Festivus preparations underway

I'm not a Christmas person.  I'm minimalist when I can help it and have a general disgust for commercialism.  Christmas is unavoidable from before Halloween until after New Years and it annoys me.  I've noticed so many people giving gifts as a substitute for showing love, and most people end up with a lot of stuff every year that they enjoy very briefly and then forget about.  I'd much rather get one small and inexpensive gift that actually means something to me than a whole assortment of expensive presents in throwaway wrappings and sticky bows.

My husband and I decided a while ago that we'd rather celebrate Festivus and the Solstice along side his and our son's December birthdays.  I don't like my son being called a "Christmas Baby".  I call him our "Birthday Baby" since we had our first prenatal appointment and ultrasound a day after my birthday and he was born an hour before his father's birthday.  This year, he can participate in feats of strength with the cats, something he has spent the last month practicing for.  I'm sure he'll air plenty of grievances in the confines of his diaper after we gorge ourselves on comfort food.  We are thirteen days from crossing over from "baby" to "toddler" and he seems to be on a mission to prove himself a big boy.  I'm a little sad that my itty bitty is growing up so fast.  He even got his first haircut yesterday so he no longer looks like the love-child of MacGyver and Bon Jovi.  He is big now and ready for some Festivus miracles.  My bet is this years big miracle will be him repeating choice words I yelled in the car earlier today.   Cat wrestling will commence after dinner on December 23rd.

We're having another vegan potluck, so I felt obligated to get a little tree.  I'm just going to put it on the table.  It's a living dwarf tree in a pot, so we'll plant it outside if it survives the cats this winter.  They ate the Norfolk pine my MIL gave us years ago, so I wouldn't be surprised if they nosh on this one as well.  I am fighting with bronchitis right now, and I really need to learn that I shouldn't go shopping when I'm sick.  The following pictures are my Yule tree...