Houston, we have a problem...

Last week one of our neighbors spent several hours getting their inflatable Christmas decorations set up just right, with the spotlights pointed exactly where they needed to point for the perfect Christmas display. Unfortunately, this is what they look like most of the time...

Nothing says "Christmas spirit" like deflated snowmen and Santas.

Christmas Decorating

We're a little late on this since we actually did our Christmas decorating a couple of weeks ago. I've always loved being able to decorate the house for Christmas, and though I've never quite gone as far out as Clark Griswold, as you can see in the photo to the left, we've got quite a few boxes full of Christmas decorations. Seems like each of the last few years we've had to run to Target to buy just one more box in order to get everything back to storage after Christmas.

So, after getting our ginormous Christmas tree in the house, lit and decorated, we got to decorating the rest of the house. I think it turned out pretty well, and except for the warm weather outside, we are definitely in the Christmas spirit! Here's a sampling from around the house. Oh yeah...we added a stocking to the mantle this year...but not for the reasons most people would suspect!

Not Quite The Griswold Tree, But Close...

So, we went Christmas tree shopping Monday evening. We started out at Pike's, because Joy wanted to try to help them get out of bankruptcy (And at the prices they were charging for trees, we might actually have made a dent!). Didn't find one that suited us, so we headed down to the local Home Depot.

The prices were much better, so were looking through the 9'-10' trees looking for a good one. We had pretty much settled on one, but - like an idiot - I decided to pick up one more. Immediately, Joy says, "That's the one!" Unfortunately, it was actually a 10'-11' tree...but not wanting to disappoint my wife, we got it anyway. I strapped it to the top of the Envoy and off we went.

While Joy headed off to her Monday night Bible Study, my dad came over to help me stand it up and string the lights. Turns out that the trunk was a little crooked, so we had to do a little sawing at the base to get it stand up straight in the stand. Eventually, we got it up and got it in, and boy is it BIG! I'm pretty sure that its the biggest tree we've ever gotten, but it looks great and now it is starting to look a lot like Christmas!

Dear Santa... (Part 1)

Our computer at home flips out all the time.  A few months ago it crashed, and I had to install a new hard drive.  Just this week, the monitor decided that it just didn't want to stay on longer than 20-25 seconds before going blank.  Then, last night, it healed itself.

So Santa...please bring me one of these SWEET babies!

Preferrably the 24", 2.8 GHz Core 2  Extreme processor, 2 GB memory, 1 TB hard drive model with a wireless keyboard and Mighty Mouse!

A guy can dream, can't he?