Slow Yule progress

I don't remember taking a week to get my tree up in past years.  I am really slowing down!  Day three, and I've got the lights on and something less than half the ornaments; you can see the rest strewn all over my dining table.

But the hard part is behind me.  The empty boxes are even back upstairs in the closet, always a wearying task, which leaves only reassembling the stacking bookcase that the closet is behind.

This year's tree is a more moderate 9-foot specimen, because I promised I wouldn't do the 11-foot thing again.  It was hard enough dragging this guy upstairs, not to mention reaching the top without killing either of us.  That's a 6-foot ladder on the left, and an 8-foot ladder on the right.

My adorable husband, as always, has my number.  He presented me with several early Christmas presents in the form of extravagantly beautiful ornaments he saw me admiring:

A red truck with a Christmas tree in its bed.

These are probably Asian cranes, but they look just like whooping cranes.

Alligator.

A sea turtle with presents stacked on his back.

All my shopping is done and (I think) even all of my shipping, with the possible exception of some items that I somehow managed to direct to an apartment I briefly kept in Houston seven years ago when I was commuting up there to work on an extended case.  I think those have now been redirected to me here.  It's only December 10th!  This is fabulous progress.

Project Gutenberg has put a dent in my handicrafts, but this time of year a powerful urge comes over me to drop everything else and crochet angels, snowflakes, miniature stockings, and the like.  It also becomes difficult to resist buying little packages of stick-on jewels and beads every time I walk through the aisles of the local WalMart, even though I already have enough craft materials to choke a horse.

So that's enough ornament-hanging for today. Time to crochet.