If one cares to look back at my June and July entries, they'll probably find a lot of me bitching about how it's so damned hot and I can't wait for winter. Well, winter's here, and lemme tell ya, it sucks. I just can't win when it comes to weather.

Today's what I like to call "jacket crackling" cold...it's so cold that as soon as I walk out the door, my super-high-tech ski jacket goes from being soft and loose to "crackly." Kinda hard to describe, but I'm sure that anyone who lives in Chicago probably has an idea of what I'm talking about.

The tree finally got trimmed last night and looks great. Truly about the only thing I enjoy about Christmas is decorating the tree...especially when it's a real one. To commemorate that, and since today's a really slow news day, here are 5 random TMI facts about me and the holiday I love to hate:

-I love egg nog. As a kid, there was always spiked egg nog at our annual Christmas Eve Dago Bash. One year I grabbed someone's cup and guzzled it, and my Mom went apeshit...so every year going forward there was always non-spiked egg nog on hand for me.

-Most of my Christmas ornaments are trains. I had a huge fascination with them as a kid.

-When my parents split up, my dad and stepmom ended up with my stocking that my Mom made for me when I was an infant. It was cool as hell, even though it had a pineapple on it. I have no clue what happened to it, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Gerry tossed it.

-My parents had a weird habit in the early 1980s for a while of buying my sister and I at least one identical present. One year we both got clock radios, one year we both got joysticks for our computer.

-I found out the truth about Santa when I was like 7. He wrote in ALL CAPS just like Dad.

Lindsay Blowhan? Can anyone confirm/deny this story?