I don't have to dream of a white Christmas, because I've been shoveling the white stuff non-stop for the past week or so. Our winter so far (Wait...it hasn't even officially started yet!) has consisted of a storm ever other day or so. In fact, I just came inside from clearing off the the cars, the dooryard, and the driveway. I'm (almost) beginning to see why folks head to Florida for the winter.

The nice thing about yesterday's snow was that it had a fair amount of moisture in it, so it stuck to everything. Boy, there were some beautiful trees in peoples' yards last night, all lit up with several inches of crystalline white on top of the everything.

Despite the yard work (which has aggravated the begeebers out of my elbow), these scenes have really put me into the spirit of the season. If there's a better soundtrack for Christmas than Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas, I sure can't think of one. Heck, sometimes I listen to it in the middle of July when it gets too hot and I'm pining for a little snow (and of course, not remembering the shoveling, snow blowing, etc).

So now I'm finally ready. Ready for going out an cutting down a tree. Ready for digging the decorations out of the closet (not sure which closet though). Ready for making a mountain of pierogi on Christmas eve. Ready for cooking Christmas dinner. Ready for too much egg nog. Ready for that A Christmas Story marathon. Ready for It's a Wonderful Life. Ready for listening to the collection of Springsteen-performed Christmas tunes that I downloaded a couple of days ago found in a snowbank.

Maybe I'll even start shopping.

Happy holidays everybody!