DD Daughter and Me With Santa - 1980 (the year DD Daughter refused to have anything to do with sitting on Santa's lap)

Word of the Day

Dracosaurus - 1. A fictional, flightless dragon native to other universes. 2. The dinosaur from which mythological dragons descended.

I'm beginning to feel like my life has become one of those Christmas calendars with all the little doors that you open, one each day, until Christmas morning. I'm opening the little door marked "3" today...as soon as I can find the door. It's never easy to find the right door. I remember that my children would often sneak and open all the doors ahead of time. Chocolate. I suppose that I'd have every door open now too, despite my legendary self-control...cough, cough...if there was a bit of chocolate behind every door but such is sadly not the case.

At least I think I know what is behind Door #3 in my Christmas calendar. My editor (HTP) helped me get my Christmas letter edited and printed up despite numerous problems with our printers. I found the bag of Christmas cards that I purchased last year after Christmas stuck (stored) in the back of my closet. The labels are all printed up and ready to go. And...I found out, after checking my address label list that I didn't buy enough postage stamps when I was at the post office the other day. Somehow I never seem to be able to keep an accurate estimate of how many people I plan to send Christmas cards to in my head when I buy Christmas cards or when I print out Christmas letters or when I purchase Christmas stamps at the post office.

My Christmas card list tends to expand and contract. However, somehow that list always seems to expand more than contract. I remember the first year that I wrote and sent out a Christmas letter. I used an old Christmas letter that my Dad wrote as a guide. With only me, HTP, and DD Daughter in our new little family, my letter was a lot shorter than the letter my Dad wrote each year. My first Christmas letter was short. Pithy? HTP and I had been married for less than a year and even though our lives were full to bursting that first year...there really wasn't too much to write about. As for our Christmas Card list, I based it on the address list we'd compiled for our wedding invitations. There weren't all that many people on my list. Friends and relatives from both sides of our little family. I guess it always comes as a bit of surprise to see how that list has changed and grown over the years.

I'll be heading off to the post office after breakfast. I need more stamps.

Murphyism of the Day

Dick's Lemma

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

Noteworthy Quote of the Day

Genius might be described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds.

- Samuel Butler (1835 - 1902)