Holiday Decorating at Bookmonkey's

As with most families, we've got our own holiday decorating style.  It tends to go as follows:

1) All Decorations go up as soon as possible in December
1a) Decorating must be accompanied by Holiday Tunes and Eggnogg
1b) Decorations must be in such an amount as to slightly terrify
1c) The Nutcracker Army should be prepared for an attack at any time
2) All Decorations go down by noon on Christmas Day
2a) HEY! It may sound un-Christmas-like to you, but then we have all of the week before New Year's to relax, rather than spending it daring each other to take the ornaments down.

Happy December Everyone!
Bookmonkey

Things I’ve noticed: So I saw this guy wearing a Tree Skirt as a poncho…

…at work today, not a shopper, mind you, but a man enjoying coffee at the Second Cup closest to my work, having coffee with a bunch of coworkers, and It stopped me in my tracks.

I wasn’t sure what to make of it, I mean, did he just wake up this morning, walk past his Christmas tree and think, “You know what, I’m going to wear that tree skirt as a poncho at work today.

Being a fan of Christmas myself, but never having seen anything like this before, I did what any polite modern-day Canadian would do – I kept my head down, tried not to make eye contact, and immediately googled “Tree Skirt as Poncho” when I got back to my office.

First I came across this article, then this one, and then this one.

I know that as I’m getting older I’m a little slower on picking up the current trends (for example I just saw that Korean Gangnam Style video for the first time yesterday, so I'm about half a year behind my 15-year-old daughter on what is currently trending), but every year I’m more and more shocked at what has become a “thing” – perhaps next year I’ll wear stockings to work instead of shoes – that’ll teach them (them being, whoever decided wearing Tree skirts as ponchos was a thing).

Things I've Noticed: Christmas 2012 is almost here!

And for me this means two key things:

1 - I get to change the banner on my Blog! (See Above)

 

And

2 - I get to take a few weeks off between my Fall 2012 classes and my Winter 2013 classes!

So what am I going to be filling up this month of non-school time with before I head back into the second half of my Masters of Library and Information Studies Degree?

Well why don’t I tell you? (Obviously I’m not going to mention my real first priority, spending time with my wife and kids, watching my favourite Christmas movies and hopefully getting some holiday baking in – I’m just going to focus on the “me” stuff)

First of all – I’ll still be heading down to the University campus every weekend to start reading books that may relate to my courses next month – I know this doesn’t actually sound very glamorous, but a couple hours a week now means that when term paper season hits, I’ve already got a handful of quotes and citations to get me started.

Second – I’m going to try and finish the third season of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. which I’ve currently got on loan from my wonderfully patient friend Ron, so I can start getting my collection of borrowed DVDs/Books/Comics back to the friends that loaned them to me in the first place

Third – I’m going to try and finish the PS3 Game L.A. NOIRE which I’m currently sitting at 1/3 of the way through as I’m hoping to get another game for Christmas and would like to be finished this one by then so I can start playing any new games I get as soon as possible.

Fourth – I’m going to try and catch up with my reading – for the last few years I’ve set a goal for myself of seven books a month and I started December with 11 (four left over from November) – you know, Full-Time work, Grad School and a rich family life actually do start cutting into your reading time after a while!

And Five – I’m going to try catching up with my Magazine and Comic-Book reading as I’m starting to fall dangerously behind and January is bound to get busy again.

So how about you, my ever-faithful blog readers?  What are you going to be up to this holiday season?