christmas spirit - yes, already!

So it's getting on for mid-November, and we're about... oh, six weeks into the Christmas shopping season already. (That is, about six weeks since the first signs of Christmas started to appear in Myer and DJs, just after the post-Father's Day sales finish in late September!) That also means it's about halfway to the big day!

In my habitual attempts to a) beat the Christmas shopping crowds and b) spread the cost of Christmas over several credit card periods, I of course started my shopping early, and am pleased to note that I'm about 3/4 finished.

In a fit of pre-Christmas frenzy, I even wrapped a few pressies tonight! (Maybe it's the heat that caused that ~ I've heard that heat stress can make people do odd things).

Anyway, that put me in a Christmassy frame of mind, so here are a few thoughts on Christmas, in November :

• What I love about Christmas - I love finding the just the right (or at least, sufficiently suitable) pressie for family and friends.
• What I don't love - Opening the credit card bills from November thru' January.

• I love putting the pressies under the tree and the anticipation of giving.
• I don't love wrapping the damn things, which seems to get more and more difficult and fiddly every year.

• I love all the excitement of the lead-up to Christmas, and all the little (secular) traditions that go with it.
• I don't love the day itself very much.

• I love listening to Cyndi Lauper and the Hives' 'Christmas Duel' and anyone doing 'White Christmas'.
• I don't love hearing ex-Australian Idol contestants hamming it up on 'Carols by Candlelight'.

• And I love putting up the Christmas tree. I love decorating it, I love looking at it, I love the Christmassy feeling of it; I love it so much that I'm going to put mine up tomorrow evening. ...As long as the little plastic branches don't wilt in this heat :-P