Everyone loves the holidays – unless you are Ebenezer Scrooge – but it is quite the BUSY time of year. Especially since the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year is one week shorter than last year.

This is now the fourth year since we made our FIRE escape that I have been able to enjoy holiday activities untethered to a job 50+ hours a week. That’s a lot of extra time. While I always took off of work between Christmas Eve and New Years, the month leading up to Christmas was always crazy busy.

Now we can go to a holiday show/movie on a weeknight, meet up with friends for a Christmas luncheon, drive to a small town to go antique shopping, or prepare for our annual friends & neighbors party without any stress. I was at my parents house this week helping them with their Christmas tree and setting up a new TV. My Dad’s restored 1930s Marx Toy Train is all ready to run around the tree for another season.

Last week, I stopped and snapped the photos of the holiday lights at the top of the page on the way to my curling league match. What fun to be able to ‘waste’ an extra 20 minutes and enjoy the season.

Here’s a picture of MegaCorp HQ at the holidays. Their famous Christmas Tree with the lights on is well known in Minnesota. It is a real-life version of this 1951 New Yorker magazine cover illustration:

Have a great HOLIDAY weekend!