Christmastime is coming. It is rushing toward me at a breakneck speed and I am struggling to keep ahead of it.

I do have the tree in the living room with lights burning. Let me redo that — my husband set the tree up in the living room while I was out shopping. There are no decorations on this tree as of this morning.

The dining room table and buffet have holiday arrangements that I quickly pulled out of the closet last week to replace the fall stuff, which I threw (and I mean threw) back into the closet. I did this about 15 minutes before some friends arrived for a visit. From this, I learned that speed decorating is not a good thing.

There are some decorations outside — again my husband took the reins (get the reindeer pun here) and put them in place for me. I still need to put the lighted garland around my lantern post out front and hang a wreath or two more.

When I was a kid, we never thought about getting a tree up until two weeks before Christmas. Then it became a big event. We went to Christmas Tree Land on a hunt for the perfect tree, brought it home and spent the evening listening to holiday songs while we decorated it. Oh, those were the good old days weren’t they.

These days I feel behind if the house doesn’t look like a winter wonderland the day after Thanksgiving. Christmas Tree Land is now a cardboard box containing a pre-lighted, easy to assemble, no-evergreen-smell creation. Might not be as romantic as going out into the wild to cut a tree, but it doesn’t leave a mess all over the floor or dry out to a fire hazard by the big day. Those things matter as you grow older.

Don’t misunderstand, I enjoy this time of year. I love seeing the lights shining in all the houses, the sound of carols and the excitement of children sitting on Santa’s knee. It just that this year I seem to be slower getting in gear when it comes to bringing the holly jolly to life at my house.

Therefore, I decided that today is the day. I am diving into that closet full of shiny ornaments, fat snowmen, fake poinsettias, colorful wire trees and well-used stockings. A transformation is about to happen. Yep, time to put on the Christmas CD and get moving.

I will repeat the mantra, deck the halls, deck the halls, deck the halls, until every plastic snowflake is in place on that tree and the candy cane colored candles are in their holders. I will hang the red kitchen towels and set out the snowman cookie jar and teapot.

I will. I will. I will.

I must. I must. I must.

I kinda don’t want to. I kinda don’t want to.

Christmastime is coming. It’s coming. I know its coming and if I don’t hurry up it’s going to run smack dab over me. It’s going to catch me with my Rudolph red nose still stuck in that closet trying to find my cat-shaped stocking.

So today is the day. Yep, I’m gonna do it — right after I pour myself another cup of tea and maybe read another chapter or two in my book and check up on what’s happening on Facebook, pet the cat a little …