It's Beginning to Look like Christmas

I know it isn't quite Thanksgiving yet, but around my house, it's beginning to look like Christmas. The sounds are there. I've started playing my vast collection of Christmas Cd's. The sights are there. Colin got our artificial tree down and set it up and I have started putting lights on it. We also have watched two Christmas movies with Ian. We watched Elf and then we watched Muppets' Christmas Carol. I've already wrapped presents to start getting ready to ship to Kansas. Ian has already seen most of his gifts (I believe I blogged about his sneakiness earlier).
Why am I getting ready so early? We are going to Hawaii for a week in December. We did that two years ago and I remember coming back and feeling like I had lost a week and didn't have enough time to get ready for Christmas. It felt very rushed and it wasn't how I wanted to feel at Christmas. So this time, I am starting early. I want to enjoy my beautiful tree more than a week and a half or two weeks. I want to watch my favorite old Christmas movies (we didn't get to them last year and we were at home the whole month!). I want to read Christmas stories to Ian while he snuggles next to me. I want to actually complete my Christmas cards this year and get them mailed. So this year I am having a very Merry Thanksgiving as well as a Merry Christmas!