One of my favorite all-time Christmas albums is A Charlie Brown Christmas. I love Vince Guaraldi's jazzy sound, and I also love the animated special. We have a copy and watch it during the holidays, and of course Ben is now hooked too. I came across a piece on NPR that talks about how Guaraldi's music almost didn't make it and how CBS thought that the themes of materialism and faith weren't appropriate for children. Can you imagine a Christmas without A Charlie Brown Christmas? How would you describe a Charlie Brown Christmas tree? Good thing CBS caved. The album was released 41 years ago, and has never gone out of print since. If you don't have it, it's a great addition to your Christmas collection.
I was walking through a forest of Christmas trees at a lot yesterday (already!) and the scent was out of this world. Nothing puts you in the mood for Christmas like that smell.

Like Bart Simpson, but with an accent

A tech support guy actually said "aye caramba!" to me today. I think we outsource to Costa Rica now.

The holidays are coming whether you're ready or not. Generally speaking, I am not. I forget about a hundred things that I wanted to do for Christmas etc. that seemed perfectly reasonable in July. I have baking projects, and projects for the kids to make things for people, and shopping, and cards, well, you know what I'm talking about. I came across this site last night for getting organized for the holidays. Although I will not take advantage of many of these templates (a cleaning checklist? are you out of your minds?), there are certainly some here that may put the ho back in holiday. I know there's no such thing as a liday, gimme a break, it's Monday.

The great leveler

Adventures in driving to work:
Older, distinguished gentleman in a suit driving in your Audi with your impressive phone ear piece: I watched you pick your nose in my rear-view mirror for a good 15 minutes while stuck in traffic. What did you have in there that was so fascinating? Did it put up a fight? After the first 5 minutes, it went past disgusting and right into plain funny. I even turned around to watch you for a while, but you were to preoccupied in the dig. Thank you for the laughter, but I wouldn't want to be the people you shake hands with all day. Buy a hankie or a box of kleenex, please.
Why do people think that when they get into cars they are invisible? That's two-way glass people!