excuse me?? There is no need to mess with the original.