Because my kindergartner is on Christmas vacation this week and my husband and I needed to return to work, we were looking for some care options for him. We considered taking him to the day care/preschool that our other two children go to, but we were trying to find a way to save money. Thankfully, my single sister, who is on vacation this week and lives nearby in Milwaukee, offered to take him for two days overnight.

Not having him at home last night was strange. The four of us sat down for dinner without him, an empty chair reminding us of his absence. We sat down to read books before bedtime and there seemed to be too much extra room on the couch.

He's never been away from home overnight for more than a day so this will be a new experience, and it had me a little worried if he would get a little homesick or sad.

I called last night before his bedtime just to see how he was doing. My sister told me about how much fun they had at kid-themed restaurant and put Benjamin on the phone. At first I thought he was crying, but then I realized he was so giddy with excitement that he could barely talk.

"Mom, I ended up with seven tokens and got two superballs -- one for me and one for Grace -- and a tattoo. Love you. Bye."

And with that, he threw the phone down and went running back to continue his game of Battleship with Aunt Steph.

No more worries.

We are still trying to dig ourselves out from the pile of presents we've all received from family members and Santa, and I'm already back at work with the rest of my gang at home today (how nice it would be to have the day off after Christmas to relax, go through gifts and just play).

In one of the best moments from Christmas, Grace, who so wanted a bunch of princess things and was worried Santa would forget her wishes, found a princess cell phone in her stocking. Excited to have it, she told all of us that Santa was such a nice boy.

She immediately dialed him up on the phone and said, "Hi, Santa. Thank you for all the presents, the princess bag and purse and my phone. I love you. You're a hard worker."

With vacation time coming up and the holidays right around the corner, I'm going to be signing off for a few days and will catch up with everyone later next week.

I just want to wish everyone a merry Christmas. Enjoy the time with your families.

On Sunday before the Packers game we set off for the sledding hills not sure what to expect.

Last year our children -- 6, 4, 2 1/2 -- had a good time when we would go sledding but I wouldn't say they had a great time. Our oldest, Benjamin, was the biggest fan, going up and down the hill again and again but needing assistance getting back up. Grace, 4, didn't like getting any body part wet. As long as her snow pants, boots, jacket, hat and mittens blocked her from the snow she was fine. Our youngest, though, went down the hill only a few times and decided he had enough, crying for about 10 minutes straight after the snow flew in his face.

This year was different. Armed with a double tube, a single tube and a black plastic sled, we made our way up and down the hills time and again. Benjamin would fly down the hill and run up again, trying to go as many times as possible. Grace loved the double tube and was always looking for a partner. And my little guy, the one who refused to go down more than three times last year? He insisted on going down the hill by himself, lying down, sitting up, going face first, hanging onto the other tube. He loved it all.

After I got married and had a house to call my own, my mom passed along some boxes of mementos she had been keeping for me for decades.

One of those boxes held Christmas tree ornaments -- some that I had made as a youngster and others that I had received during childhood.

Every year at this time I love to pull them out, one by one, and reflect on the memories these objects stir.

I have an ornate unicorn with a missing leg from my closest friend in grade school who passed away before we entered our sophomore year at UW-Eau Claire. A crocheted stocking from a dear friend's mom remains pure white, and a classmate's talented woodworking grandfather provided me with sleds and snowflakes with the year on them. I still hold onto a few cheap fake apples we bought for a tree during our college days when it was all we could afford. And a huge ball I made out of Christmas cards and yarn at preschool has retained its round shape.

Thanks to my own children, I now have more homemade ones to add to the collection.

There's the one that includes a photo of my now blonde 2-year-old son as a baby with untamable dark hair and fake round glasses courtesy of his day care teachers, earning him the nickname Harry Potter. My 4-year-old daughter's handprint becomes a flying angel on paper, and my oldest son makes popsicle sticks and glue look like art.

I'm adding to the box every season -- a new treasure to behold the next year.

Every year at this time I look forward to our day care/preschool Christmas program. Because my two youngest go to a Christian center, they hold a religious Christmas program that involves all the children at the center, from babies to preschoolers.

My 4-year-old daughter, Grace, is beyond excited. This morning she decided that she would wear her fancy Christmas dress the entire day rather than just put it on an hour before the program.

She couldn't wait to get to school this morning.

Is it time to leave yet?

When are we going to be at school. I just can't wait to get there.

By the time we got to school and she had showed off her attire to everyone who walked by her, she was all smiles. I told her that she sure was excited for the day and for the Christmas program.

"I am so excited," she said. "I don't want to be any more excited!"

Although I don't get to catch the show often, "The Amazing Race" intrigues me. Teams of two compete by going through various stunts, racing around the world, trying not to be the last team to arrive to the designated stop and face elimination. The show also brings out the best and worst in people, and viewers get to see how well people deal with others in times of stress and panic.

I feel like I am living out the show every weekday. My morning routine is my family's own "Amazing Race." We need to leave the house at 8 a.m. or my kindergartner will arrive late to the playground and miss valuable time getting his energy out before starting his school day. Or my toddler and preschooler will get to daycare too late and will miss the start of breakfast. Or I will be tardy for work, forcing me to stay longer later in the day when I really need to be leaving to start "The Amazing Race, the P.M. Edition."

