Palm Trees and Christmas

Christmas is coming up and I have spent a lot of time shopping for people that are important to me. There is of course one person who gets most of the attention when it comes to my gift giving and this year she has tons of needs and wants so I have been a busy man on eBay.

Before this year I might have purchased one thing on eBay in my life, but now I have ratings as a customer and all this other stuff so it is very interesting to me seeing as how I am at the least a mostly-virgin eBay man.

I also recently stumbled on a great way to "give back" by looking up ways to get involved in the local Children's Hospital. I will encourage everyone to at least take a look at this concept.

New Holiday Tradition to Benefit All Children's

This holiday season, Busch Gardens begins a new tradition when it hosts its biggest Christmas celebration ever. Christmas Town transforms the park into a nighttime holiday wonderland of wintry surprises and all things Christmas. And a portion of the proceeds will benefit All Children's Hospital. (Read More).

If theme parks aren't your thing, you can buy tickets for less then ten dollars and give them to a local school to give out, or kids in your neighborhood.  It will help out the children in the hospital as well as those who want to go to a theme park for the holiday festivities. 

That is what we call...two birds...one stone.

Further, if you send me a receipt as proof of purchase, I will send you a free paperback novel of either For Nothing or Buffalo Soldiers (your choice) with a sure-to-be-value-decreasing-signature of mine enclosed on the inside of the cover.

Now that we have all the feel good helping people stuff out of the way...

...time to gloat while I still can.

My friend Thomas sent me these text pictures the last few days.  He is in the UK, Wales to be exact, and is freezing his butt off.  Let me feel sorry for him (while I still can)...

Yep that sucks.  Sorry old chap.  0 degrees in December?  Hardly a rum go though is it?  You know better than to expect different! 

Makes me chuffed to be able to show you this as it approaches 5 pm here in Florida right outside my office:

Eh.  A bit overcast though isn't it?  I miss the blue skies already.  Lovely though, palm trees for Christmas and sunshine and 70 plus degrees in December.  Though I do envy something about a white Christmas.  I guess I will have to settle for looking at all the colorful lights tomorrow and the Christmas decorations as I mentally prep for the holiday.

19 days to go?  Exciting.