Christmas is nearly on the doorstep, or the roof, ready to bring oodles of joy into your house. Joy is all well and good I've always thought, but it's the wrapped presents under the tree that make your heart thump in anticipation. At our house, first thing, there's sticky buns for breakfast (just a modicum of calories, so don't fret), then it's into the living room or den to rip into beautifully wrapped presents, over in three seconds, and here it took at least 10 minutes to make each look perfect. I know, I know, you can't help yourself.

Can you believe it -- Thanksgiving is just round the corner. Of course I was fast off the mark and changed out Halloween for Thanksgiving decorations November 1st. Because of the wicked decoration house goblin you never find every single ghost or witch hat or black cat pillow.

If you are curious about Bad Kicker, I'm referring to that poor person who missed two field goals for the 49ers on Sunday (versus the Browns), the final one this poor person missed should have been the game winner-kicked in the very last second. Now, all of you know football is a team sport, and so I wonder how did everyone act when the poor person slunk in the facility on Monday morning?

We've now gotten through the first week of the NFL football season. Those of you who happen to care about football, the Jets were so excited — they'd built up the team, great defense and they signed Aaron Rodgers from Green Bay, a veteran and a Super Bowl quarterback, needless to say, for very big bucks. Excitement filled the air, fans filled the stadium Monday night, everyone was excited over the moon.

As many of you know, my husband and I were in Maui, five miles north of Lahaina, when the huge fire hit. The winds were incredible, the smoke so black it was night. We'd been in Lahaina, our favorite town on Maui, on both Sunday and Monday, out on a dinner cruise from Lahaina harbor and back some six hours before the devastation.