What's going on? It's December ya know

Um, it's mere days before Christmas, and the only Christmas decorations we have up are the lights on the front of the house. I kid you not. The tree is in the attic, and packed with it are the little 18 inch individual trees that I got the kids for their rooms, and the garland that normally would reside around my front door...or at least over it. As such, the rest of the decorations are in the green tubs in the hall corner collecting more dusty debris from my 50+ year old house full of dust and other miscellany. I sent out several Christmas cards and got a few from friends (none from those I sent cards to either mind you). I have a small assortment of gifts purchased and hidden. I have a cookie recipe languishing in the kitchen after discovering some EVOL menace in my house consumed the remainder of the package of chocolate & peanut butter chips/morsels/machine created drops. They were peanut butter chips and chocolate chips coexisting nicely in a yellow bag. They were slated for one last run of cookies and I was highly ticked to discover their empty bag abandoned in the garbage. I had to buy more today. At least the bag wasn't abandoned behind the futon like a million Halloween candy wrappers were. I really loved finding that mess. I don't recall spawning an offspring and naming it "Not Me", but apparently this Not Me character has adopted us without my permission, or my obtaining legal counsel. But somehow this being has conspired with my genetic offspring and aided in the little messes that realllllly pile up and annoy the you-know-what out of me. I have my share of the clutter in this house. We also have no storage here, and I refuse to rent a storage unit. Which is part of why we don't have our tree up yet. The clutter won't allow much space for it. Big giant pieces of furniture in the living room leave little place for it. The one spot we have will result in an obstructed path through the living room. I'm seriously giving consideration to using some brown craft paper we have and green paint and painting a tree, taping it to the wall there and leaving the walkway free. Then I'll put a small pile of gifts on the floor in front of the paper tree on Christmas Eve when Devildog and I go to bed. At least this Christmas I have the opportunity to sleep in my own bed, which has happened a total of twice since I married Devildog 14 years ago. We've usually gone to visit his relatives for Christmas.