Christmas trees: when did yours go up, and when did it/ will it come down?

We started decorating on the 22nd and finished on the 24th. It's a cut tree from out back. My husband takes down a pine to thin them for the remaining pines, and the top 8' becomes our tree. This year I'm holding out for the 6th of January before anything comes down.

Meanwhile, across the road - their tree was to the curb Christmas morning!

I know to expect some ads when i go to a newspaper article

or even routine click-bait, but it's getting out of hand. Some articles are impossible to read because the print keeps jumping around to accommodate a new ad popping up at the top of the screen. Others try to load so many video ads that it locks up my machine!

My Christmas Roses (hellebourus) are blooming-

in Upstate NY!

ANy advice for a friend who has hit a wall with migraine relief?

Ya know that Christmas snow globe you have? You shouldn't

ought to store it in a plastic bin with other decorations out in the shed during record breaking cold temperatures.

On the plus side, it was a small bin and my husband is determined to scrape the mold off the ceramic figurines!

The downside of tracking packages -

I love placing an order and watching it travel across the US from depot to depot to doorstep. But I sent a package to my son who lives in a townhouse complex with a central rack of letter boxes. Somehow, the shipping company translated the letter box number as a Post office box number. Right now the package is in limbo crossing from one end of the town post office building to the other and back. So close, and yet so far!

My husband and I saw the first Star Wars movie when it opened. We were on our honeymoon at the time.

That explains a lot, actually.

I just fell in love with the Iowa caucus -

after 40 years of "what's a caucus?" and "why do they get to go first?" I finally get it. The Iowa caucus measures how determined people are to get out and vote for their candidate. Polls scare me because it's easy to say yes or no over the phone, but if 5% doesn't bother to show up the Tuesday after 1st Monday in November, we're in trouble.

Gingerbread houses - why?

The gingerbread house in Hansel and Gretel is designed to trap unwary children, so how did it become a Christmas icon? Is this really a German thing brought to America, or is it descended from a how-to article in a women's magazine c 1923?

I don't think I have ever been this worried about the Presidential election

Remember when we were all afraid it's be Bush V Clinton? Ah, for the Good Old Days! The Republicans look closer and closer to nominating someone totally incompetent and wildly irresponsible take your pick - Trump, Cruz or Rubio. I've heard that many at the bottom are dropping out of voting, leaving angry white men (and women) to tip the balance.