Christmas Crampus

How very festive.

I'm simply bursting with Christmas cheer this year!  Why, there are even lights on the tree AND front porch!  I bought a wreath!  I've started writing greeting cards, even!  Six of them so far, then I had to stop because I'm not used to actually WRITING BY HAND anymore and lo, the cramps start early when you're as out of practice as I am.  Folks are just going to have to accept that I can probably only do a few a day and enjoy their daggone cards whenever they arrive, because by now it's way too late to expect them to be delivered before Santa shows up.

Confession: I am using the cards I bought last year and never mailed.  So sue me.

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Our 10th anniversary is coming up soon, and to celebrate we went and bought us a hot tub.  At first we were going to go on a cruise, but didn't plan (sense a pattern here?) far enough ahead and then a hot tub show popped up, we went, and now can stroll out to the backyard any time we want to and immerse in luxurious hot spa-licious neck-deep water.

I might not get around to wrapping all the Christmas presents, is what I'm hinting at.

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Speaking of presents, I did nearly all of my shopping online this year, per usual, but did go to the Lidl and Aldi for yummy German goodies.  The gifts have all arrived, and are sitting in a pile in one corner of our bedroom.  I do not recall everything I purchased, or for whom, so opening the boxes should prove to be quite exciting.  The size of any clothing will be a hint, and I THINK one of my boys isn't getting any clothing at all (a first!), but who knows?  I could have forgotten to get someone anything atall!

We're running low on wrapping paper too.  Guess a trip to the dollar store is in order.  Just as soon as  I drop these 6 Christmas cards at the Post Office.  SOMEONE might get one on time!

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I'm off from work now until 02 January, which seems like a long time but isn't really enough.  I'm already dreading going back to work a little, because 2019 is going to be gruesome.  My main project is is a high-value prospect for the company and as such is on a HIGHLY accelerated timeline, which already gives me stress belly.

Not for nothing that I recently purchased a big bottle of magnesium supplements.  I'll be ringing in the new year with those bad boys in my system.  Fingers crossed they work!

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And on that high note, I shall leave you with my very best wishes to you for a joyful holiday, and all the best in 2019!

This is the look I'm going for this year - gettin' lit!

This thing on?

It never ever pays to go back to sleep right away after waking up too early.  That's rule #1 for a happy day.  If you DO go back to sleep, or try and only fitfully succeed, you might just find yourself working as lead marketing assistant for the "Hugh Louis and the Neuse" band (I think you know who I mean), managing their music catalog and having to constantly shift the banners on the wall to which of their songs are playing best right this minute.

Of all 8 of their albums.

In 2018.

When the last popular song they had on ys olde top twoscore (U.S.) was in 1991. 

Never mind - you must memorize and track all of them, which of course is helped by the only station they pump into corporate headquarters being the only station that plays all of their music, ranked by current popularity and re-ranked daily.

BY YOU.

So that's one way to have a nightmare.

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This is the first blog post of 2018.

I am really tired of facebook.

There is a person I know who posts at least 20 things a day on that platform.  Most of it is absolute rubbish, reposts of 'news' or pictures of themselves doing things that nobody even very interesting would be interesting enough to want to see that many posts from.

Then again, I used to blog every day, so...

I think that maybe, like, TWO pots a day on FB are enough?  That seems like a lot, even for a dying platform that some folks have climbed aboard to use as their social media bully pulpit.

Just guessing here, but I bet the folks who do that don't know about Reddit.

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Three months ago someone I worked with said they were worried because they still had to finish their Christmas shopping.

This is not a thing I worry about.  Christmas shopping starts, generally, on 01 December and ends when you can no longer overnight a package in time to wrap the gift and stick it under the tree.

(OK, confession time - I have started holiday shopping this year.  The ol' credit card was sticking me in the thigh on Black Friday, so what are ya gonna do?)

Can't break with tradition though, so will spend the next week or so thinking on what I plan to purchase, wait to get a tree, maybe not decorate it at all, then dread going back to work in 2019.

TRADITION!