Getting ready for Christmas

So, how are you doing in preparation for Christmas?   Are you remembering to keep the reason for the season in mind?

Sometimes, it's too easy to get caught up in the popular "Santa" christmas.

Around here, the Advent banners that our quilt group made for church are going up, one more each week, and they look marvelous.

At home, the tree is up.  Unfortunately, the cat has an interest in the tree - particularly in climbing INTO the tree.  Today my poor doggie got the fright of her life as she walked past the tree and got ambushed by the cat.  Now the dog is afraid of the tree !

The shopping is just about done.   You know Murphy's law?  The one that bites you when you least expect/need it?  Well it was in full force here this week.
I succumbed to the pressure and ordered a new cell phone for my son for Christmas.  His iPhone was 3 years old and the contract was finished, so it was a good time to trade up.  The phone arrived, and is carefully stashed.  I even found a buyer for the old phone (a friend).   Then Friday, he dropped his phone.  He's done this before and it always survived just fine.  This time, it didn't.  It dinged the top right corner and cracked the screen - about a full square inch in that corner.  My heart sank.
You see, my son is a very "fussy" kid.  He wouldn't even use a case or screen saver on his phone because it changed the texture enough to bug him.  Normally, he'd freak out at this kind of accident.  But he didn't.  That worries me.  Does he know???????
He just grumbled a bit, then said how now he had to get a new phone because this one was too old and slow anyway.  I offered solutions to repair it, all of which he denied, saying he was surprised this hadn't happened sooner and how it was ok, because it still worked even with the cracked screen.

Then I had to tell my friend that the phone was broken.  I called around town and the cheapest repair shop wanted $39 to fix it.  And that was with an appointment, and he needed for 24 hours.  Well, that was out because how was I going to get his phone away for 24 hours and not spill the secret that he was getting a new one?

So, my friend still agreed to buy the phone for the price we had agreed on, less the $40 it was going to cost him to fix it.

Today, I stopped at the dollar store and bought him a new charger cord for his phone that he's been asking for.  I hope that throws him off until Christmas.

Oh, and when I ordered his new phone,  I also bought one for ME !!!  Woohoo :)