Its the most/least wonderful time of the year

I love Christmas. I really do. I love the cold when there is SNOW on the ground. I love Christmas decorations and painstakingly cutting out way too intricate paper snowflakes. I love how the church is all decked out and it smells like cinnamon and there are poinsettias everywhere. But putting on Christmas concerts is about enough to make me HATE it. The kids had their elementary program on Thursday, and I was really worried. Our rehearsals weren't going very well, but they did very well for the performance. They were so cute in their reindeer and elf costumes! There were some rough spots, but I am very proud of my kids. Now I just have to figure out what we're going to learn after the break.
The band concert is Tuesday. I think we will be okay, but I still have a lot of kids that don't know their parts. It is extremely frustrating. They are dragging the rest of the kids down and they don't even care. I can't wait for it to be over.

I've decided I'm not going home for Christmas. I just can't afford it. It is kind of depressing, but I guess I will get to eat an entire turkey by myself. I'm not so sure that is something to be happy about but I'm going to try. I plan on doing lots of crafting, lots of sleeping and planning for next semester.
Kostya has been driving me insane. He has been eating everything. Glass Christmas ornaments, the bathtub drain plug, the couch cover, my pillow. He has two big bones to chew on. The kicker?


I gave him some bacon and scrambled eggs in his dish the other day and he refused to eat them. He let the cats eat them. What kind of dog is that?? NOBODY refuses bacon. He is so dumb sometimes. I've been taking him to the rodeo arena to run off some of his energy. He runs and runs and runs and then he comes back to me and I give him a treat, which he promptly goes and buries. Like he is going to remember where it is. *sigh* Dogs.

Those horrible nightmares are back. I think I have a nightmare almost every other night. Sometimes I wake up from one and when I go back to sleep, have another one. I don't know why. It doesn't matter if I've had a good day, or a bad day, or what I think about before I go to sleep. Someone told me it could be related to stress, and I've been pretty stressed out. I guess we will see. I just want them to go away. I hate waking up and being afraid to go back to sleep for some stupid reason.