I have three more work days and then I’m on vacation until the new year. Technically, I’m taking a week and a half off and the other week and a half is the holiday break we normally get each year. I’ve been working hard at getting the number of tickets in my queue at work down to an absolute minimum (currently 3 tickets are pending). Outside of work I finally finished decorating the Christmas tree last Sunday. The tree had been up for a couple of weeks, but I had bought a couple of new LED light strings — I finally found some that have the occasional twinkle bulb on them — and it wasn’t quite enough to wrap the whole tree. So I went out the next weekend and bought a couple more. The final result looks like this:

O’ Christmas Tree! O’ Christmas Tree! How long it took to finish!

Yes, I was watching the Charlie Brown Christmas special as I decorated the tree. We’re in a much smaller apartment this year so it’s a little tight squeezing past the tree to get the stairs to the second floor, but it works. It didn’t take long for the cats to rediscover the joy of laying underneath it.

Jasper was the first to claim the prized sleeping spot.

We also went shopping for a new wreath for the front door as our old one clashes with the door’s current color. Additionally, we bought a replacement solar light to hang off the shepard’s hook in the front yard. It came with its own, smaller, hook and we were trying to decide what to do with it. We chose to do something we had talked about many times previously and bought a small bird feeder and a small bag of wild bird seed and set up a Kitty TV outside the door wall.

So far no birds, but we expect they’ll discover it soon. We’ll probably know when the cats start trying to claw their way through the window.

As of this point in time we’ve completed all our Christmas shopping save for one nephew. Several of the packages are still in transit which is why the tree is looking a little bare at the moment, but they should arrive shortly and join the pile.

I’m really looking forward to having three weeks with nothing in particular to have to do other than visit family and friends. I plan to take full advantage of it by being lazy as hell and generally enjoying the shit out of it.