Winter Blues

I did the "Sonic" thing again yesterday. We have a Post Office box in Mont Belvieu, so I try to go there after work a couple of times each week. Most days I go home right after work, or else meet my wife in Baytown for dinner if she's out of the house, but once in a while I'm going to have the evening to myself. She was running errands and rather than meet to eat, well, we didn't. My goal was to put up the Christmas tree.

At the Post Office, I found my January issues of Car and Driver and Cycle World. Usually, that's cause to spend the evening reading about my favorite subjects, but that would have caused me to fail to meet my goal. Christmas comes early at my house this year due to family members who have limited time, and it wouldn't do to not have the tree up by Monday when we pick my son and daughter-in-law up from the airport.

Outdoor decorations have to wait, and that brings up the thing I hate about this time of year. We don't have real "winter" in this part of the country, and we're so far south that it doesn't get dark that early in comparison with most of the country, but it's dark before 6:00, and that's too early for me. The westbound side of I-10 is construction free now, reducing my drive back to 45 minutes, but there's still no daylight to speak of when I get home. If there's a big drawback to the commute, it's winter time.

Daytime will start to last longer before you know it. I'm surprised every year when it starts to get dark early, but I'm equally surprised that it starts to feel better so quickly after the solstice. Maybe not so surprised this year, since I'm already anticipating it.

Although it still needs to be decorated, I got the tree up and lit, and the Abominable Snowman perched on top in his traditional place.