[NOTE: I sorta fucked up and overwrote this post; fortunately, I had an old one cached in a past tab. So I haven't restored the html and images and whatnot, but at least the text is still present and accounted for.]

21. Clean my apartment,
22. Host Christmas morning,
29. Put up Christmas lights,
34. Get rid of the mammoth computer desk
The first three are all tied together, ultimately. First of all, I suppose "clean" is a subjective term, all things considered. But given the overall time and effort that went into getting the common areas of the apartment whipped into shape, I'm more than happy to call this one done.

Sure, there's still a bit of clutter here and there on the windowsills, there're a few comics that need to be added to the database and filed, but overall the place is vastly improved. Heck, I had a few boxes of stuff sitting in the corner of the dining room; those boxes had literally been sitting there since I moved in, two and a half years ago.

Anyway, the factor that finally pushed me to purge a lot of this stuff was that this year, Christmas morning was here. I have to say, from my point of view, it was a lot of fun. Mayhaps not wise to plan to host a major family holiday after I've just spent the last six weeks not sleeping and running myself somewhat ragged at work, but I think it was totally worth it.

Cheryl came up Sunday evening to make use of the sofa bed, and we stayed up pretty late talking; then the folks arrived at about 8:45am or so, for the opening of presents and whatnot. Around 10:45, Greg, Barb and Laura arrived for a few more presentses followed by a tasty breakfast (fancy feta scrambled eggs, fancy sausages, fancy chopped fruit, and famously fancy Aunt Sophie's rolls).

All in all, I had a very good time. Hopefully I am not in the minority in this. :)

Well, I know somebody who seems to have had a halfway decent time of it: