Deck the damn halls already

I'm not yet in the Christmas spirit, so I'm making these lists and checking them twice.

12 things I hate about Christmas
1. No snow
2. People who brag about the gifts they’ve bought to include how much they spent on them.
3. Lighted, plastic outdoor decorations—yes, the hubby has an affinity for these.
4. Blinking lights on the tree and putting the lights on the tree, which somehow became my job. I hate that part of decorating.
5. That it’s the only time of the year they sell eggnog in the stores, I love me some eggnog.
6. Buying gifts for people I don’t really want to buy gifts for because they either have everything or appreciate nothing.
7. Christmas cards from people I never see or talk to that just sign their name.
8. Designer Christmas trees, you know the ones that have all the ornaments in the same colors that look like an interior designer put them together—they’re so impersonal.
9. The commercialization
10. The fact that my dad is disengaged from my kids every other day of the year but on Christmas he thinks he can make up for it by buying them a bunch of toys that they don’t even like—he doesn’t even know then well enough to know what they like, yet he buys butt loads of crap.
11. Watching my Grandma open her presents because she never seems excited or happy with them.
12. Happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas

12 things I love about Christmas
1. Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack
2. The smell of a live tree in my house.
3. Wrapping paper.
4. Finding a gift you know is perfect for someone and taking them totally by surprise.
5. The song Christmas in Dixie by Alabama
6. Christmas music from my childhood—Johnny Cash, Sing along with Mitch Miller, Andy Williams, Eddie Arnold
7. The Bass & Rankin classics, Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas, The Christmas Story, Elf, The Santa Clause, A Christmas Carol, It’s a Wonderful Life, the original Miracle on 34th Street
8. Decorating our tree—I love Christmas ornaments and my tree is a hodge-podge of homemade and bought; most of which have a significance, like the kid’s first Christmas, the first ornament the hubby and I bought together (with his parents when I was about 16), etc.
9. The fact that the Girl is saving up her allowance for the first time to buy gifts for people.
10. Christmas crafts—we’ve made sweatshirts, ornaments, etc. and find something new to do each year.
11. Little traditions like the chocolate-filled advent calendars, the pickle ornament we hide in the tree and decorating sugar cookies.
12. Snowmen; some people are Santa people or angels or reindeer, I’m diggin’ on some snowmen.