This past week has been crazy busy. I had to finish up shopping, get my tree up and decorated, and bake 20 dozen Christmas cookies to give to my close friends. We have a small group of friends and family who like to exchange cookies each year, and everyone loves my little gingerbread men and women. So I have an entire afternoon dedicated to baking gingerbread men and women today.

I guess it’s too late to send out Christmas cards. I’m sorry I blew it, but I do hope that everyone has a wonderful Christmas.

School is out for the Christmas holidays. The politically correct way of saying it does not include the word Christmas. But I think that is pretty hypocritical. If Christmas suddenly disappeared off the calendars, do you really think that everyone would be gathering at their families homes for a big dinner and taking 2 weeks off from school? No way. With the holidays falling on Thursday this year, the kids make out like bandits – they get a full two weeks off from school. That’s a nice long break – especially if you want to go on vacation or travel to see relatives.

When the weather starts getting bad and there’s a chance I’ll have trouble on the road, I like to pack a small emergency pack to keep in the car. I put a blanket, several bottles of water, and a few packs of crackers, trail mix and pop tarts. Even my dog likes the pop tarts – they are frosted strawberry and make a great portable snack.

One of my favorite cartoon classic characters has alway been Tinkerbell. I was captivated with the idea fairies as a young girl. The Peter Pan movie brought Tinkerbell to life for thousands of children. I really like the way Disney is bringing back fairies in a series of books and dolls. I think every girl should experience the fantasy of a little fairy and their fairy dust magic.

The morning news announcer said in a careless choice of words that we are celebrating World AIDs Day today. That was an unfortunate way to phrase that. Believe me, there is nothing to celebrate about AIDs. We are observing the day to raise awareness of the disease and to promote education and research to obliterate this awful disease.