All done here!

We took down our Halloween decorations and ginormous inside Lemax Village on the 7th. It was a very, very sad day.

We put our Christmas decorations up inside and out, tree and all with wrapped gifts underneath it up on the 14th.

As you guys saw in the random thread, all my Christmas shopping is done and wrapped. It's being packed in the car on Thursday to leave for our road trip bright and early Friday morning.

I am IN THE SPIRIT, man… Though I truly miss Halloween. It's my all time favorite holiday. Comes and goes so darn quickly.

I pulled out all my decs last night – I'll get my tree after Thanksgiving. I did put some greenery and lights inside last night – it makes me happier and feel festive. AND starts a little fire to get things done so I can start enjoying the holidays! Most of my decs are from when I was little, so it's always nostalgic to bring them back out each year!

I spent last Thanksgiving in New York City – it was the first time I'd ever been there that time of year and it was wonderful. I got into all the shopping crowds the day after T-giving, went to see all the Christmas window displays, Rockefeller Center, it was awesome. We didn't go to the parade, but went the night before to watch them blow up the balloons – that was much cooler than the actual parade!

LOL – my sis-in-law is the same way. Everything comes down the day after. I leave mine up until after New Year's.

I've had more Christmas related mishaps then I care to admit. Especially when it comes to decorating and I'm fairly certain that many of you have had similar experiences….

1)My parents had 2 really OLD angels for the tree top. One I believe was never used (in my lifetime)because it didn't work anymore but was given to them when they were newlyweds by my maternal grandfather who they adored and had passed on. But the other one we "attempted" to use was very fickle and temperamental. Most years we didn't plug it in because it was deemed hazardous, one year we actually got it to work after years of inactivity but the bulbs shorted out and set her little wings on fire. I went out and bought a brand new star right after new years under the premise of starting a new family tradition of not bbq-ing cherubic angels in front of the grandkids.

2) The year one of my older brothers "assisted" me in tracking down the bad bulb in the strand of 250, I was at it for the better part of an hour when I finally realized he was intentionally removing bulbs on his end so nothing would light up or partials….mr. holiday helper over there….those aren't lumps of coal in your stocking there buddy!

3) The year i started out w/a beautiful 7 foot tree that I couldn't quite get to stand straight in the tripod base and repeatedly hacksawed the bottom to even it out…only to find out too late that the base of the stand was damaged causing the tree to tilt one way. It was now a beautiful 4 foot tree.

4) I'd just bought a brand new car and had opened the trunk to fish out a blanket to put on the roof to prevent scratches only to find the guy at the tree place jammed the tree through my trunk in such a way that it was now partially in the trunk and partly in the back seat (i have a sedan) against the grain of the wiring which almost was completely ripped out of the car when I attempted to remove the tree at home….he didn't get a tip.

5) When I was little, the older relatives used rush me off to bed early to get toasted and play w/the cooler toys I'd gotten. Many a 12/26s I was shocked to find that Santa had returned to pick up toys of mine that had gotten broken mysteriousily in the night to his workshop for repairs. Didn't know Santa had such an awesome customer service and warranty dept…who knew?

got tons more but that should suffice for now

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Okay, so I have a good one for you. Every Christmas, we go over to my brother's in-laws house, because well, they're awesome. And George (my bro's father-in-law) makes kick **** pomegrante martinis. When we get back home, my uncle (who is now divorced from my aunt) had left a message on the machine and my dad decides to call him back. One problem – he doesn't have his number so he calls information. We're all sitting in the kitchen and my mom brings out the remainder of the home made eggnog.

My dad hangs up the phone, goes to do something (which I don't know what it was) and the phone rings. I answer it and the voice on the other line says the following:

"This is the Police Department. We just received a 911 call from this phone number. Do you have an emergency?"

And I tell them no, there was no emergency and the guy doesn't sound like he really believes me. So I hand the phone to my dad and he reiterrates that we don't have an emergency and then hangs up. So we start talking and say how that was really weird. My dad calls information again – except this time gets the number and then hangs up.

The phone rings again.

Its the cops…again.

This time my Dad answers and tries to explain to them that we still don't have an emergency and they were welcome to come by and check things out, etc., but everything was fine on our end. He gets off the phone and then admits that he *may* have accidentally hit 911 when he was trying to dial 411 – oops. But – the thing is that he had it on speaker phone the second time – so we all KNOW he called information because we heard the lady giving back the phone number. The thing that was disconcerting is the fact that the cops may have gotten the number wrong themselves – what if someone called and they called the wrong number back. In any case, it was pretty amusing. Only my family could call the cops on ourselves by accident.