33 more days till Christmas.

I know that countdown because I have a little wooden calendar in the kitchen. I was in the Hallmark store recently and saw a cute Christmas-countdown decoration with dice-like cubes painted with numbers. It caught my eye because my Uncle Tony out in Arizona had made everyone in the family a little wooden house with two wooden cubes painted on all sides with numbers to correspond with the days of the month.

My uncle called it his perpetual calendar because as long as you knew what year it was, the little cubes tucked into the wooden house would always give you the correct date if you remembered to change them each morning. According to Uncle Tony-- if you didn't know what year it was, and if you couldn't remember to rotate the cubes each morning, then you didn't need a calendar in the first place.

I didn't buy that little decoration in Hallmark, but when I got home, I took my uncle's wooden calendar out of my desk where it had been tucked away. I had always kept it on my kitchen windowsill, right over the sink, but little miniature vegetable people and farm animals sort of took over that space. I had a new idea for the wooden house and the calendar cubes, however, and out came the acrylic paints. I painted the little house red, but left the cubes just as they were-- gold with red numbers. I used some of my heavy card stock Christmas embellishments to decorate the little wooden house and now the little house is all decked out to look like a holiday decoration.

From the card stock embellishments, I also found a bright red "CHRISTMAS" printed in happy red letters on a white background. I attached that to the house, right underneath the spot where the number-cubes sit. My little Christmas-countdown house is now in the kitchen, sitting next to a vintage Santa. It looks great... a happy little thing... and as of this morning, there are 33 more days till the day.

I've arranged and re-arranged Christmas decorations all over this house. Green porcelain pixies and red-and-white-striped elves have found different spots all over the living room and dining room. Bright beaded stars are sitting on top of trees, angels are spreading their wings in every room and there are Santas and little trees in all the rooms. My cousin L told me the other day that I'm living in my own "little bubble of the world." I told her she was exactly right, and in that bubble of mine, everything is pretty and happy and stress-free, and decorated for whatever holiday it happens to be.

That conversation with L started because she had asked me if I had heard the latest story about Korea on the news. For the umpteenth time, I reminded L that I don't watch the news on television. I find out what's going on in the world by reading The Chronicle every morning. I go through all the sections and read most of the paper. Bad news from around the world is less invasive that way-- you can choose to read the article or not, as opposed to having the sound blasting at you from the television.

I told L that I had no idea what's going on in Korea, nor did I want to know. By the way she asked me if I had heard, I knew it couldn't have been good news. And whatever is happening over there, I can't possibly do anything about it, so my theory is that I don't need to know, nor do I need to worry about it. L, on the opposite end of the worry-scale, was fretting and worrying and thinking about Korea for hours after she heard whatever the story was on the news. As a result, she didn't get her grocery shopping done, she didn't get her laundry done, and she was over-whelmed because Thanksgiving is a heart-beat away.

I suggested to L that she find her own little private bubble that encompasses just herself and her family and friends, and keeps out all the bad news stories from around the world. There will always be bad news, and the reporters are going to focus more on the bad-news stories than the good-news stories. I don't know why that has to be, but it just seems to always be true.

I told L that life was short. If you live to be 150, life will still be too short. Why should I take hours out of my days to listen to bad news? I told L that during the very hour she was biting her nails in front of her television, I was making place cards for our Christmas dinner, and little candy baskets for the holiday lunch we'll have here for the secretaries in my husband's office. I told my cousin that while she was worried about Korea and whatever their latest problem was, the only thing I was worried about was burning myself with the glue gun.

Life is too short. Be happy, with whatever defines your own bubble of joy.