Holiday Froofraw

I love this season. I love Christmas, or the idea of it and the tree and the decorations and the gifting and the baking, even though I'm an athiest. But every year, I procrastinate and end up spending money I don't really have (plastic, pay for it later, the American way). This year was going to be different. And it is. I started knitting gifts in the summer. I'm still knitting away, and sent 6 packages today. I still managed to procrastinate the sending until the very last possible minute. We did get a real tree this year. And yes, I know it's not environmentally correct, but it's grown on a farm, and we'll recycle it. It's the first in three years, since we adopted Sasha. We hoped that she would be a mature enough cat at three years old and that she wouldn't want to climb in, or eat, or play with all the ornaments on the tree. She's been very good so far, except that I can't put bows or ribbons on presents. I hate it that most of my family is at least 1,500 miles away, but I can watch a video of my cousin John's daughter, Erin on YouTube singing a Christmas jingle in order to win a contest sponsored by Target and TJMaxx. Sadly, I haven't met her..I'm in Florida and they're in California. She's lovely. I hope she wins.

Here are pictures of our winter solstice Xmas tree and Sasha and festive holiday den: