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I admit it -- I like Christmas music. I will listen to it on the radio, and I don't mind the fact two Salt Lake City stations start playing holiday tunes the first weekend of November. Usually, the week before Christmas, all I'm listening to is holiday music. But sometime on Christmas day (usually around noon), I turn off the holiday music for good and swtich to countdowns. My first year-end countdown wasn't on the radio, but on TV in 1979 when "Solid Gold" premiered. Before it was a series, "Solid Gold '79" was a one-time syndicated special that aired on WGN in Chicago and starred Dionne Warwick and Glenn Campbell. A couple weeks later, I listened to the Big 89 of 1979 on WLS. My parents had gone out for New Year's Eve, and I listened to the whole countdown on the radio while a babysitter watched us. Thus began an annual tradition of listening to the Big 89 every New Year's Eve. The next year, I camped out in my room with a Hardy Boys book a

Today was Christmas Eve, and it may have been my best Christmas Eve ever. It wasn't spectacular -- we didn't have anything spectacular planned or any trips to take. It was just ... nice. We got out around 11:30 and went to lunch at Chili's with some gift cards we were given. The boys were starving and ate well. They would need the energy. We went to the zoo next. This isn't the first time we've gone to the zoo on Christmas Eve. It's never that crowded, the animals are usually pretty active, and it's something to take our minds -- especially the boys' minds -- off the fact that it's Christmas Eve. The zoo didn't disappoint. Though the elephants were inside, we got to see lemurs being fed (they liked blueberries), the giraffes grazing on Christmas trees hanging in their indoor pens, a gorilla charge toward the glass at someone (not us, but it did scare the heck out of the couple) and the most active tigers I've ever seen at a zoo (ours has five

As I sorted through the boys' presents today in preparation for wrapping them for Christmas, I started thinking back to the Christmas holiday when I was younger and the presents I once got. Sadly, it's easy to remember specific Christmastimes in terms of what presents I received and less about the experiences leading up to and including the holiday. It's not all presents -- I remember not falling asleep one year, my dad watching "The Main Event" and "Alien" on video while I tried to sleep in my bedroom next to the living room, and the incredibly warm Christmas of 1982. All those memories are for another post; this one is strictly a look back at the presents. So here it goes, by year and what I remembered getting: 1977: Simon, Super Jock Football (I also may have gotten Super Jock Soccer this Christmas) 1978: Mattel electronic football 1979: Electronic Detective, Chutes Away 1980: Risk, electronic Space Invaders (which I own again, found one on eBay) 1981

As promised in my last post , I took it easy on Monday, the first weekday of winter break. It was relaxing, to say the least. The day wasn't completely lazy. We did make it to Smith's Marketplace to do some last-minute Christmas shopping. The trip there did bring the funniest moment of the day when I had Eldest try on a pair of pants (he's getting to tall for his current non-sweatpants). He's in the dressing room and taking a long time, and I asked if everything is OK. He says the pants are caught on something, and I go in to check and discover the pants are caught on something: the original pants he was wearing that he never took off! After he figured out his mistake, he started over, only to put the new pants on backward. Needless to say, we didn't buy the khakis that so confused him. After finally getting our Christmas lights hung up on the porch, we took the boys to see Santa. This is the same Santa to whom we've taken the boys for six years running, getting

The boys' winter breaks have begun. It seems early this year for it to start -- I would have expected them to go through next Tuesday or Wednesday or so -- but they are getting two whole weeks before starting school again on Jan. 3. I am looking forward to Monday. The whole month has been a jumbled mess of school, co-oping, biddy basketball, Little Gym, swim lessons, a birthday party, newsletters, freelance work and various other commitments that Monday, without any of it, should will be a welcome break. Tuesday should be nice too. By Wednesday, will the boys start driving me a little batty? Will I miss all the driving and working? Will I be craving Jan. 3, agreeing with the reference of "Mom and Dad can't wait for school to start again" in the holiday song "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas"? I don't know. I'm think Wednesday might not be my tipping point, but the Monday after Christmas. In the meantime, I need to plan play dates and