AWOL

Is everybody but me getting in the Christmas spirit?!   I don't know what it is, but I am having a hard time feeling it.   Just like so many of you, Christmas is my favorite time of year and I normally love putting up the tree and decorating and baking and all that stuff.  So far this year, though, I could just care less.   Maybe because it's still November.   Maybe on December 1 (tomorrow??) I'll magically ooze with Christmas spirit.   I thought I was getting there yesterday when I turned my radio to the all-Christmas songs station.   I even put up a sign outside my office door warning of the Christmas spirit within.   (My boss pretends to be a scrooge.)   And I listened to Christmas music for a few hours.    Then I turned back to talk radio.   Bah humbug!

  

We have two huge trees.   They are gorgeous . . . BUT . . . they drop a bazillion leaves in the fall.  If you like to rake leaves, then it is perfection!    However, neither me nor my husband like to rake (who am I kidding??!!  I never rake!  My husband does it all!).   This fall he raked for hours, hauling the leaves out to the street to be picked up.  You could see our lawns again!   Then the wind came . . . and blew them all back.   Curse the wind!   This happened three times.   By the time he was done with the third (and last) time, he looked up at me with this exhausted face and said, "I am NOT putting up Christmas lights this year!  I am too tired."   And he was.   Tired, that is.  He worked hard, and the thought of working even harder to put up the lights was too much.

So, maybe that's part of it.   Not having Christmas lights up.   Or maybe that has nothing to do with my lack of enthusiasm.   I don't know.  I only know that this sucks.  I don't like it.   The Christmas spirit within has gone AWOL.   I'm hopeful it's just temporary.