The race begins at 6 a.m. when I get up to exercise while my husband showers and gets himself ready. He's out the door before 7 so I'm on my own with the kids. If I'm lucky, some of the kids will sleep in a little, giving me time to shower and get myself ready. If I'm not so lucky than I'm getting myself ready while helping my 2-year-old put on his socks, combing my 4-year-old's hair, getting breakfast ready for my kindergartner, making the beds, loading all of our bags into the van, starting a load of laundry, ensuring that all the kids brushed their teeth, finding coats and outwear for everyone ...

The race is on.

I've never been a fake Christmas tree kind of person. I like the smell of a real one too much, and I like the adventure of going out and cutting down our own, kind of like Clark Griswald in “"Christmas Vacation" only I like to think much more dignified.

We set out on the day of winter's first snowstorm to a tree farm far far away, loaded down with puffy jackets, boots, snowpants, hats, mittens and scarves. We sipped on hot cocoa and crunched on our candy canes.

As the first real snowfall of the season began and the flakes began to cover us and the ground, "may all your Christmases be white" rang through the air as a CD played outside.
It was picture perfect.

Except … the batteries on the camera were dead, we had been searching for an hour for a tree and couldn't find one in the variety we like that wasn't brown or in bad shape, my arms ached from carrying my 2-year-old the entire time and the other two kids were well on their way to a meltdown after walking for so long and getting hungry for lunch.

We packed up the kids empty-handed and headed to a familiar tree lot in Appleton and grabbed the first one we found.

For a moment I thought about how much easier this day would have been if we had one of those Christmas trees in a box, the kind with the lights already on them that can be assembled as fast as you can say, "Ho, ho, ho."

Instead, I'm embracing the imperfections of the season. From our slightly misshapen tree to overly decorated cutout cookies, nothing turns out perfectly during the holidays.

But at least our tree smells like Christmas.

This morning, I eagerly awaiting the children's dash downstairs to see what St. Nick brought each of them. They all got a marshmallow chocolate Santa, and Lucas received Elmo bubble bath (his favorite character), my girly-girl Grace got a pack of six mini nail polishes, and Benjamin had some Wisconsin Badger tattoos in his stocking. They also were given a DVD of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" to share.

While they were excited to find their new treasures in their stockings and can't wait to come home today to eat their chocolates, they weren't as pumped up about their gifts as they were last year.

At the time Benjamin was 5 years old and was so excited about the individual size container of Pringles chips, of all things, that St. Nick left him. He was jumping up and down in the family room, pumping his fists into the air and saying, "This is just what I wanted. This is just what I wanted."

We'll have to try those chips again next year.

Yesterday was my birthday, and my family treated me like a queen.

When I arrived home after taking my daughter to her gymnastics class, my husband had gone to pick up Chinese takeout (a food I had said I was craving), had a blazing fire going in the fireplace and had the cake and some presents gathered together.

We enjoyed our meal (with the exception of some complaints from the three little ones about how they didn't like Chinese food), blew the candles out on the cake and devoured our pieces and opened a few presents.

But the best part of the night were the cards. My 6-year-old made me a card that included a drawing of himself (glasses included) holding onto a present (a drawing he worked on in his kindergarten class). He wrote happy birthday Mom on it and included lots of XOXOXOXOXs and a special thank you for going back home to get his snowpants last week. My 4-year-old daughter, who is learning to write letters, wrote out my name and hers several times on it. Part of it looked like this:

MOM
Grace 4
Mom 37
Grace Grace Grace

And the inside was full of XOXOXOXOXOXOs.

The food, cake, attention and presents are nice, but the best gifts are words from the heart beautifully expressed on paper by little hands.

Filmmakers should get busy producing a made-for-TV animated special along the lines of "Frosty the Snowman" and "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" that could be called "The Year Without Toys."

The plot would go something like this: Because of parents being on high alert for recalls thanks to all the recent scares and already turned off on poisoned toys from China, many good little girls and boys went without toys this Christmas, instead finding new and safe underwear, pajamas and socks under the tree.

That's the story at our house.

I'm not completely boycotting toys, but I'm not shopping for lots of little plastic things. Instead, I'm focusing on educational software for the computer, Packers and Badgers attire, watches, slippers, books, puzzles, sports-themed bed sheets for the boys, beach towels, gymnastics clothes, balls for outdoors, craft projects, umbrellas and rain gear, a doll carriage and an easel.

While we are nearing the end of the put-everything-in-your mouth stage, I don't want to take a chance. We've already had to get rid of the Go Diego Go Animal Rescue Boat, Magnetix magnetic building sets, Dora figurines and the Little People Animal Sounds Farm.

For those of you feeling the same, you can find a listing of American-made toys at www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/250-lead-free-toys-501101.

I want to play it safe this Christmas, without punishing the kids.

Christmas is three weeks away, and I'm feeling good about the shopping part of the season after tackling a lot of my wish list this weekend.

Shoppers must have been turned away by the snowstorm on Saturday because the mall was unusually calm, and the line to see Santa was surprisingly nonexistent.

My agreeable children spent four hours at the mall while we traipsed from store to store, stopping to sit on Santa's lap and get some photos. (Yes, even 2-year-old Lucas didn't shy away.) As a treat for their patience, we had lunch at Culver's (their favorite) and an Orange Julius at the mall.

I think I got away cheap!