And So It Begins

We watched Rudolph tonight and somehow, that always sets my cruise control on "Christmas." I suppose it loses something now that you can own it on DVD and watch it whenever you want. I remember the agony of missing the TV special once or twice when I was a kid - 'cause that was it. You were going to have to wait another year to see it. But the Abominable Snowman always scared me a little bit. I always hoped that somehow, this year, Clarice and Rudolph's parents would avoid that monster altogether so Rudolph would never endanger himself in an attempt to save them.
I've also been tuning in to the Christmas music on the radio. This is a little late for me as I usually begin sneaking a little Christmas into my music diet in August. Mind you, only once or twice....then I put it away until December. Okay, November. Anyway, those stations that you hear played in offices and lobbies start running their music right after Thanksgiving. And I like it, mostly. But I can only hear John & Yoko sing "so this is Christmas" so many times (like, once) or listen to Whitney Houston add so many extra notes to, well, every Christmas song she did before I'm over them. But Bing Crosby singing "Silver Bells" never seems to get old to me. And Gene Autry singing "Here Comes Santa Claus" always makes me laugh. I love when he sings that "Santa knows we're all God's children, that makes everything right." What in the world? Then he finishes it off with "Let's give thanks to the Lord above 'cause Santa Claus comes tonight." That really cracks me up! No wonder we're all confused about the whole Jesus/Santa thing.
So, I also have a very festive red nose. Emma brought some little germies home for the holiday week and just as she recovered and I thought the rest of us were out of the woods (that'd be last night), they took hold of me. It's nothing serious, mind you, but the first time I've had to really medicate myself this cold and flu season. The last time I had sniffles (was that a couple of weeks ago?) seemed to have just been allergies or something super-mild.
Here's my cute, cute, house and the reindeer:




So, sniffle-sniff, I'm off to bed now. Hopefully, visions of sugar plums will be dancing in my head from here on out. Maybe I'll even Christmas up the ol' blog here soon.....

DAILY BLISS: driving by the bread factory today, mid-bake