Cold season

The pilot light on our heater is out. I just called the electric company and the soonest someone can come to turn it on is Friday, which is four cold days from now. But there's another thing that happens when it gets cold outside, besides getting cold inside. That's right, it's Christmastime!

I love Christmastime! I know commercialism is terrible and all that, but I really like making cookies and seeing snowmen and making cards and eating feasts. I'm not really a huge fan of presents. I hate surprises, and I like giving things to people when I want to, not because I feel obligated to do it. And I really don't want any more stuff. So I asked for boring stuff, like a kitchen knife and books for my upcoming classes, which will be nice to have, but not too exciting to play with on Christmas morn. Luckily there will be a tiny baby (not Jesus) to play with. And ice skating, if there is an ice skating place in Memphis.

We went to the Oakland Christmas Parade, which was really good. So good that we're still talking about it a week later. There were karate kids breaking boards, jump-ropers, tap-dancing Christmas trees, little kids dressed like presents, Taz riding in a convertible, and huge balloons of various cartoon characters which had to be dramatically lowered to clear the tree corridor that was just beyond our curb-seats. Gregg has lots of good pictures of the action, including one of the devastating effects of my Santa fever. Best parade ever!

We decorated the miniature city instead of decorating the whole apartment, because miniature decorations are so much easier! Plus a reindeer lives there, so it seemed like an obvious choice. Of course it's all exactly to scale. Maybe if we weren't going out of town for actual Christmas I'd want to decorate more. I don't know. I think I'd be more excited about it if anyone besides me and Channing were likely to see the decorations. We still haven't exactly "decorated" our apartment for daily use, so we're probably not ready for seasonal decorations anyway. Taking them down and storing them seems like a hassle, too. We might actually get around to painting our hideous living room over Channing's vacation, so that's another good reason not to decorate.

We did invest in some white LED icicle lights, but those are more for mood lighting than for seasonal decor. We rearranged our bedroom, so our bed is wedged into the closet that used to hold a murphy bed. It makes for a magical forest-tent-like sleeping experience and opens up a lot of space in the bedroom. Or it will once we find places for all of the stuff we took out of the closet. Finishing stuff is hard. Also, our closet has fake stained glass windows. There's something really nice about sleeping in a little cubby nook thing, especially when it has fake stained glass windows.


Channing made Christmas pizza today, with pomegranates and spinach and pears for toppings. It tasted a lot like regular pie. And we had hot cocoa with it because it's really cold in here.

I made elaborate Christmas cards, which we addressed last night. So I guess I won't post a picture of one just in case they get mailed at some point and one is coming to you in the mail. You'll just have to wait. Soon I'm going to make some Christmas cookies. I guess I should make a whole lot so we never run out.