Glad Tidings and All That

Tra la, tra la, 'tis Christmas. Merry merry to all that celebrate such things.

Aside from profligate spending on a par with drunken congressmen, the holiday is going well. My wife and I seem to work well together and enjoy one another's company when we have a common goal. As a result, our Christmases, while rushed and exhausting, are times when we bond and get along well. This year we are even a bit ahead of our usual timetable. With any luck at all, we will be in bed before 4am Christmas morning. Many years, we see the sunrise through sleepless eyes.

We are finally laying the Santa fallacy to rest. He still visits, but we aren't making a big effort on the believability front. He will be bringing us the Wii Fit, among other things.

We've visited our nearby Kohl's department store a couple times this week. Today, I was purchasing for Mrs. L. Naturally, I was looking with myself in mind as well. I just love combing through the racks, now without any self-consciousness. I'm not to the point of holding things up to myself to check sizing, but I'm not shy about checking out the stuff. After I made my purchases, I felt a little sad, as I failed to find anything for myself. While looking around with the missus, I frequently commented about items and styles that I liked, but I didn't ask for anything directly. In the past, the automatic response has been that if I want things like that, I will have to purchase them myself. She won't be a party to it. So, I opted for hinting this year, and maybe she will have softened.

We made enormous headway with our clutter issues, mostly to make proper room for a tree. We rearranged the garage to make room for a sofa we are retiring, and segregated much of the material that we intend to market in a yard sale when the weather warms. There are many bags of clothes in this zone of the garage now, and with the yard sale designation, I feel that they are fair game for my perusal. I have spent a couple of late nights this week going through bags. I have pulled seventy or eighty items so far, some as wardrobe basics, others as center pieces. Now, some may not fit when I get around to trying them on, or look ridiculous on my manly frame, but they looked close enough to claim them.

I suppose I am making my own Christmas dreams come true. May all of yours come true as well.