There it is! My holiday spirit. Showed up earlier than usual this year. Even though I'm busy (I graded a bunch more papers today, and, yes, bought a new dishwasher that will probably be installed early next week), I'm in a good mood. A holiday mood.

So I have deemed it Not Too Early to start sharing Christmas stuff. (Most of these are links that will be familiar to long-time readers. But they are things I really love, so I feel like linking to them again).

The first item is perhaps a bit more mischievous than sweet. It's a snowglobe that you can shake up. The special attraction of this is that the things in the globe "respond." So you can work out a lot of pent-up anger - if you had to go to the mall, or if you got the walk all shoveled just to have the snowplow come along and back-fill the end of the drive, or if (like me) you made the mistake of going to wal-mart over the 3 to 4 pm hour*.

(I know, this thing was kind of "viral" back in 2005 or so, but I STILL like it and find it funny. Not least because I like the "space age bachelor pad" Christmas music (it's by Esquivel) that's playing in the background).

(*But even that wasn't so bad. I was picking up gifts for the Crisis Center - my CWF group always gathers stuff that women or children could use, and takes it to the women's shelter (what used to, in less-politic days, be called the "battered women's shelter" - it's for women who are escaping abusive situations). I always like doing that kind of shopping, picking out something I think (hope) will make someone happy (or a LITTLE happier, I realize that spending Christmas in a shelter must, to use a word I rarely use on here, really suck). I just pick out stuff I think *I* would like, and figure I have decent taste)

So, let the holiday season begin.

I'm also working on a little item that amuses me a lot and is more or less seasonal. I will post a photo tomorrow if I finish it.