Well, we finally started decorating last night. (I know, I can't believe it either.) Thing is, we've been remodeling the apartment for quite some time and only had finished floors as of this week, with some new furniture in and some still on its way. These and other events conspired to make our pad less deserving of the balls-first holiday deck-out. When we checked out our secret underground storage containers to see what we had room for, I was saddened to leave so many boxes unchecked, refusing so many decorations of their right to breathe air for a few weeks each year. Oh well.
We got a few lights up, at least. They're these really awesome old school big glass bulb lights; I was brought up under the impression that lights like this should never be placed indoors, but the box told me I could, so yay, big glass bulb lights in da livin' room.
Because we pulled a lot of this stuff out without giving the boxes more than a quick glance, I forgot a lot of the vintage stuff that completes me. Instead, we ended up yanking out a truckload of Version Carrey Grinch dolls that I picked up on a post-holiday clearance sale a few years ago. Apparently, I really enjoyed that post-holiday clearance sale, because I counted no less than twelve different Grinch plushies, including a really large, talking version that sounds more like Tim Curry impersonating an orgasmic porn star than Jim Carrey impersonating the Grinch. I'm not complaining.
There was also a huge stock of still-packaged CHRISTMAS ACTION FIGGAZ -- everything from Rudolph to Charlie Brown and beyond. Formerly, we'd tack up these still-packaged figures wherever we could, but in light of the freshly painted walls and the feeble attempt to make our apartment look more like something an adult should be able to stand, I finally took the "OC" out of "MOC," broke the babies open and let the cigarette smoke slowly yellow their holiday heads. These figures range from "still widely available" to "kind of halfway available" to "ONLY ON EBAY, FUCKAS," but if you are able to track 'em down...I most highly recommend the purchase. They're all really nice and are some of the best Christmas "decorations" based on the bg holiday specials that I've seen. And I've seen many.
Yes, we are going to dig back into the trenches and add more decorations. Yes, I am going to get a tree. Hopefully soon, because recent years have spearheaded a new tradition where we put up the Christmas tree very late and end up leaving it in our living room until early February to compensate.
The Advent Calendar has been updated for December 11th. It's nice to be a day ahead again. 
Posted by Matt on 12/11/2006. E-mail me!
Chestnuts roasted by 
I’ve come to the conclusion that my house is very odd. Our tree doesn’t fit in the living room so we put it in the dining room, visible through the balustrade. But since I lost the battle over real tree vs. fake tree, my pre-lit $20 Family Dollar special is sitting ontop of a storage bin full of books. That’s about all I got done so far, because the new dining room set is being delivered on Wednesday.
I can’t believe I’m freakin’ old enough to be excited about buying dining room furniture. Why the hell happened to me?