Ah, Christmas week. The week at work where the staff sits around staring at the clock and the brokers are all off skiing in Vermont or Utah or wherever. I think I mentally checked out the day I woke up to 6 inches of snow. Then we got about 30 inches more and it was all over. School was cancelled for the rest of the week making my kid officially on Christmas break. At least I got Monday off.

I'm actually impressed I had enough to do to keep myself busy for the morning. Asking around tomorrow is technically a full day, but I'll be surprised if we get half-attendance. I don't know why they don't just give everyone more vacation time. You're at school for 20-some years enjoying 104 days of vacation and then all the sudden you get 10-15 days a year. That's just mean.

Once we got all of this snow, no one really knows what to do with it. Our condo people sent out a letter beforehand telling people what not to do, but sure enough, they all did it anyways. (Piles chairs/cones in the spots where they moved cars out of despite being unassigned). I missed seeing this much accumulation, but it is making things hard to get around in. They did not even deliver my mail on Saturday and I thought that was the sort of day the post office lived for. Just to prove what devoted employees they are, to get that mail out, no matter what. Well, I guess that just didn't happen. Not that I want anyone risking their life to deliver my JCrew catalogs and credit card statements, i'm just surprised a bunch of fluffy snow stopped them in their pre-holiday delivering tracks.

We took the Jeep out this weekend mostly to get out of the house and stopped by a few stores. Sunday Petsmart had one employee and she had the front door locked and was only letting people in to buy pet food and things that didn't require her to fish animals out of habitats. Smart. I probably would have just put up a Closed sign and hid behind the counter. Home Depots' employees all managed to make it in but they had no snow shovels and decided they'd bolt a piece of plywood on a stick and sell those for $4. Inventive. I asked a guy holding an actual snow shovel where he got that, his response was not unlike Smee in Lord of the Rings when someone asks to look at the Ring. I left him to cuddle his orange snow shovel in aisle 10 and pressed on to get my second entry mat for the back door.

On the ride back 2 snow plows (dump trucks with salt dispensers strapped to them) blocked 3 lanes of traffic and sat through 2 green light changes before we drove around them, a mini van sat abandoned at an intersection covered in snow but not in a ditch or anything (passed it again this morning, still there, still covered in snow, with a dent in the side now), and lanes were partially plowed causing funnels of traffic. All in all I'm glad they gave us at least one snow-day off but there were plenty of dangers out there today and I feel for the emergency vehicles that attempt to get through 3 lanes of traffic that are boxed in by 3 feet of snow on both sides. I'm sure they'll be talking about this storm for years to come. I just hope it sticks around til xmas!

Well Ho-Ho-Ho and Happy holidays to you! Being as I have a library of useless images on my desktop I've used in blogs, I"m sure this is a recycled one but enjoy Hermie none-the-less. I have felt that this year I'm a little early with my holiday preparations, I was putting together the yearly update photo-scrapbook compliments of snapfish in early November. It was also the first year we did not drive upstate to NY and spend half of our Thanksgiving weekend in the car, so I had a nice loooooooong weekend in which the 7-year-old insisted we get out ALL the Christmas decorations and GET a Christmas tree. And since, she's the decision maker on most things, we did. Christmas prep complete before December even roared it's head. I have also not send out Christmas cards since....I can't even remember but guess what? They went out BEFORE Thanksgiving this year. I guess I could have waited on that one, but when I have a stack of addressed cards it's just HARD not so send them out and feel accomplished. I would have liked to pose the whole crew in front of the house in bad christmas sweaters, but I guess that will have to wait for another year.

I'm not really sure what my rush is this year. Maybe I'm just bored. Maybe it's the influence of the media and stores putting up Santa right after Halloween. I don't know, I just recall not being ready at ALL last year and now I find myself wrapping presents on NOvember 30th under a fully decked-out evergreen while it's 60 degrees out. I kind of felt like an idiot. I also felt like a complete moron standing in line at 440AM waiting for Target to open this past Friday too, but once I was there, I wasn't leaving until I got my half price electronics. There's a first -and mostly likely last- for everything.

But I think perhaps that the most likely reason of all (extra hoiday points if you know where I pulled that from) may be that this has been a shitty year(s) and I'm ready for some cheer(s). After nixing last years holiday celebrations completely and suffering a paycut and management tier just leaving, we're officially out of debt at my company and having a small holiday happy hour. Granted, it's a friggin Tuesday, but I'll take what I can get and it's a small sign that there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully, one that will include my pay-raise reinstated, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. In the meantime, bring on the sales, it's shopping season!