Getting into the spirit

I got our Christmas letter written yesterday and managed to get over 30 envelopes stuffed and addressed before I ran out of printer paper. I'll be making a run to Office Depot for that today, I suppose. I think I have at least 30 more to do.

Last night, a group of women from church rented out a trolley for a driving tour of Christmas lights around town. We wound up in some VERY nice neighborhoods (we drove past one house on the market for $12.5 million) and saw some beautiful displays. Then there were some displays that were just too much.... One family had their entire front and side yard full of decorations: Disney, Rudolph-themed, Grinch-themed, nativity, toy soldiers, elves... every character ever associated with Christmas. They even came outside dressed as Santa, Mrs. Claus, Rudolph, and the "head elf." I say "Pick a theme and stick with it." I mentioned this to my friend Kayla and she agreed, saying that she called this type of decorating, "Christmas Barf." How apropos. I have stolen her phrase and will continue to use it for years to come.

In other news, Emily (my oldest) spent way too much time last night working on updating our old webpages over on Geocities. She is teaching herself HTML by way of using the old page as a template and changing things here and there... learning what works and what doesn't. If she can't figure it out, she calls me in to find out what is holding things up. I can usually find the answer. Anyhow, in return for being allowed on my computer (her brother was using theirs), she promised not to get on a computer at all today. If she can do it, it will be a miracle.