My lethargic Christmas Spirit

 I finally managed to post on a sunny day!!! Here is my newly finished creation.

I'm calling it "What are you look'n at?"

As far as the rest of my life, I'm getting by. I made Christmas ninjas earlier this month! (The one that looks black is really green, I just have a bad camera.) I think they turned out super cute!! ^_^

Other than that though, I've been procrastinating on my usual Christmas rituals. For some reason, I haven't really been in the mood. Here are some of the things I still need to do:

1. Read A Christmas Carol. I try and read A Christmas Carol every year in December. There are a billion movie versions of this story, but nothing beats the original. Dickens' descriptions of London at Christmas time are always so much fun to read. If you've never actually read this book, I highly recommend you give it a try. It's a bit hard to follow, but well worth the effort in the end.

2. Watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas (The animated one, just for clarification). This is probably my favorite Christmas movie ever; I have to make sure I watch this at least once, or it won't feel like Christmas. While I out grew most of the other kid's Christmas movies, I'll never be too old for the Grinch. I'll probably still be watching this when I'm 82.

3. Make Christmas cookies. My mom didn't make cookies too often when I was growing up, but she always had a few recipes she'd make at Christmas time. My favorites are Spritz, a butter almond cookie with a cinnamon red hot in the middle; Jolly Jelly Thumbprints, another butter cookie with jelly in the center and Gingerbread cookies. She also had this family recipe called Von Sprecken Specials (named after my great-grandma), which are a spice cookie with bits of orange zest in them.

4. Listen to Trans Siberian Orchestra. I actually have been doing this one. I have an entire Pandora radio station devoted to this group and other things like it. Occasionally I get some non-Christmas soundtrack stuff. Things like selections from Halo or Tron Legacy, but they're usually super epic sounding, so I don't mind.

5. Watch White Christmas. This is another favorite of mine. (I'm pretty sure all the Christmas movies I like were made at least 20 years before I was born.) It's not as well-known as It's a Wonderful Life or Miracle on 34th St, which are also good movies, but I still love it. 

Add to that list all the Christmas present projects I need to finish, which is like, 6 or 7, and you can see I have a lot to get done before December 25th. In fact, I should probably get off the computer and start working on them right now!

sincerely,

me