Usually we try to be gone from home around
Christmas time. I mean gone away. On a cruise or
a distand tropical island .Now all the shoppers seem to be
going exactly where I am going and I can't even
find a place to park the car. I find myself following
someone with car keys in hand, whom I assume must
be going away but then apparently has just arrived.

Then there is all the Christmas decorations I
have to dig up and sort and fix before I can hang them up.
I even found some rats nests among the dozen or so boxes.
Many of them don't even belong to me.
How did those get here?

Yeah, this year we braved the Christmas spirit at home
again, for the sake of the grand kids.
But the strings of blinking lights around the
house seem to lift my spirit too in these short
and dreary days.
I am definitely not dreaming of any white Christmas.
Unless it is on the white sand on some tropical beach.

Instead, this year I am editing and arranging beach
pictures we took in Hawaii when we were there in
the week of Thanksgiving. Still savoring the fun we always have.