Okay, NOW it's Christmastime

I still firmly believe that Christmas should start after Thanksgiving. I'm old-fashioned that way.

(I also believe that politicians should cut their campaigning times in half. I don't need to be answering phone polls about who's my favorite candidate a year and a half before Inauguration Day. All the primaries should be in June, not a day sooner, and campaign ads should start around March or April.)

I am grateful to my husband for springing into action and getting 2/3 of the gift shopping done already. That's amazing. Now I just need to drag myself to the store and start carrying my end of the burden. It won't be so bad now that I know we've got the holidays under control. If it were all up to me - and this has happened in the past - not all presents would be purchased in time and some relatives wouldn't be opening any gifts from me.

Additionally, the tree went up this weekend, and we have now commenced chasing AwesomeCloud around with the camera trying to get the perfect shot for the photo-card. Fortunately, we already have one photo that's a contender. I meant to post some of the duds to show you, like the picture of Cloud reaching out to Ban Lu just as Ban Lu decided to be skittish and turn into a blur. But I'm too lazy to go downstairs and get the camera.

Okay, here at least is Ban Lu by himself, before getting skittish. Someday I want to get a picture showing off how extraordinarily big he is, with incredibly long legs. He looks like he's half serval.