Just around the corner...

I can't believe Christmas is on Friday. I have a pile of Christmas presents sitting on the dining room table waiting to be wrapped. I need to finish them if only to reclaim the table...poor hubby hasn't had a seat for three days. I also need to stamp the last five of my Christmas cards so they can go out in the mail tomorrow. The addresses are local, so they should get delivered before Christmas. (The post office is open Christmas Eve, right??) If not, oh well, I ran out of stamps and couldn't get out to the grocery store until today.

Our plans for Christmas are pretty simple. We're staying in town this year, which means Christmas Eve and Christmas at the inlaws. Remind me to take a long nap before Christmas Eve, because it's always a crazy mess of people (30ish?) crammed into one rather small house and Avery's family isn't known for being calm or quiet. I love 'em though; those Johnsons are a fun bunch. Christmas morning we'll open family gifts at home and then head back over to the inlaws for Christmas brunch and more presents. Then Avery will head off to work and the kids and I will hang out with his family all afternoon until Christmas dinner. Saturday we're hoping to head over to the zoo in the morning to spend time with some family friends we haven't seen in a while. (Avery's best friend is home from Montana...he's in the Air Force and is currently training to be in the nuclear missile silos.) Then Sunday my family is coming down here for the day and we'll go out to lunch after church and then have a little Christmas over here. Avery took two hours off of work that day so we won't be so rushed.

Should be fun! Oh, and speaking of gifts, mine is sitting under the tree taunting me right now. This is the first Christmas in 5 or 6 years that Avery has actually bought me a gift and I have no idea what it is. (Gifting is not his talent...he usually just buys me whatever I ask for...or we go shopping for my gift together.) He's been teasing me about it for two weeks now and I'm dying from curiosity. I have a few ideas, but the way he went about buying it really has me baffled. (He made a phone call, had an appointment set up, and then had to go somewhere this morning to get the last part of it.) I'm so excited!! I haven't been surprised by a big gift since I was a kid...the anticipation is so much fun!

Before I go, I wanted to thank all of you who commented on my last post. A lot of you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned needing to go to God first for that intimacy. It is when my spiritual life is suffering the most that I feel loneliest. When I'm spending more time in prayer and quality time in the Word, the lack of fellowship doesn't bother me nearly as much. So that was a good reminder. Also, my husband is my very best friend and I do look to him to fill those needs (after God), and that's how it should be. But like some of you pointed out, there's something special about having a soul sister. I'm sure God will bring someone into my life when the time is right, but until then I am very blessed to have an incredible husband, my best friend Kari, and my wonderful mother-in-law to encourage me. (Oh, and I am planning on getting involved in a MOPS group pretty soon to hopefully meet some new ladies, since our church doesn't have any ministries to mothers.)