More Christmas-ing

Today for me has been chock full of Christmas preparations, namely hanging lights all over our house. We went out to replace some old lights and we found the most amazing decoration ever: LED light rope! Think this: http://lights4fun.co.uk/rope-lights/1782.html in bright red. Soooo cool. No more bulb breakage or replacement, and it just looks much better. Unfortunately, it was extremely cold outside and halfway through our session, it started raining. Suffice to say, climbing a wet ladder is not my idea of a good time. However, the lights look quite good this year, if I do say so myself. In fitting with the Christmas theme, I'm listening to Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker the whole way through right now. It's perfect for getting oneself into the Christmas mood. And then I found ten dollars

Dreaming of sugar plum fairies,
-Charles

PS: Just to make Matt Slayton jealous, I'm going to see Gil Shaham playing with the St. Louis Symphony in January, and I'm so excited! For everyone else, that's the violinist playing the solo part on my song in the favorites CD. He's pretty durn good.
PPS: http://www.snopes.com/photos/arts/xmaslights.asp