It's beginning to look a lot like............September.

The high today is 83 degrees. I'm not even kidding. If this were September or May, I'd be so excited about the perfect weather. Blue skies, great temps....but it's November 12. In just 43 days we will be waking up to open Christmas gifts in front of the tree in our pjs. I guess the hopes for a white Christmas this year are gone. It's not that we ever have that great a chance at having snow. Generally if we're going to get snow around here it's not until January/February and then it only lasts a few hours, maybe a full day. Still a tiny part of me hopes each year that Christmas day will at least in a small way resemble the movies.

I am quite positive that this stupid weather pattern is the cause of my lack of Christmas spirit so far this year. Every year one of the local stations changes their format from regular music to Christmas. Every year I am SO excited when this change occurs and usually it can't come early enough for me. I love Christmas music! They've already made the format flip for 2007, sometime around a week ago, which I think is a lot earlier than normal but usually I would not have cared. I can't even bring myself to listen yet. (That's almost accurate - I did pause on the dial the other day to listen to a Trans-Siberian Orchestra track before moving on to the next station.) There's something really stupid about listening to Bing Crosby sing "White Christmas" over the sound of the wind coming through my open sunroof.

If it would just get cooler, only a little bit, I might be happier. I'm not asking for 30 degrees. I'm not even hoping for 40. But geez, at least drop to 60 degrees on a consistent basis. I can't even wear a long sleeve shirt - it's too hot! While I have flat -out refused to continue to wear sandals and flip-flops, I could if I really wanted to. But I adhere to the rule that sandals and flip-flops should be put away by October 1 and should not come back out in the open until March at the earliest.

This morning Lisa and I put up a small silver Christmas tree in our office. She went crazy last week and bought a 3 or 4' tree and a bunch of bright colored ornaments...pink, purple, bue, green, red, orange...really funky colors. It's so cute! I was put in charge of putting it up but so far had not, so this morning she started the process and I jumped in to help her. It looks really cute and kind of makes me want to buy all new Christmas decorations because the colors are adorable. I guess this small step helped me a tiny bit get into the spirit of things. I'm still not totally feeling it yet.

I normally wander through the Christmas decorations at Wal-Mart and Hobby Lobby, etc during this time of year looking at all the stuff I want to buy. I started to the other day, and I took one look at some big fat santa in his big red coat and got disgusted at the thought that he really needs to be wearing a red t-shirt and bermuda shorts. So I walked away.

I have done some Christmas shopping though, so I'm not totally behind. I don't like people who wait until the last minute so no matter how bah-humbug I might be feeling this year I will not wait to do my shopping. I hope to be finished by December 1.