No rest for the Choleric...

For those who don't know, my husband and my mother share the same temperament- Choleric. Both are great at leading, but don't tell them they're wrong without expecting a fight. They're great at organizing, but expect to get yelled at (loudly!) if you leave a room with a messy trail behind you. They can be very generous and good-natured, as long as you keep them in good spirits by keeping everything neat and tidy around you.

I, however (and a few of my sisters will understand) am of Sanguine nature. Very chatty and personable, fun comes before cleaning. Life's too short to do the same monotonous chores every day. One room a day should be sufficient, so long as the toilet's clean and the dishes washed. And if another room takes priority for the day (bedroom, perhaps) then the dishes are fine to sit til morning.

Anyway, here's a few pictures of our living room in the midst of holiday festivities:

One might think these pictures are from yesterday, Christmas Eve, before the gifts were laid out or opened. Nope, this is our living room by 12pm Christmas Day. We were up at 9:30am when Slade woke us, did all the gift exchanging, spent an hour playing with Slade and his new toys, cooked & ate breakfast then put all of Slade's toys away in his room. "A Christmas Story" started at 10am, which we turned on during breakfast, and before it had ended this is what our living room looked like.

Meanwhile, this is what Slade & I did: (alas! is that a grey hair springing up on my mother's head?)

I did what I could to convince my husband that the tree & decorations CAN'T be taken down today- the Christmas season just started, even though it's commerically over. I think I may have bought myself one or two days longer, max.

These are the before Christmas morning shots:

And then Christmas morning, when Slade discovered his new-ish GeoTrax & Rescue Heroes, and plenty of gifts from family and friends.

Honestly, this is his favorite gift, courtesy of Uncles Dominic & Anthony:
And the before-Christmas preperations...Christmas cookies, and attempts at photos of Slade. He was very uncooperative as you can see:

Merry Christmas to all from our home to yours!