It has been a very busy two days. Yesterday at work, every time I turned around there was another email from someone needing something fiddly done as quickly as possible, so I never did manage to get out early enough to go get my allergy shots for the week (oh well). And then right after dinner I was back out the door for the dress rehearsal, where we spent four hours going over all the music for the concert, until we were all making stupid mistakes because we were so tired, and it was finally time to go home and go to bed.

Today we went down to the in-laws, near San Jose, for the annual decorating of the tree. This year they bought a fake tree (which led Richard and I to proclaim that apparently we started a family trend, since we went fake last year), which was a little bit taller and significantly less prickly than in years past. Both of Richard’s sisters were there, and the youngest climbed behind the tree to decorate the side near the window this time, instead of me. Apparently this is also the first year they’ve had a tree skirt, which the cat finds quite fascinating, because it has big splashes of color and she likes to try to attack them.

After the tree was decorated and lunch was consumed, it was time to hop back in the car and drive home. I’d taken a decongestant in the morning (my sinuses hate me again) but it was only mildly effective, so by the time we headed out, my head was really starting to hurt. Richard drove while I closed my eyes and tried very hard to will my sinuses into submission, because singing with seriously congested sinuses is all kinds of not remotely fun.

Luckily all the ibuprofin I popped in the car, and later, finally kicked in shortly before we started to go through the music. And tonight’s concert went pretty well. It was a nearly full house – always a nice thing to see – and everyone seemed to really enjoy the music. Several of us went around after the concert with baskets of mistletoe on our arms and passed out the little packets to anyone who wanted some. My parents came, along with my knitting mom (aka the woman who taught me to knit, and who refers to me as her knitting daughter because her own daughters aren’t very interested in knitting), and as has become tradition, we all went out for ice cream after.

So now the first concert is over and I am, annoyingly, quite wide awake, now that the decongestants have kicked in completely (stupid sinuses). But I am not too worried because I know that tomorrow I can actually sleep in late (or as late as the cats will let me) and after tomorrow night my sinuses can do their worse (although I really hope they don’t take that as a challenge) because I will be done singing for the year, hooray.

Tis the season for Holidailies!