That’s right, I’ve started decorating for Christmas! Why not? I love having all the decorations up so I decided to get going a bit early this year. I know it’s still November, but it is November 25th, one month exactly before Christmas. And I’ve only put up a few things so far. Mostly what I’ve done is clean.

I spent most of the day yesterday cleaning all my carnival glass and Occupied Japan figurines. I pack up all that stuff every year to make room for all the Christmas decorations and I’ve found it’s much nicer to have it all nice and clean after Christmas when I take down the decorations. I’ve tried unpacking and then washing, but that makes for total craziness when I’m trying to put away Christmas in January. So, my dining room table is now filled with nice clean glass and figurines. As I unpack the Christmas stuff I’ll repack the tubs with all my glassware.

I carried in 15 tubs from the garage that are filled with Christmas stuff. I still have the tree and a tub of tree decorations as well as 3 tubs of outdoor decorations in the garage. I plan to do a little at a time each night after work with my goal to have it all finished by next Saturday. On Sunday I’ll decorate the front porch and then will spend the following weekend putting up all the outdoor lights. That will mean I’ll have two full weeks before Christmas to wrap gifts and bake cookies. I’d rather do it this way than to be going crazy at the last minute trying to get everything done in just a few days.

I’m doing most of my shopping online except for a few things I’ve already purchased. I know I’ll have to go out to a store or two over the next few weeks, but I’m hoping to do this at a time when I can easily get in and out. The only place I went on ‘Black Friday’ was to Michael’s, and that was in the middle of the afternoon. Yeah, I could have saved another $5-$10 if I got up early and went before 9 am, but I decided I’d rather sleep in than do that.

And so it’s back to work tomorrow. Yuk. I am certainly not ready. The only good thing is that I still have 4 days of vacation time remaining that I ‘have’ to take before the end of the year. I’m taking 2-1/2 days during the week between Christmas and New Year’s which will give me the entire week off. The other 1-1/2 days will likely be taken on a couple of Fridays and used for what little shopping I’ll need to do or possibly just for a day off.