I'm sitting here with the Christmas tree all lit and shining and that makes me very very happy. I had almost decided we could do without a tree this year but I'm happy the hubby insisted. I know I'd really feel out of the Christmas spirit if we didn't have a tree. No one may see it but us but it is still important.

I have to decide how much I want to work tomorrow. I worked way too long tonight because I kept getting sidetracked. Tomorrow night is the company Christmas party---the bigger company, not just my division. I can either not work at all tomorrow and have a lot of work to do on Saturday or Sunday or both, or get dressed for the party before I go in tomorrow afternoon and feel like a dork for being dressed up but at least save myself the trip home to get ready and I'll be able to get more work done before the party, or I guess I could go work some, come home and change, go to the party and finish on Saturday. I'm sure I'll make this decision about 2 p.m. tomorrow. And the decision may be to blow off the party. I hate to do that since this is my first year here. I went to five crappy ABC parties in a row and was going to give up on them this year. The parties themselves were always okay, there was just no one to BE with.

For instance, last year at the Christmas party we did the cocktail thing and visited with various co-workers and their spouses. As it came time to move in and take seats for the dinner I asked one co-worker and his wife if they wanted to sit with us. No, they were going to go sit with "their people" from their little subsection of the company. The same with the next one that came in. Finally, I said, let's just sit down and let others come and join us. I figured someone would come in looking for companionship and would come to share our huge table for ten. The next table had a big group of personnel and human resources people that I knew sort of by sight. It was full of ten people. Then another couple came in that "belonged" to that department. The final straw was when they took two chairs from our big table and squeezed into the overfull table with their group. D-boy and I ate our dinner alone, shoved some cheesecake down our throat and went home.

So, all that to say I have a thing against the big corporate party. There are always too many people that work together that don' know me. At least this year the people I do work with are a lot of fun. I'll hope for the best. I do have a pretty new black and red velvet outfit for the event.

I also have a new pair of Spice Girl shoes. That's what I call them. I know I am old when I think every shoe that is for sale is horribly ugly. I still broke down and bought two pairs today. One is a little boot that is terribly high and clunky. We'll see if it ever makes it out of the closet.

Got my Christmas order from Amazon yesterday. A couple of new kids books for the boys that I must read first. I read the first Harry Potter book and loved it. Then I bought a Louis Sachar book called Holes. He's an Austin author. It was truly a page turner. It's great to read a book you don't want to put down. Now I have a new one called When Zachary Beaver Came to Town. It's by an Amarillo author and won the National Book Award for Children's Books. It sounds good. I have to read it before I can give it to the boys for Christmas.

These diary entries always go off on tangents I wouldn't of have predicted. I admire some of the diaries that are so cohesive and have a beginning, a middle and an end. But I have to say I most enjoy the ones that are just a recounting of the day.