Engage

[iainjclark]

Today we pressed the big red button marked Engage Christmas! Infernal Christmas Engines thrummed into life. Somewhere, deep within the bowels of the earth, Elves stirred from their slumbers.

Our Christmas Tree looks very pretty. We vary from year to year on whether to put the tree up this early, but we do enjoy the build-up to Christmas far more than the wind-down so we want our hit of Christmas reasonably early -- particularly since we don't have any time off work before the main event this year. An impromptu drive down our street showed that a reasonable proportion of houses already had a tree up in their front room or porch. The research is in: it's Christmas.

Most but not all of our pressies are bought and wrapped, and we're slowly accumulating festive foodstuffs to tide us over the long hard winter a day or two of intensive snacking. As always given my wife's diet-controlled diabetes this involves much research into low-sugar alternatives to things like mulled wine, Christmas pud and other desserts. We have a reasonable selection of these, including a spicy sugar-free cake made with Splenda that Janet really likes. She's researching custard tarts at the moment.

Mmm... Christmas...