After a long weekend of Christmas shopping, gorging on Thanksgiving leftovers, and plowing through the new Beatles documentary series on Disney+ (I don’t want to spoil it for you, but don’t get too excited for a new Beatles album anytime soon), it was back to work today. For me, anyway. Brandi has this cush schedule that gives her seven days off at a time. At least, it’s cush until she has to work seven in a row; then it’s not cush. Not cush at all.
I went in tired this morning. I had a late night on Sunday because of Spider-Man. Tickets to the new Spider-Man movie went on sale at midnight, and I had to secure ours for opening night to make sure we don’t catch any spoilers before getting to see it. Brandi can take or leave Spider-Man, but I kind of dig him. He’s nerdy and quippy, so I can relate. And I say I don’t want to catch any spoilers, but I’m definitely going to spend the next three weeks picking apart the trailers and deep-diving into internet leaks about potential Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield cameos until approximately ten minutes before showtime.
Tonight, I keep thinking about Christmas. It’s coming. It’s out there. It will be here before you know it, though you’d never know it by the weather. It was nearly sixty degrees today, and there’s no sign of snow in the forecast. Brandi says that much to her dismay, sweaters might be a thing of the past. This is a sweater household. We don’t love cold weather, but we love the warm, concealing, comforting embrace of cold weather apparel. You can get away with all manner of leisure and caloric intake with the right sweater.
But despite the weather, Christmas IS coming, and we’ve begun to plan accordingly. Brandi and I don’t like Christmas to sneak up on us, so we try to get as much shopping done as early as we can. We usually start keeping an eye out for good gifts in October, but we really dig in the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We skip Black Friday—Brandi usually has to work, and I’m not aggressive enough to avoid getting trampled—but we love to get out and about on Small Business Saturday. I come from the small business world, and we adore Ogden, so it’s important to us to support the local shops downtown. This year we got out to a few gift shops and galleries and made a few new friends while we were out.
Shopping Small in Ogden 
Met this absolute angel at The Art Box 
Putting words in Jack’s mouth
We had planned on setting up the Christmas tree and getting the house decorated this weekend, but with the nice weather, it just didn’t feel right yet. This is an ongoing debate in our household. Traditionally, I have been of the opinion that decorations should go up after the first big snowstorm of the year, whether or not that comes before Thanksgiving. Brandi is adamant that Thanksgiving deserves its due, and she’s not wrong about that, but why waste a Christmasy snow storm just because Thanksgiving hasn’t passed yet? They’re so few and far between these days. To her defense, Brandi did spend quite a few years working in retail around Christmas time (a fate I wouldn’t wish on anyone), and I do get insufferable about Christmas music and holiday cheer this time of year, so I get it.
Still. As eager as I am to kick off the Christmas season, the weather just isn’t cooperating, so we decided to wait until later this week. I’m hoping for some snow this weekend, but I don’t want to check the weather as I can’t abide spoilers.
