Winter Musings

Here it is, a couple of weeks before Christmas descends upon me with the emotional weight of an anvil, and today is the first day I am FINALLY able to breathe and feel a bit better. I missed out on my niece's 7th birthday, but word got back to me that the Gap Reindeer sweater was a hit. So tonight I helped my sister out with photographing her three kids for a Christmas card. NO FUN. I love those kids, but it was hell. Take one cranky 5 month old baby, two hyper kids, one clingy dog and mix that with one Auntie still stuffed up and medicated and the results spoke for themselves.

Sixty Eight photos and two hours later, my poor sister had only two, maybe three shots that were passable! I felt bad, then I remembered...it's a Christmas Card, not a Renior Painting. The kids are cute, so the card will be fine. This is one of the BETTER photos!

I came home tonight, cleared my nose AGAIN, and am now sitting in the glow of lights from my $40 Lowe's tree. I am not particularly fond of the "wading through piles of trussed up trees and other people pushing you away" process...but my pocketbook this year does not allow for the "casual wandering through spacious and expensive tree lots looking at pretty trees" method. Oh well, I have come to realize, after years of thoughtful and precise tree selection, that the damn trees all tend to look the same once the lights and ornaments are thrown on! This year's photo of the tree looks exactly like last years. And the year before last year's!

I tend to use birds a lot in my tree trimming, though I don't know why or when I started this. I think they look nice and kinda natural on the branches. Much more natural than some Darth Vader or Nascar driver ornament. I have some fantastic glass blown birds, and my friend bought me these beautiful Polish ones from a shop in the Castro in SF a few years ago. I took a photo of one for my blog:

So the countdown to the final gift purchases begins this coming week. I tried to avoid this by purchasing early, but the sinus infection kinda threw those intentions out the window. I cannot wait to get out there and fight for parking, carts, aisle positions and gifts! But it will all be worth it, for moments like this: