I was going to show y'all the cutest t-shirt EVAH but somebody got hungry while she was at school and thought she'd munch on an orange marker. She, uh, missed her mouth a few times (or something), so we'll have to save that until after Daddy washes it.

Anyhoo, before I picked up the kiddo, I was sitting at work getting drilled about my Christmas obsessions. It only took a few days for word to get out that I have a bit of a problem. I thought they figured it out because of the sparkly Christmas tree that I put up in my office, but actually it turned out to be because someone has seen our house. We live a whopping 2.8 miles from my new office (for those of you who are curious, the new job ROCKS! (so far)) and very near a neighborhood grocery store. You can see the Christmas sparklies from the grocery store parking lot, which I mentioned to someone. Another someone was picking up some bread and milk, figured they would wander across the street, and saw the sparklies for themselves.

I was horrified. We are a solid day away from finishing up the Christmas magic, so I was all sorts of embarrassed that anyone would be judging my skills based on so little actually being done. Apparently, my idea of "hardly any lights are up yet" is someone else's idea of "holy smokes, look at all those lights." And so the conversation went. At one point, someone asked me when this whole thing started. Were my parents crazy, too? Or, is this a new disease?

I didn't get it from my parents. My Dad enjoyed decorating outdoors when I was a kid, but I found the practice to be absolutely ridiculous given the whole -20 degrees in the dead of winter in North Dakota thing. In fact, I went out of my way to sabotage his decorating. When I was 10, my Dad sent me onto the roof (in January, people, in North Dakota) to help take down the four foot tall plastic Santa that was residing up there. I hated that Santa. I hated how tacky he looked. I hated the stupid tire that was used to weigh him down and keep him from blowing away. Mostly, I hated the stupid grin on his face. So I did what any self respecting 10-year old would do--I threw him off the roof. Guess what happens to cheap plastic when it's frozen to -20 degrees then thrown to the ground, one story below? Ka-blooey! (Shhh . . . don't tell my Dad. He still thinks it was an accidental death rather than a homicide.)

I think the disease first began to creep into my being when I lived in Spain. I spent my 17th Christmas there, immersed in a culture that does a much better job of remembering the true meaning of the season. I don't think it matters whether or not a person believes in the religious origins, you will have no choice but to be amazed by the parades, belens (incredibly detailed and often life-sized nativity scenes), foods, and celebrations. In my mind, there was just one thing missing--snow. It was a rough life I led at the time; I was on the Mediterranean coast suffering through 60 degree weather. I compensated for the lack of snow by cutting out dozens of paper snowflakes and hanging them from my bedroom ceiling (photos exist, but I couldn't tell you where they are). That was the first time I ever decorated for Christmas on my own accord.

I kept up my spiriting ways in college. I was the kid that had a tree in their dorm room, lights hanging from the ceiling, and made sure there were pretties in the hall. The Christmas that I spent working at Walt Disney World came complete with roommates that were a little crazy, too. We had an Itty-Bitty Christmas (you have to read that using the voice of Genie from Aladdin when he talks about the big, powerful genie and itty-bitty lamp). The three of us went to Target and bought the smallest trees we could find, decorated them all fancy, and set them in our living room window sill. Then we drug the whole complex into our apartment to see our Itty-Bitty Christmas. We were the only ones out of the 900+ college students there that had Christmas decorations in our apartment, and we made sure everybody knew it as we forced them to sing Christmas carols in our living room and pay homage to the Itty-Bitty display. (Why yes, we were awesome. Still are, if you ask me.)

Eventually I moved into an apartment of my very own and my boyfriend at the time was forced to come along for the ride. Ten years later, he's begrudgingly become my official light tester and roof decorator. But this year he's doing it with a smile because I have a new accomplice in my evil plans:

(Hey look--It's a rare Coal Kitty sighting!)