Today, around noon, I pulled out all of my Christmas decorations. All 12 containers of them (no joke, check out the picture). And by 6pm, there were icicle lights and decorations on the sunporch, garland over the doorway, wreaths hanging on doors and walls, a lit 7-foot artificial tree, and assorted ornamentia on the mantel and windowsills and doorways throughout the house. I didn't get a lot else done today, but I got that much accomplished. And since my upcoming weekends will be pretty chaotic, I wanted to get that much progress made today. I can decorate the tree over the next few evenings, but working through the majority of it in a chunk of time like a Sunday afternoon will make a huge difference. And I can finish the other things--the gifts, the wrapping, the kitchen chores--any time this week. And I'm still thinking about a vacation day in the next week or two just for getting a lot of things done.

So to rest after such efforts, I sat down and watched a movie about another Bradley alumni, Brad Cohen. If you haven't heard his story, it's the story of his life with Tourette's syndrome and his career as a teacher. Not only did he write a book called "Front of the Class" but they made a movie of it and it just aired on CBS (sponsored by Hallmark). It was really a great story about acceptance and understanding, which is a message that this world needs all through the year, but I'm glad they made it part of their December lineup.