“Reza, what do you want for Christmas?”, asked my sister Bee. “Uh, I don’t know… I don’t want to talk about that right now”. Out of the many times Reza was asked what she wanted, the only thing she could mutter was “Mary Poppins”. She has never seen the movie, but loves the music when it comes on Pandora. She’s so low key sometimes and I am grateful of the little person she is becoming.

Josh’s birthday is three days from now. Do you know how hard it is to shop for someone, for two different yet almost consecutive days? And while maintaining a budget? He’s not so hard to shop for but something tells me I don’t have the kind of cash lying around to buy him a 1965, sunburst, Fender Jazzmaster… you know, the same one Robert has. One day he will have it… mark my words.

This is what I had to work with, folks. Last week was nuts with last minute whatnottery, commission completion and the 50+ xmas cards I sent out. I am nuts and a procrastinator, no doubt about that. And just like every year, we always manage to make it work. Somehow.

After some last minute errand running, it was home to chill and stay. I decided to make my cookies from scratch this year. I am not gonna get a package of pre-made cookie dough slathered in “you’re gonna die if you eat me raw” labels. F You. So I snagged this recipe from Joy The Baker and switched it up. Substitute milk for dark, pecans and maldon sea salt flakes. Salt on chocolate chip cookies is a party in my mouff, I dunno about yours.

There’s this interesting moment that I have to share: it’s xmas eve… I have 50′s music on my Bose dock, while baking cookies… I looked outside and it was snowing. It was more like flaky rain and it melted quite rapidly but for a moment we got a taste of “white christmas” and as much as I curse the cold, white, evil, I won’t lie… it was magical.

The cookies came out delicious… note to self, if you want chewy cookies, take them out A LOT sooner. They got far too crunchy but hey, they look AWESOME. Salty flakes = mmmmmmm

We haven’t been huge Santa pushers but Reza has clung on to the idea and hey, who are we to deny the girl of a little childhood right of passage. She may soon catch on to the fact we are behind it all but if you heard the sound of her voice this morning and saw the diamonds in her eyes, you would understand why we play along.

So with a little aid she composed Mr. S a note and Gomez insisted on guarding it.

We got her to bed and promptly went to work our magic… Josh assembled her telescope, I stuffed the stocking. I think Reza is probably the only six year old that got Lush bath bombs and Kidrobot in hers. Shortly after the telescope was left under the tree with a note from Santa and off to bed we went.

Around 7 a.m. this morning she woke us up with the shrieks of joy… “Santa CAME! AND HE GOT ME WHAT I WANTED!! He knows I want to be a scientist!! And HE LEFT ME A NOTE!!!!” – Good lord was she happy. Makes it all worth it even though we face the inevitable heartbreak one day…

So we got up and opened our gifts… exchanges of socks, art supplies, fuzzy items, vinyl toys, legos, stink pretty and devil clad garments. It has been a great day. Josh took off the rest of the week and on that note I part to get to our Lord Of The Rings trilogy tradition underway. My thriftiness scored the entire extended edition set on blu-ray for $50… dude. I just wish Spencer and Tom were here to nerd out with us.

I hope you all have had a wonderful holiday…. best wishes from us, today and always.

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full size pix can be viewed here