Every year, the Advent Calendar seems to take up more and more real estate in our apartment. When I started doing this in 2002, it was just a little box on the edge of a table. By last year, my imaginary girlfriend and I ate dinner with a three-foot Playmobil "Victorian Grand Mansion" standing between us. This year? Good Christ. I'll say this: To properly set up everything, I had to spend fifty bucks on lumber and lighting at Home Depot.

Advent Calendaring can be expensive, so if you're doing any holiday shopping this weekend, do me a favor and use X-E's Amazon Affiliate Link. Costs you nothing, but if you buy stuff on Amazon after clicking that link, I'll make a solid thirty cents. Yessss. (Advent Calendar starts Monday. Barring very few exceptions, there will be a new holiday-related blog entry for each day of December, too!)

Man, it's Christmassy. Honestly and truly. Everyone in our neighborhood used the extended weekend to string blinking lights up outside, and while we didn't get that far, our apartment is starting to get that familiar waft of artificial pine and cinnamon (thank you Glade), with Christmas decorations old and new beginning to take the place of the many piles of magazines that had been growing in height since last March. Despite the season's reputation for being gratingly hectic and full of holiday bustle, I don't think that there's a time of year when it's easier to find peace. Or maybe I'm just in that tiny percentage of people who are capable of being totally hypnotized by 89 cent silver garland.

I've "raised" a fair share of Chia Pets in my life, but it wasn't until last year that I decided to turn Chia Pet horticulture into one of my bona fide Christmas traditions. Both the Chia Pet and The Clapper (Chia's distant, robotic cousin) have long been advertised and sold most aggressively during the holidays, I guess serving as catch-all gifts when you need to buy presents for people you absolutely don't know at all.

I really wanted this annual rearing of a Chia Pet to be an on-site tradition as well, but I worried that I'd just end up repeating things I've already written. Luckily, the Gods of Chia threw me a bone, because I've never seen one quite like this before.

It's not a Chia Pet at all, actually -- it's a Chia Tree with Star Light! This cumbersome title seems to be the nondenominational way of selling what is very obviously a Chia Christmas Tree. Do I need to tell you how much I dig the idea of a Chia Christmas Tree? Do I even have the words to properly manifest my utter ecstasy over this?

It gets better. If you've grown Chia Pets in the past, you probably remember the sad rule about soaking the "pot" (or "pet," or "tree") and the seeds for a full 24 hours before getting to do anything fun. Typically, I've found this waiting period so grueling that I never have fingernails left when it's over. Well, get ready for a CHIA NEWSFLASH!!! At some point in 2008, they modified the formula, and now, you're only required to soak the pot and seeds for one measly hour! Incredible! It's too early for a Christmas Miracle, so what this is, I suppose, is a November 29th Miracle.

After letting my tree and seeds soak for sixty minutes (it still felt like years), I did the ol' seed-spread. The coat of green Chia sprouts won't fully materialize for up to two weeks, so I'll keep you updated. I considered buying a webcam strictly for the site's readers to have a live status report on my Chia Tree's growth, but considering that I'm about to spend a month making Playmobil dolls say bad words, I figured that setting up a Chia webcam would push the boundaries of what I can get away with and not be termed an absolute loser by society at large just a little too far. That, and it seemed like a lot of work.

Oh, and as for the "Star Light" -- the set comes with a waterproof, rod-shaped battery compartment topped with a light-up star, which sits right in the tree and beams a rainbow of colors from your kitchen windowsill. Really nice touch. I didn't think I'd find a way to justify my decision to use a Chia Pet as a table centerpiece when we host Christmas dinner in a few weeks, but thar she blows.

Time to go prep, prep and prep some more. I hope you're all getting into the spirit, and if you're not, I'm going to beat you over the head with it for the next month. Over and over again. You're really going to hate me when all's said and done.