The smell of fat green pine needles fills the house, it tingles when you breath in then you get used it and all that's left is the small start of surprise each time you realize there's a tree in the room.

Hey! There's a tree in the room!

I have a wish to always have a tree in the room and this time of year the wish sprouts and curls upward and blossoms. There are, as yet, no decorations on the tree, but really, I almost think it doesn't NEED decorations. It's decorating the room all on its own power! Decorating it with green! And branchiness! And pine-needly-goodness! Putting decorations on will be like gilding a lily. In fact, it will be like gilding a pine tree. And once it's gilded, it will be all the more fantastical and amazing and I will sit on the sofa and stare at it while my eyes get bigger and bigger and fill up with gold and red and light sparkles until my head explodes in a shower of sugarplums and Christmas dust.

Tomorrow I have the day off and Mom and I are going to lunch in Malmö and in addition to a couple of American friends, we will meet kejn and sealwhiskers. I am very excited about this, because I haven't seen kejn in forever and I've NEVER seen sealwhiskers. My mom has met enough of my internet friends now to know what lovely people they all are that she's not scared they'll turn out to be internet psychos (except ozswede who we have fooled with a fake address).

Then we're going Christmas shopping. And to the post office. And grocery shopping. Then we're coming home and gilding putting up the playroom tree and decorating them both. Then we're baking cookies!

• Iced Sugar Cookies
• Creme-filled Sandwich Wafers
• Reindeer Poop
• Bodil's Almond-paste Sandwich Cookies
• Pumpkin-Chocolate-Chip Bars
• Fudge Puddles
• Rice Krispie Holly Bars

After that, we'll be crashing from a sugar high into a coma. Let the holidays begin!

Really, Really Great Writing Out There Right Now: The Worst That Could Happen