Boy am I Full of...ummm...Holiday Cheer! Yea, That's it.

Happy RamaHanuKwansMas everybody! If you've been reading Carlene's blog as of late (I know you haven't been reading mine, so don't bother pretending), you may know a little bit about why my Christmas spirit is flagging this year. I honestly cannot say why that is, but I sure haven't been feeling festive about this year's festivities.

In the first week of December Carlene and I were debating about whether or not we were going to put up our plastic Christmas tree this year. We debated until it was pretty much too late to do anything about it. Sure, everybody needs a Christmas tree, but maybe we didn't want to put out all the effort it was going to take to put it up. On our first Christmas together we found out I am allergic to whatever kind of tree it was we got that year. Because of that, and the fact that we don't really have any type of Christmas tree transporting vehicle, we decided to throw some money at Home Depot and procure for ourselves a real fake synthetic artificial almost lifelike Christmas tree. Actually, once it's up it looks really nice. It's the getting it up that made us decide not to do it this time.

The first time we put it up, it probably took us between 3 and 5 hours to assemble it. That does not include decorating the darn thing, either. Even with practice, assembling and decorating it is a weekend-long affair. Since our holiday goodwill was significantly withered by mid-December, it didn't take us long to decide that we didn't want to go through all the trouble, only to have to undo the mess in two weeks. So this year we are treeless. And I think we are fine with it so far (I am at least. You'll have to ask Carlene).

Not long after we decided that this year would be a fir-free Christmas, I made a joke about putting up a Festivus Pole. In case you don't remember Festivus, watch this video, which explains the origins and purpose of the "Festivus for the Rest of Us." For ideas on how to celebrate Festivus, or to order a Pole of your own, click here. If we went with a Festivus Pole, instead of an entire weekend of assembling, decorating, and mentally swearing like a wounded pirate we could have our pole up and ready to rock in less time than it takes to curse the person who translated our tree assembly directions from Swahili. I'm sold!

Needless to say, the Festivus Pole never got any traction at our house. How well would it do at yours? Vote in my poll (not pole) to tell me. I'll save the grievances for another post.