"On the Seventh Day of Christmas..."

...we went a'roving.

Not far. We'd dreamed about going to Gatlinburg this week, even if overnight, to see the Winterfest lights, but we really couldn't afford it. But James was looking for a calendar with aircraft artwork and hadn't found one in the local bookstores. So we decided to go up to Discover Mills, which has a calendar store.

The cold front had come through last night and the shades were flapping in the breeze when we got up, but the sky was bright blue and it wasn't all that cold. James had to right "Woody" the reindeer and the cross-draft on the freeway was pretty strong, but we made it up to Discover Mills without incident. This mall is built like a big oval track with the food court cutting through the middle and we saw many couples "doing the mall" for exercise. We did an entire circuit, too, finally found the calendar store, but he didn't find any aviation art. He got a black and white calendar of battleships instead.

The mini-calendar findings were meager. All the small calendars are larger (7"x7") than I need (5.5"x5.5"). They had dogs (breeds I wasn't interested in), horses, psalms, and something else that was so forgettable that I forgot it. What I got was a John Deere calendar. While I'm not into tractors, the pictures are seasonal and had the vaguely country flavor that the house does.

We came home by a new gaming shop that James wanted to try. We could barely edge through it since they were having an all day (and night) Pokemon championship tournament. Lots of kids playing and even some adults.

I'd been worried about rush-hour traffic, but we made it to Cobb County without incident—it was getting past Cumberland Mall that was the problem! We had a two-fer coupon for Fresh 2 Order, so we picked up our dinners and came home until it was time to leave for Bill and Caran's party. Ate, watched the news and Jeopardy!, set the DVR to record (all the That's Entertainment films are on TCM tonight).

Finally James baked his contribution to the party and I put on Rudolph's Shiny New Year. This is practically a Paul Frees festival...he does something like every other voice. I wish they'd been able to use the original Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer models. Not anywhere as good as the original, but I do like the "Moving Finger Writes" and Big Ben the whale, voiced by "the Great Gildersleeve" himself, Hal Peary.

Goodness! You can see the texture on everything!

Anyway, it's time to go. Happy New Year to all!