Glassman, Money, Christmas

It's December 5th. Glassman still hasn't moved out. He gave us notice late so he technically stay for all of December, but he has made no effort to pack his things or made arrangements with his dad to move out. He wants to do it gradually, which I think will make it more difficult for the kids. He is planning to sleep at his dad's this weekend so we will see how that goes.

His staying also means that the room renos are on hold because we can't move rooms when he is still in one. It's frustrating but okay because....

We are broke as all hell. Between Christmas, and the roof, and the van, and a banking mistake we are having to dip into what little savings we have. This is so infuriating. I feel like we will never get ahead and never get out of this. I know we have to because we can't live like this for the rest of our lives, but I don't have any plans for how we can go about getting out of this. There must be a way though, there must be.

The kids are excited for advent. Every year we bring out the advent calendar and there is an activity that we do in each day. Yesterday, for example, we went to the library for  Christmas books, the day before - they made reindeer puppets. It's fun for them to look forward to something every day, rather than just looking forward to Christmas day. It takes some of the pressure off the day.

Speaking of Christmas Day. We have such a nice day planned as always. The morning starts when everyone is awake. Presents are opened one by one while the other family members watch and enjoy the various levels of excitement. It usually lasts until 11:00a. Then the dinner preparations start: with turkey and all the fixins. The day is spent at home having some quality time with family. Then the next day we go visit all the other family members and enjoy Christmas with them. I really like the way we do Christmas in our home. It's quieter, and more wholesome than travelling around every where to see the 5 sets of grandparents the kids have. It's weird not seeing my mom on Christmas as that was our tradition before kids, but it's more important to us that our kids spend Christmas at home and not travelling.