Two out of three people in the house are sick (nasty cold - runny nose, sore throat, the works). Who isn't sick? That would be DH, the one who has the most contact with other people. Funny, don't you think? El Burrito is off his feed, but not grumpy otherwise. Not too fond of the nose-sucking, but until he learns to blow, that's the way it'll be.
Since November is almost over (holy fishsticks, where did the year go?), it's time to start planning for Christmas. Oy. My brain hurts just thinking about it.
First, there's the whole gift shopping thing. We've got maybe a dozen people to buy for, I think. There are 5 on DH's side - parents, the only uncle, and two siblings (they draw names at Thanksgiving - small pool, since one brother doesn't participate for some reason, although their kids get a pile from the grandparents). On my side, we shop for 6 - parents, my brother and sister, brother-in-law, and probable-future-sister-in-law. And possibly my grandparents, although they're wicked-hard to buy for and we've always been at the bottom of their priority list. I'm pretty sure that our gifts to them usually ended up in their yard sale, but I can't prove it. We try to get them food-type gifts now.
El Burrito is the easiest person to buy for so far. We've already got a box of stuff for him, thanks to a couple of sales at Amazon. DH is mostly the opposite. The big Farscape stack was my best idea, and now I've got no clue for Xmas. It would be easier if his birthday were a few months earlier. As it is, I've got a month between birthday and Xmas to come up with a new idea.
DH's family usually does lists, and MIL likes to have them by Turkey Day. However, the two people that we drew? No lists yet. One brother has mentioned a few CDs lately, so I took advantage of some Amazon sales, but the other one is going to be a crapshoot. He may just get Dockers if he doesn't fork over a list soon, and if he doesn't like it, it's his own fault. My family doesn't do lists usually, and my parents are impossible to buy for anyway. Dad's got the habit of buying what he needs when he needs it, so I usually get my brother to give us some ideas. Usually tools, although we're running out of things he can use but doesn't have yet. Mom is worse, because we're trying not to contribute to the clutter problem (she's a packrat of high degree). And this year, we've got Probable Future Sister-in-Law, who I know zilch about. At least my sister is easy to buy for - I usually renew her subscriptions to Frommer's Budget Travel and National Geographic, plus a few other things. And Brother-in-Law likes cars, so that gives us plenty of options.
Then there's the whole methodology issue. I like to come up with ideas, find it, and buy it. DH likes to wait for inspiration to hit, usually while he's at the mall the week before Christmas (joy joy). This year, I think we'll have to let El Burrito spend an afternoon with his grandma while we shop.
Decorating is a whole other thing, especially since I've still got the Halloween decorations up. Most of our decorations are in a tub somewhere, probably in storage. We got a nice fake tree when the local K-mart closed a few years back, and used it at least once, but it was the first thing we put in our "attic" storage, and since the storage locker is packed full, we won't be seeing the tree again until we move. (I swore we'd be in a house by now so I could decorate, but oh well.) Until then, we're making do with a 3-foot fiber optic tree from Dollar General's post-Christmas clearance. It's pretty, but you can't fit a lot of packages under it. :) It's an improvement, size-wise, over the redwood sapling from earlier years, though. One gift hid the whole tree.
And with El Burrito mobile this year, there's no telling how the tree will fare, or if he'll get a big kick out of pulling the lights down (they get suction-cupped to the door windows).
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