i saw murray kissing santa claus

like all good single, hip, bored kids in the month of december, i was reflecting on my xmas past, present, and future. the past is important because it's where we came from and where would we be without it. we need the present because it's here now and hello, who doesn't like presence. ;) the future, well, that's where we're headed and it's actually starting to happen now so you better check your swatch watch. man that was deep.

this all began with a picture i stumbled across from a year ago. it's simply just a picture of my xmas tree from last year when i had only been in my house for two months. i pulled up xmas tree photo 2005 and displayed it beside xmas tree photo 2006. it was interesting for me to see how i was expressing my xmas joy a year ago versus how i'm expressing it today. today's tree towers and has a never ending supply of sparkle. last year's tree was a dwarf palm with silver ribbon, white lights, and a classy little skirt. the big difference is that months ago i realized how much i enjoy decorating my home. if decorating my home means giant xmas tree then so be it. haul out the holly. also, sometime during mid-2006 the palm leased itself out to a colony of inch/mill worms. sadly, both worms and tree had to 'relocate'.

and in the spirit of xmas, i would like to take a moment to comment on us as a material society. we don't handle the xmas season very well. i'm embarrassed. for fear of my sanity loss and new car, as of yesterday i'm not going near a center de shopping again until late january. it's been nothing but upsetting and scary and i would like to avoid an appearance in court because that's not an item on my 2007 agenda. yet. it might be that i'm getting older and less patient but it feels like we cranked up the crazy by a factor of seven since last year. if i unexpectedly end up at the mall, i'll probably have to kill someone with my bare hands and that won't be very xmas-y.

without further adieu, two highly differing tree expressions.