whew

i'm feeling more caught up now, but there's still some stuff left. *sigh*

last night i went to discuss the count of monte cristo at book club. i read huge chunks of it while flying, a couple hours today, and finished with 10 minutes to spare. the story flowed really well, so it was fast, interesting reading. but the end of the story really ruined the book for me. the main part of the book is focused on dantes getting revenge on the people who set him up, but you can't do that sort of stuff without it affecting your soul. yet there's only one short conversation with his old love (who he doesn't hook back up with unlike the movie, and the only thing close to real life) where he realizes he isn't the avenging hand of god and that's it. he's all done with the bitterness like it never happened, except he's 20 or so years older, and goes off into the sunset (literally) with a hot young chick. the wrap-up could have given more meaning to the whole story, but was shallow instead. all the bad guys were ruined, the good people got out of the traps somehow, and it was all la-di-da fine at the end. crazy how the last pages of a book, or last 5 minutes of a film can change your whole opinion of it.

for next month we picked 2 books: the ultimate gift (which i never heard of) and all rivers run to the sea (elie wiesel's memiors). the last i've been wanting to read so this'll be good motivation.

speaking of motivation, i haven't had any at all for seaming those blanket squares. so that's one of my goals in the next 2 weeks. to at least start seaming and get as close to done as i can.

we've decided to buy a fake tree (yuck!) because we won't be in town to make sure a real one stays alive, but we want the fun of our tree and the christmas spirit. we had planned to go tomorrow to find one, but this morning chuck was all excited and didn't want to wait the one day. so tonight for date night we'll be finding a tree. and i need to find some candles to fit in this awesome birch bark advent's holder. my friend lasse in sweden gave it to me, and it's handmade (although not by him), so it has cool memories. me and chuck are doing little advent's presents this year. one each week, with the dollar amount slowly going up. it's kind of fun. i love finding special presents, that mean something but don't have to cost much of anything. the memories and meaning are what make them precious.

my family has always done the list thing, make a list of what you want. but we rarely get anything from the list, especially as we get older. it's almost like the list is misleading, so the person won't know what you're getting them. i love trying to guess what the coolest present would be, finding out details without the person knowing i am, and keeping it secret right up to the end. that's what i love about christmas.

how do you all celebrate christmas and pick presents?