I normally don’t much like shopping the day after Thanksgiving, not so much because I mind crowds as because it’s the day Everybody’s Supposed To Go Shopping and I don’t like being manipulated by faceless corporations to engage in something that really shouldn’t involve faceless corporations so much.

As Maria and I did not previously own apartment-decorating paraphernalia, though, and as it was on sale, we went forth to Target and bought a horrifying amount of stuff, including a five-foot-or-something artificial tree (previous trees in my [non-Richmond] places of residence basically included Jon’s eighteen-inch tree, decorated with a Centre Debate 2000 button) and ordaments. We spent a LOT, just about everything I saved off the food budget this month by feeding my sister ramen noodles.

But we have shiny things now. And it’s snowing!