Is Everyone Else Prepared?

Ho Ho HO! It's looking a lot like Christmas here at That Old House, at least on the outside, where Mother Nature has kindly done that fluffy white decorating. Inside the house, not so much.

The boxes holding Christmases Past are all down from the attic or up from the cellar, and still littering the front hall. Some are empty; most are not.

The Fraser Fir from the local nursery is about 70% decorated, while the artificial tree in the parlor stands naked save for lights and, by now, a little dust.

My daughters have decorated a table top tree in the study with their personal ornaments; it is charming and best of all, it is finished.

Howard has put some white lights on the three little Arborvitaes near our side door, and in the big Forsythia up past the grape arbor, but I have not yet strung white pine roping on the staircase or on the porch railing.

I know, I know! Christmas is mere days away! I haven't baked my Julekake, nor any cookies. And... my dogs need baths.

And speaking of dogs, our Dion is in the dog house. Figuratively.

While we were eating dinner, our cheeky boy had -- not for the first time -- clambered up from a sunroom loveseat onto the kitchen counter, and was caught rummaging through the empty pots on the stove top.

Busted. Caught red-pawed.

We have now put a board up between the kitchen and the sunroom, along that stretch of countertop. It's not gorgeous, but for now it will keep Goat Boy off my counters!

Does he look guilty, or even vaguely repentant? No, no he does not.

Good Luck to anyone who is still madly dashing through the snow or around the house, getting ready for The Big Day. I am fast approaching that point where I say to myself, Enough! What's done is done, and the rest can go back to the attic and I'll use it next year.

Merry Christmas!