I am jittery. I know why. I am going back to work tomorrow after a five-day Thanksgiving holiday and I am less organized than I was on Wednesday.

I usually have my Christmas tree up by now and all the gifts wrapped in color-coded fashion for my two granddaughters, tucked with care under the tree.  This year there is none of that. I have not wrapped one gift.  Not only that, but I behind on the laundry and the dishes too.  The downstairs where we have the art studio looks like a wreck-a-mess.

Breezy and I spent Thanksgiving evening  “Black Friday” shopping at Michael’s buying arts supplies to make ornaments for the tree.

I have hundreds of store-bought ornaments but since Breezy was spending 48-hours with me, I thought we’d have fun creating. And we did! Thursday night we made snowmen and Christmas trees. Friday and Saturday we made more snowmen, ribbon people, pine cone ornaments, button rings, and paper chains.

The paper chain took the longest amount of time.  Sometimes she would hold the glue gun and I’d fold the paper, and vice versa.  When it was my turn to put the glue on and her turn to fold the paper, she wanted the paper folded just right.  If it wasn’t to her standards, she’d tear it off, cut it a bit, and we’d start over with the glue.  I said, “It doesn’t have to be perfect.”  Breezy said, “But I want it to be perfect because Santa Clause is going to see it. I want it to be perfect for him.”

Breezy is five and is not one that you can leave alone for long periods of time. She loves for me to be playing with her every minute. And so when she’s at my house we are together, interacting constantly.   Even if I’m trying to take a 15 minute nap, she’s in bed with me, watching Sponge Bob, and playing with an iPad. Oh to have the energy of a five-year-old!

These times are so very precious. I had a lot of fun. I just have to tell myself to chill. The tree will get put up eventually (maybe next weekend), the gifts will get wrapped, and we’ll have a lovely Christmas as we always do.

I know that there will come a day when Breezy won’t be vaguely interested in making homemade ornaments with her Gigi. But, there will always be a tree to put up and packages to wrap, there will always be laundry to do, and dishes to load and unload into and out of the dishwasher.

But Breezy changes every single day. She knows new words and new concepts. She worries about different things. Just now  two or three of her teeth are wiggly.  She gets tears in her eyes and she worries that all of her teeth will fall out. “How will I eat?”  When I assure her that she’ll have big teeth that come in behind her baby teeth she says, “People will think I’m a weird little kid with one big tooth in my mouth.” She needs a hug and to be told over and over that it’s all part of growing up.

I feel like I’m about the most blessed person in the world to be this child’s Gigi. This weekend she asked me, “Gigi, how did you come to be my Gigi?” “I married your daddy’s daddy.”  She asked, “then I got in his wife’s stomach?” “Yep, then you got in your daddy’s wife’s stomach!”  These times are worth not getting chores done!!

But, so that I can get my regular chores done, and get ready for the holidays too, I’m taking a Blog Break. And so to you I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I shall be back in 2016.  I will be a little more organized and a little less jittery!!

Until then, God bless you and yours with a beautiful, safe, and healthy holiday season.

dmzh