Christmas Spirit...thanks for coming

I am FINALLY in the Christmas spirit, officially.

Last night I decided to dig through my guest bedroom closet to find my medium sized fake Christmas tree. Fake, you ask? Yes. I know...it's not the same...you're right. But, when you work 12 hours a day, and are hardly home on the weekends, plus home for a week for Christmas, you would agree that a fake tree is better than a burnt-down home. I still need to find the ornaments and other decorations to hand. I also put a small, already-lit tree on my bar overlooking my kitchen and den. It's perfect!

Today at work, we took an hour out to build some christmas themed bookshelves for kids in need. This week we've built over 3000! It was so fun....the room smelled like Christmas. It was decorated with a tree and light and lots of other holiday decor. Then, in the (loud) background we had some fun Christmas music playing.

We also had our IPR (Inventory Planning & Replenishment) department Christmas party today. It's a bit early, and lame to have it during the day if you ask me...but that's Home Depot for you. I'm used to going to someone's house or to a nice restaurant with the team, and exchanging real presents. Not so here. I'll deal. BUT, we did eat really yummy (thanksgiving-ish) food for lunch, which later almost put me in a coma at work. And we had an elephant gift exchange. At the end, they asked us to look under our chair for numbers. I had one! Although i was last, number 18, I was able to pick from the blow-up, LED lit, christmas decorations. I was kinda bummed, because being last there was nothing left. Now, after a few hours, my treats have grown on me. I got an LED gingerbread woman, which is now hanging on the side of my cube with an orange Home Depot apron. And I also got a tipsy, topsy, Dr-Suess-looking lit set of boxes. It's actually super cute.

I'm so truly happy toady. No, joyous. That's what the Christmas holiday brings for me. Joy. I really contemplate often how thankful I am for my circumstances, friends, job, family etc. And I'm thankful that everyone else is thankful and normally in a sweet mood (except for at a mall, lol).

Merry Christmas! It's not too far away anymore.