It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

So I've been a Grinch this year. Every commercial I saw, every window advertisement, and every radio blip about "get him/her the Perfect Gift this Holiday Season..." sent me off on a muttering tirade about greedy, over-commercialized, consumer whores, trade deficit, crap from China, etc, etc, etc.

I was getting cranky.

Then James took me Christmas tree shopping. We were planning on repeating our cone-shaped rosemary bush from last year (which sadly died before we got it out to the back porch, but we still left the withered corpse out there until late spring), but then we saw some 3-4' nobles that were oh so cute, cheaper, and smelled like Christmas! I got all Christmas-giddy, and now we have a little mini-tree in our front room. Like I told James after we decorated our diminuitive tree,

Now it feels like Christmas!

Then, last week, James treated me to one of my presents early, in the form of a Christmas Coats concert!!! The Coats are a local (Seattle) a cappela band, and I am oh so fond of them (www.thecoats.net), so I was practially gushing when James surprised me by kidnapping me (he had to warn me so I could study around the interruption) down to Salem for the concert. They always put on such a great show, and I got their latest Christmas album to remember it. As I sat gushing in my seat (row L), I told James

Now it feels like Christmas!

So after finals are done (this week!), we're hosting our Primary class in a cookie party to celebrate, since many of them will be moving on to the next age group. We'll decorate sugar cookies, play games, and listen to Christmas tunes. Ah what fun! More on that after the event, but

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!