Bah humbug

Christmas is creeping up on us. I can't believe it's only a few days away. And while I felt the Christmas spirit early on (more around Thanksgiving), the previous feeling has since died. I want to be in the Christmasy mood. But it's been kinda hard.

First, my car has a brake problem. For some reason, my emergency brake is sticking ever so slightly, and so my car will drive sluggishly and won't move forward or backward when my foot is off the gas or brake pedal. It's not a big deal. I'm sure it won't take much to fix it. It doesn't sound very expensive, but for some reason, it's really bumming me out. I hate having car issues when in three days, I'm driving it 4 hours north to my parents' house. Nothing worse than car troubles around the holidays.

Second, the weather here sucks. When I say this, I don't mean that it's a blizzard outside, and the roads are bad. I mean... it's December, and there's no snow on the ground, no flakes in the air, no hint of Christmas at all. It's grey. It's FREEZING. And it rains. And then freezes to become an icy abyss. But not Christmasy in the least. It's really difficult to get in the spirit when all I see is dead, brown grass. Alton must be in some weather bubble. You know it's bad when Arizona and Las Vegas get snow... and southern Illinois doesn't. So, I'm hoping when we travel up north to the Chicagoland area, I get a dose of Christmasy goodness when I see the 5 inches of snow on the ground that my parents continue to talk about. Ahh.. perhaps I will have a white Christmas... even if I have to travel 4 hours to get it.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! (sorry, I don't mean to be a downer)