Phew! Where does the time go?

So close to the end of the year. How did that happen already?

I'm not ready for Christmas at all, and I'm facing an after work shopping trip. Not going to be fun, I don't think. The last Friday night before Christmas is not a good time to be out in the retail world. :D But thanks to some shrewd financial shuffling, some quasi irresponsible fiscal planning and a large dose of "It's Christmas, so damn the torpedoes!" attitude, Bear and I managed to shake loose some Christmas budget at the last minute. Lol, so no stress at all-just go and do stuff that I normally would have done weeks ago!

We decided to hold back on Christmas dinner, though. The kid is leaving tomorrow for a week at her biomom's house. And my parents are coming up after Christmas. So it makes more sense to wait until the house is full of family before cooking up a feast. I'm sure my Dad won't mind two roast turkey dinners in a short space of time, and we're having ham, too, which Mom is skipping this year. As long as I remember apple pie, Dad will be happy.

Bear and I will have a quiet celebration with the animals, then. That's OK. We'll watch movies and rack out on the couch together (with the dogs) and just relax for a bit. Sounds fine to me. I have the strangest Christmas Eve tradition-I like to watch cheesy horror movies on Christmas Eve. :) It started with a friend of mine in High School; we were both horror movie fans and it just so happened that we'd rented Friday the 13th part 6 without thinking about what night it was (both of us being pagan and Yule was already over.). Well, her grandmother kicked up such a huge fuss that we we not only skipping church but watching a horror movie than it sparked a tradition. We just had to! No one ever said teenagers are sensitive or anything.

Although I've long since fallen away from her, I keep the tradition up. Bear was only too glad to join me, and now the kid is a participant, too. We rented Dead and Breakfast a couple of years ago and the kid bought it for Bear last year because it's hilarious and now that is our movie of choice for this night. I feel like I've not only kept up a tradition for its own sake, but it's an antidote to the bad parts of the season-all the focus on materialism, the fake empathy and the cloying sentimentality that can overwhelm me and make me grinchy. It's evolved now so that it's part of our family life and I never get tired of the looks on people's faces when they ask what we're doing on Christmas Eve.

So I'm a brat. Santa always forgives me.