We can talk about Christmas now

I was so freaking organized for Thanksgiving this year, you guys. I'm not sure how that happened. I made the sweet potatoes on Tuesday and then everything else (mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce) except the turkey, ham, gravy and rolls on Wednesday, and then I made the meat and rolls and gravy and stuff on Thursday and just warmed everything else up, and I had told my parents to be here at 1:00 which is exactly when everything was ready. This will never happen again, I'm pretty sure.

My parentals brought my mom's mac & cheese and a pecan pie and these little pilgrim hats my mom made out of fudge stripe cookies and mini peanut butter cups. We ate and played Apples To Apples and went for a long walk with the dog and I did not take one single solitary photo, not of my parents or the food or anything. Heh. Whoops.

H does not like me to decorate for Christmas before her birthday, which is Thursday, which is also the day she leaves for a three-day school trip about which we are all VERY excited, because she was one of very few freshman from her school selected to go. She has given me permission to decorate for Christmas while she's gone so that when she comes back, apart from being FIFTEEN HOW DID THAT HAPPEN, she will find herself smack in the middle of Christmastown. Which means now I HAVE TO decorate for Christmas while she's gone or she'll be very disappointed, and I'm not sure I was quite ready to do that this soon. Hmm.

It's not that I'm not ready for Christmas. I actually sort of am. I've been downloading pooloads of Christmas music off Amazon this week (did you know Jethro Tull has a Christmas album? well, now you do) and I've made my lists of baked goodies and whatnot. The gift shopping is essentially done owing to the fact that both kids requested big ticket items that ate up the whole budget for their gifts. I've been swilling eggnog with abandon and I'm already on my second bag (so far) of Lindt dark chocolate mint truffles.

It's just the decorating, ugh. So much work. I may have to only set up one tree this year and leave the other five in their boxes. (I know. I DO UNDERSTAND THE PROBLEM THERE.)

Meanwhile I am still taking photos for the habit blog's flickr pool but sporadically, not daily. I am reading Patrick DeWitt's The Sisters Brothers which is delightful but not at all Christmassy. I'm making chai tea concentrate (with rooibos) again but this time I've cut the sugar in half and it's STILL sweeter than I'd like. I may just leave it out altogether in the next batch and sweeten each mug individually. It's been chilly off and on but I've forgotten how to wear a scarf without it looking stupid, oh no.

The leaves have just started falling from the plum and pecan and elm trees and our neighbor's bradford pear. I found my fireplace DVD (our real fireplace has birds in it). We've been running the heat at night. Let's do this, December. I am ready for you.