Tonight is Cristmas card night. I enjoy doing my Christmas cards at our dining room table, the surrounding windows all aglow in lights, a Johnnie Walker Red (one ice cube, please) at my side, the address book at the ready, pen in hand, and just enough light so I can see what I’m doing. I’m a little late getting my cards out this year – they were supposed to go out on Sunday but a hellish work week took care of that – but work has finally abated enough for this small window of opportunity to allow one of the obligatory holiday season rituals to take place.

This will be a different kind of Christmas for us this year. The Christmas tree was a great idea, and we’ve been playing the “Christmas Pops” Sirius radio station on DirecTV for a couple of weeks now. Even though the news is filled with economic gloom-and-doom, it (fortunately) hasn’t hit here yet, but we’re taking no chances and keeping our commitment to paying off our next-to-last credit card at the end of this month. Dave Ramsey would be proud.

So rather than bestowing gifts on each other – two people who really want for nothing and have been incredibly blessed by God, we’ll do something different – giving gifts to our favorite charities in each other’s names. But more on that later.

I love Christmas music, but if there’s one carol (actually it’s no carol, just a song) I absolutely cannot stand is John Rutter’s “Shepherd’s Pipe Carol”, which is as annoying and cloying a tune as you’re ever likely to find. Whenever I hear it playing – no matter who does it – it is like fingernails on a chalkboard.

But any version of “Tomorrow Will Be My Dancing Day” is a keeper.

Most of the houses in our subdivision have lots of lights this year – more than I can remember. It’s a beaytiful sight to behold – especially on a chilly night like this.

Tonight’s an early night after the longest work week I ever put in, more to blog on later.