Tuesday, December 18, 2007

'Twas The Week Before Christmas...

Feeling Rushed Through The "Holiday" Season?


A million years ago, back in the days when I was a kid and I had virtually nothing else to do with my money but buy things like "Mad Magazine" comic books, I remember coming across a passage in one of the aforementioned editions of "Mad" that went something like this:


Twas the month before Christmas, and all through the store

each Department was dripping, with Yuletide decor.

The Muzak was blaring an out of tune Carol,

and Fake Snow was falling in Ladies Apparel.


It's amazing how true that passage still rings today.

We went out looking for a Christmas Tree yesterday afternoon, and panic was starting to set in after finding a total of four trees--three at the Ace Garden Center and one at a local nursery--at our first two stops. All Ace had was two giant ten footers and one little four foot "Charley Brown" tree.

We ended up driving back by the local farmers market where we learned that our usual source--the Rotary Club--had lost their butts with leftover trees last year and had cut their inventory in half this year. All they had left were the culls and rejects from their limited Virginia Pine inventory.

Fortunately, one of the other Farmers market vendors saved the day by providing us with a nice little 7' tall Leyland Cypress.

Outside of Christmas preparations, it's "T-Minus Two Days and Counting" here in the Golden Isles on the construction project as I have to finish this week's work by Wednesday afternoon in anticipation of driving over to southern Lower Alabama for three or four days to do some work on the farm and to pick up Mom for the return trip back over here to spend Christmas week.

We have tons of sightseeing and fine dining planned for her next week, and then of course I have an extensive Christmas Day meal to cook for ten or eleven hungry mouths. The guest count and the menu has grown steadily over the past few weeks--why I do this to myself I'll never know.

Thank GOD we got all of the Christmas cards and packages sent on their way by the middle of last week so that we don't have to go anywhere near the Post Office or a UPS/FedEX location between now and January 1st...else I just might have to try to hurt myself with a spoon or butter knife.

As things stand right now, if I can make it to Saturday the only risk of death by kitchen utensil will be eating too much food in the ensuing celebrations.

Imagine that?

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