Hey Baby It's Cold Outside

I am done Christmas shopping. Not that I mind Christmas shopping... I actually like it quite a lot. I'm often trapped in my 8x20 foot studio, battling the demons of art and design by myself. So spending time with the huddled masses of humanity is kind of fun. Yeah, I'm sick, I know.

There's still Christmas stuff to do. I have to prep Ice Castle Zahler for the Christmas Eve festivities, and order the annual Christmas pizzas from The Pizza Market. I've got kids and adults of all ages, vegan and not, so the cook-them-yourself pizzas are always a good solution. We can get some exotic pizzas and some more traditional ones, and everyone's happy. Then my Mom puts together UN-sized packages of appetizers and drinks that land on my doorstep over the next week or two. Food's not a problem for these events.

I broke up my wrapping chores a little more than usual, so no wrapping to Love Actually as per usual. The second wave of presents should be showing up from Amazon, and I bought the last couple of toys for the kids, so later this week I should be getting that done.

And I'm starting to play some Christmas music, which I tend to avoid as long as I can. I guess now I'm ready to be in the Christmas spirit. I can't recommend the Ally McBeal Christmas Album enough. I'd give it a high recommendation just for Robert Downey Jr.'s heartwrenching version of The River, let alone the other great Christmas tunes on it. I dig Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas is You for a bunch of reasons, sentimental and musical. It's a Christmas song that has that right amount of cheesiness to make it work. And there's James Taylor's Christmas Album, which is pretty good too.

Okay, that's my spirit of Christmas contribution for the day. I think I'll try to do a page of Love and Capes next.