Oh Christmas Tree!

I never thought I would say this but *shudder* I actually miss Christmas trees and decorations in stores, special holiday discounts and, worst of all, holiday songs! For some reason I have "Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells Rock...Dancing and Prancing... that's the Jingle Bells Rock" stuck in my head. Surely there are prettier songs out there?

I took it upon myself to dig out the plastic tree from the office storage. My colleague and I agreed to go with a gaudy decoration theme and overloaded its poor branches with tinsel, cheesy felt Santas and little dangling disco balls. Ah, now it feels more like Christmas. Now, if only I could find a bad Christmas CD in the street of Dakar. Heck, I'd even settle for the Mariah Carey special.

****

Bumped into a friend at the supermarket and we lamented over the lack of proper Christmas trees in the city. As we exited the store, much to our surprise, we saw a huge (a HUGE) Christmas tree. It was all decorated and in a nice pot. There was a guard next to it (should we be tempted to steal the decorations I imagine). We looked at it with awe, felt it branches and even bent the bottom branches to smell, just to authenticate it. Folks, it was a real tree. The guard thought we were crazy but our little hearts were warmed.

****

I went to the beach for the weekend and, again, have a nasty sunburn. Which makes me smile at how ridiculous it is to get a sunburn on the 12 of December. Ha! My heart goes out to those in Montreal and the northern US states.