T-Minus 3 Hours Until December and Counting

I finally started Christmas shopping. I shouldn't say finally, it's still November for a few more hours. And my mom is just appalled at people decorating right after Thanksgiving. I told her the Rockefeller Center tree is up now and I think that settled her down a little. I'm not decorating until this weekend or next. I do like it to actually be December before decorating, but I will start listening to Christmas music on the day after Thanksgiving. In college, I used to bring my Christmas CDs in the car on my way back to New Jersey for Thanksgiving, but I'd save them for the trip back to college when Christmas season had officially started. The "Lite While-you-work" station here plays nonstop Christmas music from the day after Thanksgiving until Christmas Day, so I've been listening to that a little. I do love my Very Special Christmas CDs, though. I have three and I've had them forever, since high school. I also have my Elvis Christmas and Harry Connick, Jr. in my heavy rotation.

So I started the aforementioned Christmas shopping with some catalog purchases. Not many because some of those gimmicky catalogs are EXPENSIVE. I'm talking about ones like Paragon, Wireless, Signals, Hearthsong, Plow and Hearth, you name it, I've gotten it in the mailbox. Some I just used for ideas--like how about Electronic Mad Libs for an 8-yr.-old niece? And the Goodnight Moon Game for Toddler I found cheaper at Amazon than in the Young Explorers catalog. End result: I was able to put a bunch of catalogs in the recycling bin finally. I kept the Harry and David's out and the Penzey's Spices for the recipes.

Then I went to Borders and got an NY Times Crossword Puzzle book for my dad and a pocket Audubon bird book for my mom. And Toddler got this as a new Christmas book. I should look for a Maisy one. He's crazy for Lucy Cousins creations.

Oh yeah, and I kind of don't want to decorate too much before the crazy warm weather settles down. It's the jet stream or something but the East Coast is having record highs with temps in the high 60s and 70s. Not cool. (No pun intended.)