Done At Last

When, exactly, did Christmas become a project?  One year you're under the tree in your jammies, happily ripping things open- the next, you're the one out in the crowds shopping.  At least this weekend I got it all done- the presents are wrapped, the tree is up ( till the cats get at it,at least!).  Now all I need to do is food shop- that's simple enough.

Had some technical difficulties wrapping this year- the tape just didn't go where I wanted it to.  I even bought the good stuff and not the store brand.  Every damn time I went to tear a strip off, it got all bunched up on itself, and I ended up with a sticky blob.  I think it's a plot to make you waste it so you have to buy more.

And I finally had a year where I didn't have to buy any bows, tags, or wrap--I had plenty left from last year.  Now, if only I'd've had some spare gift bags...how does that happen with gift bags, anyway?  They're reusable, so why doesn't anyone every have any left at Christmas to reuse?  I think they must migrate back to the factory in the fall- another evil plot to make us spend-spend-spend!

I'm Dreaming Of A Soggy Christmas.....

Well, not really, but it was certainly soggy when I put up the lights outside today.  At least it was warmer, and it was much easier staking the electric reindeer to the ground with the ground not being frozen solid.

There seems to be a rule with Christmas decorations that the smaller your yard is, the more decorations you put up.  Especially those big blow up things. There are houses in my neighborhood where the house itself seems dwarfed by the 12 foot inflatable Santa or snowman outside.  Cute, but wow!  A little too big.

I've put up the same set of outdoor decorations for the last few years now, and I hit the stores looking for something a little bit different to mix it up.  To tell the truth, I didn't really find anything.  The only thing that really caught my eye was those LED lights that change color, but yikes!  Way too expensive.  It's kind of unusual, really-each Christmas season there's usually at least some new things out there.  The blow up things were new a couple of years back, and the wire light-up figures were before that.   Maybe we need a nostalgia Christmas, with bubble lights and those big plastic light-up figures everyone used to have.  They weren't very original-every block had the same Santa, snowman, manger scene, and choir boys- but they sure were indestructible!  Some people would put them out year after year till the paint wore off and they were mostly just big white blobs.  They don't make 'em like that anymore (and maybe that's a good thing!).

Wiki-leaky

I keep reading about this whole Wikileaks thing.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm very much a free speech girl.  I believe in transparency in government, otherwise some of the folks in charge tend to get up to naughty business (remember Watergate?).  There are definetely times when it's 100 percent appropriate for the press to disclose classified things that governments and corporations are up to- it helps keep people honest.  But the reverse is also true- when one is in posession of information that could affect the safety of hundreds if not thousands of people, then one has a responsibility to act cautiously.  Dumping all sorts of classified information out there in the public domain without regards to the consequences to other people is not cool.  And anyway, I find it far more disturbing that Wikileaks was able to get the information in the first place. And they have this seemingly unbreakable code to protect the information they haven't released yet.  Apparently they have better security than our national security folks do!

Where Does The Time Go?

Oh dear-been away from the blogosphere for awhile!  Let's see-what's happened since my last post?  I was in a wedding (beautiful ceremony) and I started Christmas shopping (whoopee for me!).  Time does fly...

One things for sure, there's a lot of folks out there shopping compared to the past couple of years.  I was in one store today where the merchandise was plied way up in the aisles, and there were so many people with carts I practically had to climb over them to get past.  I know now how a rat feels in a maze......I think that if we go by this years holiday shopping, the economy is definately starting to recover. :)

Lots of good bargains, too.  I'm almost done, and I got a lot of great stuff for less than I spent last year.  Woo-hoo! 

I'll be checking back in later..the holiday season is busy for me, just like everybody.