Getting into the Christmas Spirit

First things first--and this is totally off topic--but when I was writing that title "Getting into the Christmas Spirit" I couldn't help but notice that when I typed the word spirit I said a cheer in my head to make sure I spelled it correctly... "S-P-I-R-I-T, spirit let's hear it!" You may be thinking I'm nuts, but I've noticed something in the past week or so. When you were young, and I'm talking about Kindergarten age... you probably learned little songs or rhymes to remember how to spell things such as the colors. Well, those have stuck with me over the years and I realized the other day that every time I spell words such as orange (I just did it) and together (and again), I am singing the song in my head! It's not that I am having difficulty spelling these words or anything, but it's that I honestly don't think I've ever spelled the words without the song... I just can't help it. Thank you Mrs. Mize (my Kindergarten teacher) because I've never had a problem spelling the word orange, and I still remember you teaching us the song! I guess my cheering days have transferred into spelling nuances as well!

Moving on! A couple of things have transpired lately that have made me realize it's nearly Christmas, and a few that have allowed Christmas to creep up on me without warning!

For starters, I'm still attending a high school football game every week (which, I'm sure you have noticed by now...). In all my life, I haven't been connected to a high school team that has made it this far in playoffs and continued to play into December. Because of that, I just have the mentality that I still will have a few weeks, almost a month to get things together for Christmas gifts.

The crazy thing is, the State game is next weekend. If Abilene High makes it through another week, they will play their final game of the season one day after they get out of school for Christmas break. Now, that's just nuts! This is almost year-round football since they started back in the Spring!

Lately it has been cold here.. really, really cold. It has snowed...

I appologize for the bad picture quality, I took this one quick for my parents with my phone as I was leaving to go to work, and it was COLD.

The temperatures for the past week or so have been COLD and the wind has been blowing unrelentingly. I meant to get the picture off of my weather on my phone yesterday, but this one is pretty similar..

I would like for you to notice the "feels like" temperature.. Yesterday I woke up and it said "Feels like 7." There is ice on the sides of every road and some people have forgotten to turn off their automatic sprinklers which makes even more.

We've gone to our first Christmas party of the year on Sunday night. It was the annual YoungLife Christmas party

This is all of the Abilene High Leaders! I love this team!

We have our next Christmas party tomorrow night and I will be sure to take more pictures, and hopefully we'll be having another Christmas party on the River Walk next week after winning the state championship!

And finally, I went and bought wrapping paper last night and started wrapping gifts while watching the best songs of the 90s with Brandon, which didn't take me long at all because I only had two to wrap. I am so far behind on gifts that I just realized I only have 15 days until Christmas and I have no idea what I'm going to do about it!

While I didn't take any pictures of the gifts all wrapped up, I did manage to make some use of a spare piece doomed for the trash...

So with that, I leave you. I'm sure you thought I was going to show pictures of our Christmas decorations in our house.. or maybe even our tree, but to be honest, we have none. You forget that we live in a tiny apartment, and a tree would take up enough space to really just be in the way, even a small one. And I did try to buy some lights and put a few up, if for no other reason than to better light our sidewalk at night, but then I realized that we have NO exterior outlets.. oh well!

My plan is to hit all of the after Christmas sales and buy all of our decor, lights, tree, ornament and everything for much cheaper with the hopes that maybe next year we'll be in a bigger place and I'll get to decorate.