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Every day since November I have been updating the small “____ Days ‘Til Christmas” chalkboard in my kitchen. I get really excited as we approach 15, and then 10 days ’til Christmas. But this morning I had to change it to 2. Just two days, and I started to feel it…I started slipping into my anticipatory depression.

This is a phrase I have coined to describe the sense of impending doom I feel when Christmas gets too close, because as quickly as it comes, it will be over…and this deeply saddens me. Some of you may not get upset at all when you think about taking down all those magical decorations. Others of you might not worry about it until it’s actually happening, but I for some reason start to dread the end of this season before the day even arrives.

I dread coming home from Pittsburgh and knowing that I have to pack up all the garland, lights and poinsettia (there is a lot of poinsettia in my house), and that my floors won’t be covered in glitter (there is a lot of glitter in my house), and that I won’t be greeted by the smells of pine and cinnamon when I walk through the door (you guessed it, lots of scented stuff in my house).

I am fully aware that this is ridiculous but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s true! I will tell you one thing I can’t wait for…tomorrow night’s Christmas Eve Services at Northway Church! We have been doing Christmas Eve Weekend Services since Friday night, and it is an AMAZING service…from amazing performances to rockin instrumentals…there are few words to explain it until you’ve been there, so I will stick with “awesome.” Come see for yourself! 4 services left: 4:00 and 5:15 in Malta, 6:15 and 7:30 in Clifton Park!

My sister just told me to google Juicy Crittoure and I discovered hundreds of dollars worth of new ways to spoil Posh. Pink cashmere hoodies, heart-shaped dog beds, dog Pawfum, a Princess dog house and, yes, doggie Nail Pawlish (and Nail Pawlish remover). If not so cost prohibitive I would, without reservation, purchase several of these items for young Posh but unfortunately, I wouldn’t even buy myself (or anyone else for that matter) a $95 cashmere hoodie, so I fear that Posh won’t be getting one anytime soon. Besides, we already decided that Posh was only getting one gift this Christmas, which she actually got on Wednesday. Posh got spayed More of a gift to us really, and although we could have spent that money on a cashmere hoodie, nail Pawlish and some Pawfum, I think we made the right choice for the long run. However, if anyone out there is dying to purchase her an elaborate gift, the above photo is of one item actually called the “Posh Pooch Set” complete with dog coif fur conditioner, doggy brush, and dog shampooch.

As of right now, I have about 16 hours of work left before I take 12 consecutive days off. When was the last time I didn’t work for that long? Oh yeah, it was just about six months ago when I was gloriously and purposefully unemployed But it has been years since I had this kind of a break during the holidays!

I have been so busy with work and wrapping up this quarter that I have not been able to take advantage of one of my job’s inherent perks; that is, the sheer proximity of several of my accounts to Crossgates Mall and Colonie Center. But for the next two days I am working in Albany and I do not have lunch appointments, so I will utilize the time I cannot be working to put the finishing touches on my shopping!

Ironically, I did less planning this year and got more done. I did not go shopping on Black Friday, and I did not make lists of what I was going to get everyone. And yet, as of last week I had all but a couple of gifts purchased, wrapped, and nestled under my tree. Ok, I’m stretching the truth - they are not under my tree, they are in my coat closet, since beloved Posh (who I affectionately refer to as the Master of Destruction) would most certainly consume them if left unattended under the tree. But honestly, this has been an enjoyable and stress-free season. I am not sendint out Christmas cards, because I thought of that far too late, and I don’t really care! Nor am I having a huge party this year, again, for lack of time (and space), but I’m totally ok with it! I guess this will just be a low key Christmas, and that is just fine with me.

Having a snowday as an adult is every bit as good as having one as a kid. Actually, I might argue that it’s better. As an adult, very few things can make your universe shut down for a day and keep you cozy in your home with no one but the ones you love. We got dumped with what looks like 8 inches, give or take, and although it looks like the storm has passed, I guess it’s supposed to keep going until tomorrow morning. Dare I anticipate a second snowday? I’d be happy with one, but I certainly wouldn’t be disappointed with a second!

On today’s agenda:

• Eat a big breakfast
• Drink a lot of coffee
• Watch a movie
• Play with Posh
• Build a Fire
• Watch another movie and eat some more
• Nap

Sounds perfect.

There is a house in Ballston Spa that I pass on my way to…anywhere worthwhile. I never really noticed it before but they have a…um…very conspicuous display of Christmas decor. Everything from Mr & Mrs Claus to the Grinch, to the baby Jesus (and everything in between). Today, I was driving by extremely slowly due to the snow and poorly plowed roadways, and I noticed a small sign hanging from their mailbox: Wanted - Pinball Machine.

I will never be able to look at that house the same again, and I will always wonder what goes on in there.

