We really jumped the gun on the Christmas season, and got our tree on Monday, November 23. This is definitely the earliest I’ve ever gotten a tree, but they had ‘em at Home Depot for $35, and we figured that there’s no such thing as too much Christmas cheer, so let’s go for it.
Also this way the tree is getting watered earlier than it would otherwise, hopefully helping it live longer.
I still have a bit of sap residue on my hands after washing them twenty times. It’s very Griswold.
We currently have only five ornaments, all courtesy of my Aunt Jan, who gets us these fancy official White House ornaments every year. They’re really well made and esoteric, one of them explains something about William Henry Harrison, or Rutherford B. Hayes ----- regardless, if you’re going to have a small amount of ornamentation, White House historical ornaments are the way to go.
Thanks Aunt Jan!
~Abby and I just had some deep dish pizza over on Madison and Wabash, she’s in the city for the day to see the Addams Family musical at the Oriental, so we got to hang out for a bit and eat and chat. She’s very grown-up and mature and fun to talk to, and I wish she would come to the city more often to hang out (hint, hint).
~Thinking about Chinese ownership of some of our debt, I think we might be, as a public, mis-understanding it, we seem to think that the Chinese are buying up our T-bills as some sort of benevolent act, like they’re helping us out to be generous.
I don’t think this is correct.
They’re doing it because they think it’s the safest possible low-yield investment that exists.
In other words, the Chinese buy up our debt specifically because they know we won’t go bankrupt.
This being the case, I doubt that Chinese ownership of our debt will cause us to go bankrupt.
It’s a symbiotic relationship --- they’re not doing us a favor.
Dad or Joel, ponder this one and we’ll have some fun Thanksgiving discussions :)