Only how many more days until...

I'm glad that most of my Christmas shopping is done.  Yay Giftcards!

Seriously, I have completed most of my annual Christmas shopping, with just a few items left to get, most likely giftcards, but for where would be the question.  Even there, I think I know the answers, it's just a matter of deciding once and for all that where I'm thinking of is where I should be getting the cards for.  I'll figure that all out soon enough and get things wrapped up completely very soon I think.

The thing is, the calendar is continuing to fly by.  It's the 13th of December in the year 2010.  Only 12 more days until Christmas!  Less than 2 weeks.  Where has the time gone?!

Soon after the New Year will ring in.  I hope that the holiday season is joyous for everyone here, and hope that the new year brings much hope, health and happiness for everyone.  Especially the health and happiness part.  I do continue to wish for the best for several people here, and others in my own life.

On other fronts, the NFL season is dead to me.  The blasted Redskins have been such an embarassment that I can't even bear to think of them, even as I sit at work in a long-sleeved T-shirt with their logos on them, covered over by a sweatshirt with more logos on it.  If not for the frackin' cold outdoors right now, I'd be wearing short-sleeved T's and probably be wearing the ones for bands and musical artists that I saw in concert over the last year or two.

Speaking of musical artists and such, I made another donation to a charitable cause that I gladly support, but again which I wish was not really needed.  St. Judes Children's Hospital.  A local radio station was hosting a radiothon to raise funds for them and as part of that effort they were also auctioning off some memorabilia signed by several artists.  I put in some bids on some of the more expensive collectibles but was outbid.  On the plus side, I made sure that my bids would help someone else spend a lot of money to get the items since the money was all going to St. Jude.  If I hadn't been outbid, I'd have happily paid myself, but if I couldn't win, I wanted to be sure that the winner was going to pay a decent sized payment.  While I lost out on a couple of more expensive items, I did win the auctions of a couple of signed CD's.  In the end, I was happy to be able to contribute to the charity, but it was nice to get some autographed merchandise at the same time.  While you can never quite be sure about autographed items (unless you were there to witness the signing you can't be sure who actually signed), I'm fairly confident that when the radio station says it was signed by the artist that it was signed by that artist.

I may say a few words about the big news of the day (political) shortly, but I think I'll keep that to a separate article.  Enough here for now!