Decking those Halls

November is drawing to a close, and we've got a few good holiday traditions under our belt, and of course some new ones.  Maddie and I have been reading "Hogfather" lately, and we've gotten into the book just enough that DEATH itself has taken it upon himself to save the holiday season by dressing up as the Hogfather, which of course is the Discworld's version of Santa Claus.

It makes for some pretty fun moments thus far, as along for the ride is Albert, a cranky old guy helping out DEATH, all dressed up as an elf.  And DEATH's granddaughter Susan is there too, trying to unravel the mystery of what is going on.  I'm not sure how many of these Discworld books we'll get around to read, but Maddie - like millions of other fans of Terry Pratchett's work - seems to be liking them.

An old tradition of ours is to check in on the Gävle Goat, which has a new live feed camera to watch it this year.  It looks perfectly clear, and that may be a terrible temptation for potential arsonists.  It also may offer a very clear view of said arsonists, so we'll see how it goes.  But for now, we're happy to check in with the Swedes from time to time, and we plan to watch the upcoming inauguration celebration, which usually includes all kinds of festivities, and popular Christmas classics sung entirely in Swedish.  It's going to be fun!

We got the final touches on the Christmas ornaments today, adding icicles to the tree, which make it glimmer and add a continuity throughout.  The tree looks marvelous.  We had Christmas movies playing today, of course, and I was out there afterwards for a good bit today, blowing all those leaves off the front yard.  It took a long while, as there are so many.  The back yard will come next, but unexpectedly, it rained tonight, stalling my next outing there.  Fortunately, the rain came after all the leaves were blown, so that was a good thing.

Anyway, we continued decking the halls today, pulling out the official Santa pictures with Maddie.  Those will go up on the bookshelves with the other items that Mom will use to decorate.  We had some Christmas vinyl records playing throughout the day, some of our new ones.  Love the Partridge Family one.  Neither one of us is a huge fan of the Bobby Sherman one.  

Maddie was out for a few hours with my mother, the two of them doing a lot of Christmas shopping, this day after Black Friday.  It was busy, but they had a good time, and Maddie loves what she's picked up.  She was showing off new clothes, new shoes, new plush friends, and other items too.  We may have to wrap these and have her open them later on, but she loves them already.  The two went to eat at Texas Roadhouse where it was a little busy today, but she had a great time.

Our holiday amaryllis is really growing lately, launching upward with the red bloom starting to peek out already.  It's not even December yet!  Last year's bloomed a little late, but this one seems to be ready to bloom a lot earlier!

Tonight's programming was a Sight & Sound production of "Joseph," which of course tells the story of the Joseph found in the book of Genesis.  It was a free program this weekend, so we took advantage of that, and enjoyed it together.  

We had fire in the fireplace for most of the day, as it was a cold and wet sort of day.  Of course, it makes the Christmas atmosphere nice though, with the tree all lit up, and everyone's hearts all aglow.  

We made the finishing touches on the last KidPak skit for "The Voyage" tomorrow, and I'm pretty proud of it.  We've got a good cast with us and although things are busy this weekend for folks on vacation and all the other things that go on during Thanksgiving weekend, we'll still have a big cast coming, and a great morning.  We said our prayers tonight after reading, and we got to bed a little bit earlier.  Got to get up earlier tomorrow!