The Executive Homemaker: It's Christmas Time?

Does anyone else feel like this year has flown by? Our house is decorated, gifts are wrapped, but it just doesn't quite feel like Christmas. Hopefully it will in the next day or two considering Christmas is this week. We are officially on the kids school Christmas breaks, I'm sure letting them sleep in tomorrow will help it hit home too.
We've been fortunate to be invited to several parties and events in the past couple of weeks celebrating the season and a couple of special birthdays.
The first party was two weeks ago, our friends hosted an Ugly Christmas Sweater party. Chad and I didn't even come close to winning but the party was a great success, we had a blast! We will definitely have to be more creative next year!
Last weekend I had a great time at my girlfriend's Christmas baking party! It was a ladies only event and we couldn't dress up, in fact we were required to wear PJ's. It was a lot of fun and I'm really looking forward to going again next year!
Thursday evening I hosted the Christmas Bunco with my group. We had a White Elephant gift exchange which was so much fun! I have to brag a little because I'm pretty sure I ended up with the best gift! I really enjoy this group of ladies and had a great time with a pretty relaxed party this month.
This past Friday Chad and I went to Orin and Abby's class Christmas parties. I'm so glad Chad could come too, I love that he can do things like that. It means a lot to our kids and it means a lot to me.
Yesterday we went to three parties. We over extended ourselves a little but still had a great time at each event. Today we're pretty exhausted but it was totally worth it!
Today we went to the gun range to fire off our weapons which hadn't been played with in over a year. We brought Dave who is a close family friend and spent a couple of hours shooting off every single bullet that we intended which added up to be several hundred rounds. It felt good to get out there and shoot some targets and clay. I went to town with my shotgun and am much more comfortable using it after my practice today. After we shot all of our ammo we reloaded our clips with our home defense rounds and went to lunch. Today was pretty good, nice and low key after a very exciting and busy Saturday.
Tomorrow my Grandparents are coming to our home for lunch and we will have our Christmas with them. My Grandfather was very sick recently and is still pretty weak, so we will have a nice calm lunch and I'm sure keep it a fairly short visit, but we are happy to host them as long as they want to stay.
On Tuesday my girls have a hair appointment with my awesome stylist, Darcy. They both need a trim and are looking forward to getting pampered.
This Wednesday the kids and I are meeting up with my friend and her three daughters. This is the same lady that I mentioned that I gone to lunch with recently because her daughter and Abby are getting to be close friends. My kids and I are really looking forward to our lunch/playdate!
On Thursday we will be home relaxing and getting the house prepped for the chaos of Christmas. My Dad and his girlfriend, Grandmother and Aunt will be coming to us for Christmas this year, I'm very excited! Chad and I had discussed going to them in Houston the day after Christmas but I decided to throw it out there that they're welcome to come to our home and they said yes. We will have a great time having a meal and spending time together on Christmas day! We're also having our friend Dave over for part of the day which is fitting since we feel that he is family.
Five days after Christmas our Abby will turn nine years old. It seems impossible!! The plan is to have her friend spend the night on the 29th so she will be there when Abby wakes up on her birthday and spend the day with us. We have invited family over (friends that have been around since she was born) for a pizza dinner on Abby's birthday. That is always fun! I love having everyone over for my kids birthday's.
I'm supposed to have a minor surgery on Dec. 31 but I'm going to make my final decision to go through with it or not this week. I'm waiting to hear back from my doctor, I'll talk to her and then make my final decision. If I go through with it we'll be home for New Year's Eve. If not we'll probably crash a friend's party, but don't worry, I've already given her fair warning! ;)
I would love to tell everyone what our kids will be getting for Christmas but I don't want to spoil the surprise, y'all will have to wait just like them! Haha! Not that it's that big of a deal, but I'm very excited to give them their gifts and see their faces!