Spooky Holidays 2011/12

[A Cousin]

I'm a repeat offender in the holiday thread, but I'll jump in anyway!

First tradition - house decorating.

I spent a good portion of last weekend decorating the house. Our street does a really nice and reasonably tasteful little "Festival of Lights." There is a little good-natured ribbing that goes on for whoever gets theirs up first every year. I told myself that I wouldn't turn it on until next weekend, but caved in pretty quickly on that one.

Second tradition - Holiday specials.

The holiday TV specials kicked off last night with the airing of A Charlie Brown Christmas and a *new* Prep &v Landing, so the kids are tired at school for a couple days a week. I'm kind of a sucker for these programmes...

Third tradition - shopping.

*sigh!* I hate shopping. This is not a good time of year for people like me. (Bah-freakin'-humbug!) However, if I wait until the last moment, it only makes it worse, so I am trying to do as much as I can on-line this year.

Fourth Tradition - donating.

Since we like to take a pantheistic view of the winter holidays, we try to impart a positive and altruistic meaning to our children through donating what we can. So far this year, we have donated a lot of food to food banks. (Mostly left over food we purchased when "Hurricane" Irene was heading our way.) We also donated old towels to the local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.