Did everyone have a good Christmas? I sure did! I've had a really great week off from all things writing. Except gift tags. Had to write those. In bulk.

Here is a breakdown of my Christmas break so far (or Winter break as my PC school likes to call it).

Thursday night before C'mas was the yearly ornament party at my friend Holly's. It was a great turn out. And by that I mean the food brought was excellent. So you bring an ornament and play "dirty santa." And in this game the ornament you pick when it's your turn can get taken away. It's taken a few years for a lot of the ladies to suck it up and take things away. But a few of us believe the more vicious, the more fun! It's the Christmas spirit! These three Jones ladies are not afraid to rip an ornament out of someone's hand. (My aunt, not pictured, even took an ornament away from a two year old.)

"The lady in the jingle bell sweater looks weak. I'll steal from her."
"Good strategy. I'll go for the woman with the walker."
"And steal her cookies, too. These are awesome."

And then I shop like a maniac over the weekend. And then I reshop. You know, in those final hours you begin to doubt every item you've purchased since November and you basically go back and start all over again and pray you've still got your receipts so you can take the first batch back.

Then you wake up and the weekend is gone and it's Christmas Eve. And on Christmas Eve I go to my dad's home and celebrate, then go back to my house, drag everything out into the living room (including snacks, of course), turn on Turner Classic Movies, wrap until about midnight, then leave for my mother's house. And when the wake-up call comes Christmas morning I'm usually a wee bit fatigued. And crabby. . .

And when I'm in wrap mode, which lasts for hours, Psycho Kitty likes to get involved. I had all these presents neatly wrapped, tagged, and bowed. Then Psycho Kitty pounced on the scene.

"Did you want this box? Too bad."

Here he is an hour later. Still in the box.


Notice the array of items. The TV is on TCM. Cover Girl is playing, a Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly movie I hadn't seen before. It's so good. Rita plays a girl who works for this small theater in New York, owned and operated by Mr. Kelly. Then she gets discovered and becomes a cover girl model for magazines. And of course, Broadway comes calling and she gets a marriage proposal from a rich man, but then there's still humble, slightly poor Gene Kelly. It was like watching my life on screen! So similar.

There's also a weighted exercise ball in the floor there. In case I need to work my triceps. Or bean a cat. There's the remote because sometimes the dance numbers on TCM get a little lengthy, and I need to do some channel flipping and see what Ralphie's status is on the 24 hour marathon of A Christmas Story.

But it's hard to wrap when Psycho Kitty decides to wage war on each and every box. At some point in the evening the little kitty voices in his head tell him that the bows are out to get him. So he attacks them. Every single one.


"What's that, Bow? Are you talking smack to me?"


"What's that, kitty voice in my head? The only way to save the world is to eat every bow in the room? I am so on it."

"And then I must stick all two hundred of them under the couch where they won't be found until sometime next year? Genius!"

So Psycho Kitty dismantled the bows in like five seconds, hopping from one present to the next, a big wad of bow in his teeth. And then he moved onto tags...

If you just haven't seen enough Christmas yet (or if this hasn't made it to your inbox, which I'm sure it probably has at least twice), this is a great send off. Stick with it--it gets better.


And if your brain is mush from too much shopping, wrapping, and egg nogging, HERE's something to whip it back into shape. It's a little addicting. And supposedly it's for a good cause...one grain of rice at a time.

Have a good weekend. Not too many hours left of 2007!