The tree is up! Yippee! I’m feeling pretty festive now that the hardest work is over. Dontcha’ just hate putting up the tree? I know it’s supposed to be fun, but it feels too much like work for me to enjoy the process. First you have to clean — then you drag everything in the house and clean again. Then you realize you’re missing a bunch of stuff that you had last year, so you go back out and dig, find the treasures and bring them in, and then you …

I always think that I’ll do better ‘this year’ when it comes to my system of storing Christmas decorations. But I’m so ready to get my home back to normal that right after the holiday (yes, sometimes even Christmas night), I’m packing away the Christmas memories. Last year was no exception. As I look at ornaments haphazardly thrown into one big box I again proclaim, “I’m going to do better this year!”
Sorting through the ornaments collected throughout the years always brings a smile — all the ‘little Ben’ handmade items …

Santa Clause made an early stop in Indy to visit my son…

吠え声 吠え声 is this Mexican dog’s name — Japanese for ‘bark bark’ and it’s pronounced Wan Wan (or something like that).

Today is Black Friday — dubbed as such to mark the shopping day that normally puts retail businesses in the black with increased consumer spending for the Christmas holiday. CNN states that holiday sales can account for as much as 50% of merchant’s annual profits and sales — and how many people have you already heard say, “Christmas is going to be lean at our house this year”? I’ve said it myself…
I’m not venturing out today — and with the spending lockdown that has already put several retailers into bankruptcy …