I'm Full!

My head and heart are full of stuff. With my head, it may still be the leftovers of the flu. My heart? Well, maybe I should watch my cholesterol better. But besides all that, and on a less literal level . . . .

First, we interrupt this holiday tour of my home for tonight's blog post.

Second, alert the media: It snowed in Sacramento on December 7, 2009!

Now if you aren't familiar with Sacramento, then you probably don't know that snow in Sacramento is just one step warmer than Hell freezing over. We get snow about once every 15 years here in the valley--the foothills, which aren't too far away, and the Sierra Nevada range get a fair amount of snow, but the valley? Hardly ever!

On the news yesterday, the weather guy was predicting the possibility of snow in Sacramento overnight and into the morning. I gotta say I was kind of excited! I woke up around 6 a.m. when Stitch was trying to find a comfortable place to sleep on my face, and I jumped out of bed and ran to the bedroom window to see if it had snowed. It was awfully dark out, but the grass looked maybe a little lighter than normal, so I went to the kitchen sliding glass door for a better look. Nope, it seemed it was just my imagination. So, back to bed I went. At 7 a.m., I woke again. Still no snow. At 7:30, I was getting a cup of coffee when I noticed this:

SNOW! So I ran to the front of the house and opened the front door and saw THIS:

MORE snow!

Just on the off chance, I called the office to see if they'd decided to close the office for a snow day--because, after all, if Sacramento WAS EVER GOING TO HAVE A SNOW DAY, this was it! Sadly, I learned it was business as usual, so I told them that once I dug my car out of the half inch of snow, I'd head on in.

So there you go! Snow in Sacramento in December! What could be more Christmas-like?!

Well, let me tell you! Driving home from work, as I drove through our residential area, I noticed Christmas lights--beautiful, wonderful, twinkling lights! And hardly an inflatable to be found! (If you've been with me for awhile, you might know how I feel about inflatables, but if not, read THIS. And seriously? If you have an inflatable or two, that's okay--what bugs me are the yards where there are 15 inflatables that have no relation to one another. I'm particularly bothered during the day when the inflatables aren't inflated and it looks like there are skinny, dead Santas and other holiday figures scattered all over the lawn!)

For me, there's something magical in the first real sight of Christmas lights--my heart beats a little faster for just a second, and I'm transported back to that childhood feeling of wonder and of all things being possible.

So tonight I think I'm going to take a little break and just enjoy the evening, reading and drinking hot chocolate and thinking about Christmas. Tomorrow I'll get a few more photos of the decorations to share with you. And don't forget--if you've posted photos on your blog of your holiday decorating, let me know so I can come visit and put a link in my sidebar--and don't forget to visit the blogs that are listed there to see what other bloggers have been doing to deck their halls!

And coming up soon? I think I want to post photos of what I think are my tackiest holiday decorations, and I'll invite you to do the same, so think about it while you're decorating your home. We're doing a white elephant gift exchange at work along similar lines, so I'll be digging out a few boxes that aren't opened very often!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you're starting to find a little bit of the magic of the holiday season--whether that's Christmas or another holiday occasion--in your head and heart!