• Christmas - for obvious reasons. I always dig Christmas, but this year I’ve kinda been slowing down. I passed on throwing a Christmas party because it was just too much work, and I have only been listening to about 50% Christmas music (with 80-90% being my usual average). But today I was in Price Chopper, of all places, and I heard the Christmas music playing in the background and it suddenly thrust me back into the Christmas Spirit. That doesn’t make much sense, but it’s the truth!
• Brooke Fraser - You have got to check her out. Amazing lyrics, beautiful voice, and a great message. What more could I ask? She is from New Zealand, and has been topping the Australian charts apparently. We found out about her because she sings for Hillsong United, and we do a lot of their music at church. She just started touring in the U.S., and we saw her in Boston last weekend at a tiny little venue where she was about 8 feet in front of me. It was pretty awesome and if she is famous in the U.S. someday I will be able to tell everyone how we ate dinner at the venue right as she finished up sound checking and then she sat down at a table next to us and we were the only people in the place and were all too chickened to go over and introduce ourselves to her until the place started to fill up and our opportunity had passed. How awesome are we.
• Larabar - I started eating these when I had my thyroid test and couldn’t have iodine for three weeks. Iodine is in seafood, baked goods, dairy, eggs, soy, iodized salt (duh), and almost every preservative widely used in the western world so Larabar really got me through. They are raw, they are gluten, dairy, soy, and everything else-free, and they have like 3 or 4 ingredients. Not quite as delicious as a good old fashioned Nutri-Grain (I used to live on those) but considering how good for you they are, they’re quite a find. I am gluten free right now for an undetermined amount of time so I’ll be consuming at least one Larabar a day until that changes. I can’t find them many places but there are always plenty at the Hannaford in Milton.

Well, they’re not bleeding but they are burning as I type this. Why? I am officially learning to play the guitar! I have been talking about how cool it would be if I could play the guitar for some time now, but hadn’t actually done anything about it. I recently told Brian I really wanted one for Christmas, but they are pretty pricey and we both wanted to make sure it would be a worthy investment before taking that plunge.

Fortunately, I have a lot of friends with guitars who were willing to let me borrow theirs to see if it would be. Tuesday night, we were at our very last (aww, tear) Northway Church Connection Group at Steve and Jenn’s house. My colleague, friend, and fellow connection group member Melissa has recently taken up the drums, and since hers are still en route to her house, she plays Steve’s whenever she gets a chance, so I wandered down to the basement to hear her jam and saw Steve’s guitar sitting down there. Such a lonely little Takamine, sitting in its case next to the well utilized drums. So I picked it up to see if I could remember any of what I picked up during the 2 month period in college that I tried to learn guitar.

I remembered two chords. Not great, but a start! So Steve taught me two more, and much to my delight it turns out you can play almost any song in the world with those 4 chords. Seriously, we hung out and sang anything from old school worship songs (Lord I Lift Your Name on High), to Brooke Fraser (check her out, for real, more on that later), to Beyonce (To the Left, To the Left) to my personal favorite, the Indigo Girls! It was a wonderful little impromptu sing a long. Thankfully, they did kind of sing a long and Steve played the drums so it was less obvious how atrocious my playing was.

After about 30 minutes, Brian was trying to pry my away from the guitar so we could head home and Steve said I could pack up the guitar and take it with me for a few days. YAY! I have been practicing diligently…at least 30 minutes a day. Since Tuesday I have accomplished the following:

• cut off all of the nails on my left hand
• broken one on my right hand from overly vigorous strumming
• gotten better at playing and singing at the same time…while standing up (the ultimate goal) 
• learned one song start to finish using tabs I looked up online, which involves more than the four basic chords I’d been relying on
• developed some pretty hard core callouses on my fingertips

My original goal was to spend three months learning, then spend three months start bringing the guitar to band practice and playing along during rehearsal, then spend another three playing during the actual worship set but not really be plugged in, then in Q4 of 08 play for real during a worship set. YAY! Of course this all hinges on me improving and Kevin allowing any of this to occur, but I think I can leverage the fact that he really wants a chick guitar player in the band to my advantage…muhahahaha. We shall see!

Since I got out of college, I have really missed one thing I took for granted since I was in grade school…BREAKS! Summer Break, Winter Break, Spring Break, you get the idea. All of a sudden you’re shoved into this working world where you get 10 vacation days a YEAR! What’s that about? Every year, I found myself planning out days off so that I would be able to take a healthy amount of them during Christmas.

Well my new company (and the pharmaceutical industry as a whole for that matter) considers themself closed between Christmas Eve and New Years Day, which means I get a pretty decent break, like the breaks of yore. 12 glorious days off of work. And the other change is that I cannot carry vacation days over to the next year, so I have to use them. Hence…I am home today! Taking a DAY OFF! The biggest item on the agenda today is doing some Christmas shopping, which already differentiates today from any other day this year (I have not bought ONE GIFT!)

I planned to start today by sleeping in, but I have learned that as I get older this becomes more and more difficult. I guess my mind turns on whether or not I drag myself out of bed, and makes it hard for me to stay asleep. Around 6:30 I heard some sort of delivery truck, and wondered if it was the garbage truck and if I’d forgotten to take out the garbage. No, that was yesterday, go back to bed. Then I wondered if Posh would wake up since I was sleeping in and I tried to listen for her bark over the sound of the fan in our room. Brian got up to let Posh out, so I could go back to sleep. Then, I woke up in a mini-panic thinking I was supposed to be doing something for work. No work today! GO BACK TO SLEEP! Then I started having a dream about being at work and one of my nicer doctors slamming his office door in my face. Odd.

Obviously I gave up and here I am. I think I will go practice my new hobby…playing the guitar…until I feel like getting showered and gettin’ my shop on. But not before I have a cup of coffee