Hair color and holidays

Last year at this time, when my daughter's hair was becoming "dark" with her summer highlights fading away, she asked if she could add some highlights to combat the brown that was coming in. An initial "no" from me was dragged on to weeks of asking and with me finally agreeing. We tried a home highlighting kit, which ended up making Haley's hair mostly orange. Horrible. It cost about $80 to have it fixed at a local salon, but even that didn't totally take care of it. By the time the summer came, the sun had bleached it out so it was starting to look normal again. Now this December, her roots were coming in very dark. So she had medium blonde hair with dark brown roots. Yeesh. She asked if she could have it evened out so the roots matched the rest. (I was totally okay with this, but hadn't suggested it because Haley has always shuddered in fear at the thought of ever having dark hair like mine.) So, off to the salon to hopefully get her back to zero. Well...her hair color is now as dark as mine, and maybe darker. Oh. My. God. I was so afraid she was going to flip. Surprisingly she didn't, and actually said she liked it. The colorist went a little dark, but hopefully it will lighten up a little after a few shampoos. I'll get a pic of it later and post.

Procrastination. Denial. Those are my words for the holiday season. I have moments when I really love it all, but those moments tend to get squashed in all the "to do" moments. Ack. I am definitely not a shopper, so most of what I buy is done online, in my jammies in my warm house. No crowds, no parking issues. What is kind of nice about this holiday is that I think it's going to be more authentic, considering most people are cutting way back on buying. I really think the whole buying thing is the least important and least fun of the whole holiday. I much prefer the music, the decorations, the family and the feel of it all. It will be nice to see people putting more thought into their purchases and keeping them small and meaningful. One of Haley's and my favorite thing to do this time of year is watch "25 days of Christmas" on the Family channel. All those good Christmas movies. She loves to sit by the fire with the Christmas tree as the only light and watch them. That's the kind of holiday feeling I'm talking about. And my son, since he's newly in love, he's a joy to be around. He's lit up like a tree himself.

I'll do a little wrapping tonight so I can see what I still "have" to do, considering I can't procrastinate much longer.