Just a random post of Christmas topics:

It’s December.  Christmas is three weeks away.  Today I stopped by Target on the way home from work and bought two wreaths and two wreath hangers - one for the front door and one for the back. I came home, put them up, and VOILA!  I’ve decorated for Christmas!  Yesterday RT and I bought a Christmas tree.  It is still outside, leaning against the porch.  It’ll likely be next week before we decorate it.  We have a busy week.  I rarely go out of town for school, but tomorrow I will be going to Memphis for a workshop and will be out of town overnight.  RT goes to Michigan for a couple days this week, too.  Then this weekend we have a family wedding in Georgia.  With that kind of schedule, if we decorate the Christmas tree by next week, we’ll be doing really well.  But, hey!  There are wreaths on the doors.

RT and I stopped by my storage room yesterday to see if my boxes of Christmas decorations and wrapping paper were reach-able.  We could see them behind and beyond some other stuff.  Big, unwieldy stuff.  They were reach-able - but only with a lot of effort.  We decided the effort was too much.  We looked - and then we left it all in the storage room.  We’ll use it all next Christmas.  RT has a few things - some stockings and tree ornaments - at his house.

We draw names in my family since there are about 50 of us altogether.  Some people in the family joke about getting “bad” names.  Basically, “bad” names are adult males who don’t need anything and who can buy for themselves anything they really want.  I don’t consider them “bad” names to draw because I figure a gift certificate to Best Buys or Circuit City, and the shopping is done for any male over twelve.  It’s tempting to buy a shirt or cologne or sweater - but DON’T!  Guys tend to hate that stuff.

I don’t like shopping in crowds - especially if I’m under pressure to find a gift for a particular person.  It seems lame to look at stuff and wonder if it might possibly be something that so-and-so might like.  However, it’s December so there’s not much choice about getting out in the crowds.  I could shop via the internet, but one must do that early, and it’s only 3 weeks till Christmas.  So except for a few things,  I’ll do my Christmas shopping in local stores in the evenings after work starting next week.  Actually I’ve found that Tuesday or Wednesday evenings are pretty good times to shop in the weeks before Christmas.  The crowds aren’t too bad then. 

I’ve already got some of my gifts.  If I could just find two Fisher-Price Kid-Tough Digital cameras, I’d have the grandgirls taken care of.  I must get two different colors so they can tell them apart.  And what is with stores selling out of stuff so early?  Didn’t they know Christmas was coming and they’d need more merchandise in stock?  Cameras that sell for about $50 in the stores are being sold for $100 and up on eBay.  I’d give an IOU for after Christmas before I’d pay such jacked-up prices.  The grandgirls DO enjoy taking pictures, though.  I keep checking at Target whenever I can to see if they’ve gotten a shipment in. 

We’re going “minimalist” this year - minimum decorations, no overboard gift-giving, no stressing out about anything.  We’ve warned the kids not to expect any excess.  We love them and they’ll get a nice gift - with the emphasis on “a”.  And they’re thrilled with that.  I think we’ve felt compelled to spend too much in the past when excess wasn’t wanted or expected.  We’ll just relax and enjoy the holidays.  RT has got a stack of firewood from our land - this cold weather makes for great fires in the fireplace.  We’ll take walks and enjoy life, each other, the kids and grandgirls. 

At school Wednesday we’re having our annual “Goody Swap.”  That’s the day I’ll be in Memphis.  I’m thinking of all the calories I WON’T consume since I won’t be at school with all that food tempting me all day.   

This entry was posted on Monday, December 4th, 2006 at 9:27 pm and is filed under Holidays, That's My Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.