Twelve Days of Christmas

The Christmas onslaught is upon me. Having officially started Christmas break at 11:15 yesterday with a trip to the dentist (Faith and I need to floss more), we are being embraced by the frantic preparations at our house.

I will be hosting the Christmas Day gathering for the first time because of my mom's move into a condo. This means that I should be: cleaning, wrapping presents, organizing all the piles of junk around my house, cleaning, writing thank-you notes to my students, double checking that all my shopping is done, cleaning...

Instead I have been: reading, watching Nanny McPhee, ignoring the grading I still need to do, thinking about report cards, ignoring the grocery shopping I need to do, buying things on E-bay that I desperately hope will be here by Thursday, surfing all the blogs and websites I haven't had time to look at in the past few weeks, tweaking the layout of this blog, and best of all...

REPEATEDLY listening to my daughter sing the following

On the twelfth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Twelve drummers drumming,
Eleven pipers piping,
Ten lords a-leaping,
Nine ladies dancing,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree!

She has a lovely singing voice, but heaven help us all by the twelfth day, Jan. 6th!