Gearing up for Christmas, gearing down for driving (ha ha)

Well, I figured out how to guarantee a white Christmas - wait until the second week in December to start your Christmas shopping >_<. We had snow, then a round of ice, and now a few more inches of snow on top. I'm glad I took the trouble to clear all the ice off the driveway, or it would be a real bitch now. Of course the roads in our little town are beautiful and clear and dry (I swear, one of these years I'm going to drop off some cookies at the road maintenance office - they're just awesome) but once you hit the city limits, all the neighboring towns have done a craptastic job.

I don't really have that much shopping left, since I braved the freezing rain last weekend to shop (seriously, why does the weather only do this on my days off?), so I suppose the snow is actually a plus because it'll force me to stay inside and get the present knitting finished.

And the cleaning.

And the painting.

Inviting all the in-town relatives for Christmas Eve dinner was sort of a spur of the moment thing, and I probably should have given it a little more thought as to the general company-readiness of our dining room, but I think it was a good idea in the grand scheme of things. I really have to have deadlines to get anything done, so if I hadn't invited everyone over, the dining room and main bathroom would probably be sitting there with half-removed wallpaper until next summer.