1. I finally got myself a little Christmas tree. How I got it was a process. I can’t fit a regular 6-foot where I live. Plus I don’t want all of the clean up so I wanted a small artificial one. Going out less than 2 weeks before Christmas to find a tree was a challenge. I ended up visiting several stores over a few hours. I was hell-bent on getting a tree that night so I ended up with a 3-foot artificial tree from Ocean State Job Lot. It’s small and thin but it fits exactly what I wanted. Think of it like Charlie Brown’s tree, except artificial.
2. I ordered copies of a Christmas card I made to give to family and some friends from Walgreens. Their website said they’d be ready in about two hours and I checked the box to get a text or email alert that they were ready. I went to the gym to kill time and then headed to Walgreens where my cards were ready. All good. The next day more than 24 hours after I placed my order I finally got the text from Walgreens telling me my cards were ready. I was tempted to go in and ask for them and play dumb but I decided to be a good boy.
3. I decided to get rid of my Nana’s old CRT television as I mentioned last week. It was still working and even had the remote. I left it by the road with a ‘free’ sign on it and figured it would be taken within hours. Wrong. I guess with flat-screen TVs being affordable nobody wants to lug a 50lb, 20-year-old CRT television home that they found on the side of the road. I gave it a few nights which consisted of me getting home from work after dark, hiding the television behind some bushes, wrapping it in a tarp and bungee cord, and then moving it back to the road before I left for work. In the end, I paid to take it to the dump, boooo.
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| This was basically what I was doing(AI) |
4. For Christmas gifts I ordered a few gift cards from a local movie theater in the town of Chatham, Massachusetts. It’s about 20 minutes from me. Being lazy I had them mailed to me. The interesting thing is that when the cards *finally* arrived they had a postmark from Providence, Rhode Island. That’s nearly an hour and a half from me. It must just be protocol but seriously there’s no way to send something local in the mail without it going 5x as far away from me? Oh well, I can’t complain since they at least arrived before Christmas.
5. One of the funniest and most wholesome things I’ve seen in a while happened late in a shift at my day job. A man came in with his daughter who was probably about 4. She was super cute and not shy at all. As they were checking out he mentioned that one of her new favorite things to do was laugh like a dolphin. She then proceeded to make loud dolphin noises (think Flipper for those old enough). The sounds echoed off the walls and I had to walk away to laugh. I didn’t want to encourage her. The dad seemed a bit embarrassed but he never said anything to her because I don’t think he wanted her to feel bad which was really nice.
6. During a walk around the supermarket there was Christmas music playing and holiday decorations everywhere. It was a very fun and festive atmosphere. I had the biggest smile as I walked around and I figured a lot of people assumed I was enjoying the holiday season. I didn’t want to ruin the illusion but little did they know I was so happy because I found the horseradish sauce I wanted. It’s not as magical as the holidays but I’d be happy with it under my tree.
Yay, horseradish sauce!
7. We got the first snowfall of the season on Cape Cod. I’m not as big of a fan of snow as I was when I was a kid but the first snow is always fun. I grabbed my camera and headed out. I stopped at one particular spot in Dennis, the next town over. The photos and video were great but the roads got bad fast. Driving a Toyota Corolla means more than a little snow makes it a bad time. The last mile or so of my drive home saw me barely able to get to 20 mph as the roads were packed with slushy snow. My traction control light was on almost nonstop. As much as I loved the photos I was glad to get home in one piece.
8. My sister Ashley has a dog named Buddha. He’s a mix of a lot of things but looks mostly like a fluffier German shepherd. A fun fact is that he will not sit on any couch with her. In fact, he will get off the couch if she tries to sit with him. I say this because he goes out of his way to sit with me on the couch at my mom’s. This week not only did he lie down next to me but he fell asleep. To top it off he let me rest my arm on him like a big old rug. It shocked my mom and sister mostly because if she tried to sit next to him and pet him he’d walk away. She says it’s because he’s suspicious of her that she’s not petting him but checking for problems because she’s his parent.
9. A recent thing I’ve noticed on social media, more specifically Threads, is an influx of polite bots. They’re either bots or incredibly stupid people. I’d like to think bots. For example, I went and got a nice video of a church in the falling snow. There were wreaths, a manger scene, and a decorated Christmas tree under a gazebo. A comment on the video mentioned nice ‘traditional religious decorations.’ The kicker was when they asked if I had built them myself. Did I build the church and gazebo? Another one a few weeks back asked if I had built the boat I got a video of that had a small Christmas tree in it. Mind you I put a caption of where I was and what I was filming and the comments basically reworded my caption into question form. I’m hopeful these are bots because if it’s real people I mean wow stupid times a million.
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| Someone asked if I built all of this. |
10. As Christmas draws near I am back to debating whether I should bother wrapping gifts or use bags. There was a time for a few years when I’d pile presents for the family into one big bag and hand them out because I just didn’t want to spend the time to wrap them. I guess I figure that the wrapping paper is wasted energy since very very rarely in my life have I ever heard someone rave about a gift wrapping job. That being said I do have my wrapping paper and tape ready so I guess I’ve answered my own question.
