All I've got for titles are Christmas song lyrics....

Still here! I'm definitely feeling the joy of Christmas but also feeling the pressure of lots of irons in the oven, too. That is how the saying goes, right? "Irons in the oven?" I wonder how old that one is. I mean, obviously, it's from the smithy days, but really, didn't they ALWAYS have more than one iron in the oven? It seems like a bit of a waste of valuable fuel to heat a fire up to hot enough to make metal soft to just heat ONE iron at a time...

I digress.

What with all this ironing and such, I haven't felt the call of the blog very much these past few weeks. Well, that's a lie. I've FELT the call, but I've always been pretty occupied with trying to keep the upstairs hallway clear of laundry (and failing) and stressing over the idea of doing a One Day Christmas Shopping Marathon for the first time in my LIFE. It's starting to freak me out a bit. We'll see if I spend more or less in the long run. Pat's betting on less, but I'm wondering if it will mean I may make last-minute changes to "The Plan" simply because I want to make sure that everyone we love gets properly represented (yo) on Christmas. This is where shopping with cash/debit is valuable. I can't spend what I don't have, right?

Shoot, I'm just happy that the Christmas tree lights have stayed lit for an entire day seeing as how I've had to fix them not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES. It's like a festive lottery when I walk into the living room: will the tree be bright and cheerful or a darkened shadow of Christmas Yet To Come? Much swearing, a few tears and several threats of having a "lightless Christmas" were thrown about, but, thanks to my sweat and blood, we currently own a LIT and freshly cut Christmas tree (from the best tree farm in Chicagoland. Trust me. I've shopped around a LOT). The ornaments may be all jumbled from the jabbing of my arms into the branches to untangle unlit lights and the beads may be completely skewed from the shoving and pulling of said tree from the corner to the middle of the room and back again and again and again, but damnit!!! It's our tree. And the kids said it's beautiful. And we can AFFORD a tree and are privileged enough to have a family to celebrate Christmas around it with.

And that's all I could ever ask for.

Well, what do you know? I wrote a post. Heh. Completely unintentional, especially since I'm supposed to be starting my "online browsing" portion of the shopping program...