Call me a Scrooge if you will but I’ve never been much of a "Yippee it’s Christmas!" guy.  Not sure why that is, but it has always been the case.  Luckily for the last 15 years I’ve been balanced out by my wife who usually gets into the spirit about 2-3 weeks before Christmas.  That means our tree is usually begrudgingly wrestled into place by yours truly 5-8 working days before Christmas.  If I’m feeling generous I’ll also do the lights and then the kids and Celeste will take care of decking it out as they listen to cheesy Christmas songs while I find something useful to do around the house, like watching a football game.

This year’s been different because Celeste hasn’t been infected with the spirit of the season either.  I’m not sure if it’s stress from work, the unseasonably warm weather, or the lack of peace on Earth but for whatever reason it’s been a very businesslike holiday season in our house, which means there hasn’t been a push to get the tree up this year.  Thankfully our kids are now old enough to take matters into their own hands and the result is that my oldest, Michael, wrestled the tree into place as I was working in my office last night.  By the time I wound things up at seven I came down the stairs to find the tree up and fully decorated.

Do I feel guilty?  Heck no! I’m elated that I didn’t have to do my normal back breaking, cursing routine as I tried for the 85th time to get the tree to stand up straight.  How festive is that anyway?  Now that I know that I’m not needed for the tree torture I think I might actually start looking forward to Christmas a little sooner.

Or not.  As Esbee pointed out people start getting surly around this time of year and I still have shopping to do.  Bah, humbug.