The serene, tranquil build-up to the holidays

We all have our own unique way of going nuts during the holidays.  Shopping is a common crazy-making Christmas activity.  (I, for one, do very little; if something's not available online, I don't purchase it.)  However, I sympathize with people who shop until they just about lose it and wish January would come.  Choosing the family greeting-card photo makes me feel like that.

The other day in Costco I saw a holiday-maddened shopper.  Obviously, he had reached his limit and decided to make himself more comfortable:

Sorry the picture is fuzzy, but I took it on the fly, secretly, with my phone.

Speaking of people comfortable in their own skin, last weekend this young woman walked into Sunday school looking overly hirsute.

"May I take a picture of you in your hat?" I asked.

"And my pretty dress!" she said.

Now let's discuss outdoor holiday decor.  Several days ago someone dumped a table in the easement across from our house, up north toward the intersection.  It's been sitting there, tantalizing me.

 

So today I decided it needed a little something.  Pin that, girls!

 



As I mentioned already, choosing our annual family greeting-card photo is an emotional minefield.  After finally finding one in which everyone looks decent and I look somewhat better than usual (those are the parameters; remember I am fairly good looking), I have to scour Costco's website for a card that will work.  The process drains me of everything pleasant.

This year, after thousands of my brain cells had died from looking at icky photos of myself, I was ready to click "Purchase."  Costco, however, had one more step for me.  "Please review the image on the free, personalized 2014 calendar included in your purchase."

"NO! No I will not review the image."  Mouse-click!  Mouse-click!  24 hours later I had fifty greeting cards and four free calendars.

I hope you all have wonderful holidays.  I keep thinking that our God is good.  He will never leave me, or forsake me, and he lets me try and make you laugh with the dorky things that happen to me, even when they didn't seem funny at the time.  (Bearskin hat excepted.)