It’s the Most ———— Time of the Year

Ok, so it’s Sunday night, the 5th of December, less than 3 weeks until Christmas. The Dunnevant’s have purchased exactly zero presents. Pam has done exactly zero Christmas baking. Since 2021 is the year that we will host her side of the family here on Christmas Day, not to mention the happy fact that all of our kids and their pups will also be here for the festivities, there is a to-do list a mile long and getting longer as the days slip away. But all is not lost. This weekend has produced tremendous progress on one front…Christmas decorating.

Here at Dunnevant Central, we thrive on the division of labor, never so clearly defined than it is where decking the halls is concerned. I’m the King of the outside and Pam is the Queen of the inside. It works quite well…

My area of responsibility was largely a fiasco of blown fuses and frayed nerves. But, despite repeated frustrations, I was finally able to get everything to light and stay lit.

Pam, on the other hand, basically decided to start from scratch this year. First she redecorated the entire family room last month, jettisoned the red, and brought in the blue. In addition, she decided that the theme this year was to be more sacred and less secular—meaning out with Santa and in with Jesus. This is no weirdo rejection of presents etc..just a momentary pivot toward the spiritual underpinnings of the season. Notice that when my wife does something, she goes all the way, even removing art from the walls to make room for seasonal paintings. Plus—everything has to match—because of that theme thing. Whatever she does, it always seems to work. The inside of our house looks more beautiful this time of year than it ever does. There’s much more than the one picture of our living room, but if I posted them it would be awfully close to prideful boasting, and I just heard a sermon about the dangers of that, so you’ll have to use your imagination.

On the personal fitness front, I accomplished something this morning I hadn’t done in probably five years…

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, I ran a sub-eight minute mile and lived to tell about it. Of course, I was so gassed I had to walk the rest of the route. But, hey, I’m 63.

The Christmas train has left the station and its picking up steam. The next three weeks will be a manic succession of shopping, wrapping, baking, cleaning, parties, then more shopping, wrapping, baking, cleaning and parties. Somewhere during all of it I’ve got a tone of cases that need to be taken care of at work before year’s end. Meanwhile, poor Lucy stares at us blankly, wondering why on earth her humans bring whole trees inside the house but if she attempts to bring even one lousy stick through the door we have a fit!