Yes, I have memories of one of my elementary school teachers trying in vain to scrape the fake snow drifts she'd sprayed on the window of the classroom door. I remember the horrible smell of that stuff as well. My husband has a lot of the gifts purchased already. He's handy to have around.
Mine is, too, along w/ the wreath on the front door. My few other decorations will be done by the second Sunday. And I always keep everything up until mid-January, because part of my family was Russian Orthodox and celebrated Christmas on January 7. Needless to say, when I was a kid, I loved having two Christmases.
I got some USB Christmas star lights from poundland (I'm so upper crust) today. They're draped along the top of my 24" monitor.
My guess is that those Poundland lights aren't much, if any, different from the ones you can get in places like B&Q. Mind you, it takes a brave person to venture into Poundland on a good day, never mind amongst the Christmas shoppers.
Grr... so since this last post, I broke my usual routine by deciding to get my closest friend something cool I saw on eBay. Damn, I really should never have deviated from my usual disregard for personal preference. The seller sent the wrong item in the mail and now I'm waiting to hear back as to whether they can locate who they sent my item too. No-one's worth this kind of bother! Repeat after me: wine or chocs, wine or chocs, wine or chocs...
When my husband and I went to town this morning we purchased a few more Christmas carol CDs, including the one Annie Lennox just released. It's brilliant and I recommend it if you like Lennox and/or traditional carols. What with the purchases I made earlier today I think I've almost finished my Christmas shopping. Bliss! I'll have to get started on writing and sending the international cards soon, though, and that's my downfall. I'm a procrastinator and, almost every year, I'm not sure if any cards I send will arrive at their destination before the 25th. Is anyone the unfortunate recipient of one of those yearly Our-Perfect-Family's-Achievements-This-Year barf letters? My parents used to be plagued by them in the '70s and '80s from old neighbours and my dad's colleagues. The last one I received was a few years ago, and what made it worse was that I only knew this woman through an online group and had no idea who the hell all those people mentioned in her form letter actually were. It swiftly ended up where it belonged...in the fireplace.
Not in the last couple years, thank goodness. It seems like it was the most boring people who wrote the most excruciatingly detailed ones.
I'm at the "oh, God, how long before I really do have to give this some serious consideration" stage.
I am sad that i am much too busy to completely dive into the christmas decorating and baking phase. But on sunday it is the first advent over here so there shall be something goin on by then.