It's Christmas Time in the City

I am now 100% in the Christmas spirit, for 3 reasons:

1 - Our (fresh) Christmas tree is up and decorated. And I think it’s just beautiful. (And yes, I put Christmas music on while I was decorating it. I can't help myself!!)

2: My first Christmas party of the season was last night. Actually, it was the second Christmas party of the season, but I missed the first because I was home with fevers. Now I have a huge platter of shrimp cocktail in the freezer, and I’m not sure when it’ll get eaten. I also had an entire carrot cake, but that somehow disappeared...

3 - I'm totally and completely done with my Christmas shopping! Yep, that's right - almost 2 weeks to go, and I'm all done. This is mostly due to the fact that I spent the majority of last week working from home, since I came down with the flu. (It's really not fair, especially since I had my first flu shot ever about a month ago.) While the obvious benefits were nice - not showering til 2 pm, working in my pajamas on the couch, etc., the secondary benefit was the chance to complete my gift shopping during my "lunch breaks". The stores are actually quite manageable on a mid-week early afternoon...I just had to make sure to get in and out before I felt faint and/or sick...some of those stores are WARM! Oh yeah - the other slight disadvantage to shopping under pleasant conditions: some of those sales are just sooo tempting...is it wrong to buy myself (and Spud) a few presents while I'm out there?? I sure hope not!