It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...sort of.

Oh how I love Christmas time. The leaves are all green. Average temperature on "cold" days is 55-60 degrees. Bright sunshine and cloudless skies. Sounds like Christmas to me! Wait a minute... What is wrong with this place. Everyone is wearing sweaters and buying coats and warm clothes at the store because it's getting "cold" out. Crazy Texans. This isn't cold. I just got back from Boston where I legitimately needed my pea coat and hat for just a few days and now they're telling me how cold it is here in Austin, Texas. Sorry folks. It may be December, but this is not real winter weather.

I was watching the news last week and the news lady was announcing a parade downtown. It was 58 degrees at the time and the high for the day was expected to be 75. She was wearing a full length wool coat, gloves, scarf, and beanie and telling people that if they were going to attend the parade they had better come bundled up because it was quite cold out. Um, what? I'm not a huge fan of cold weather. I don't love being cold. But now that it's Christmas time I really miss a little frost on my windshield and a bit of chill in the air. It would be nice to see some snow. It just feels more like the holidays when you get to bundle up in fun winter accessories, when your car slips a little on the way out of the drive way and when you drink a mug of hot cocoa because you're truly cold, not just because you like hot cocoa.

Oh well, I am still excited for Christmas. It helps to work in a store because the retail world starts celebrating Christmas much earlier than the rest of the world and I, personally, love it! This is what our store has looked like since the day after Halloween.

These window displays are so much fun. The sledders sled down the hill and the little ice skaters skate around the pond all day long. We have to clean off the windows every morning because of all of the little finger and face prints that appear on the glass. We used to have a little train that circled one of the trees. It was just too tempting for little fingers and it lasted just two days before it was broken.


I also love the Christmas music in our store. We usually have really fun old music from Julie Andrews in Cinderella to Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra so I knew the Christmas music was going to be right up my alley. I was correct. The Christmas music is so fun and classy. We have lots of Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, a little Carpenters and other such goodies. When it's slow I just walk around and sing along with all of the Christmas music.

Glenn and I put up our Christmas tree right after we got back from Thanksgiving. I love Christmas time! It just makes me happy to see the decorations and lights and fun festive things. Even if it is technically summer weather outside.