July already?

Looking at my calendar on my office wall today, I'm realizing that it's already July. When the hell did that happen I wonder? This year has been somewhat of a whirlwind so far and doesn't seem to be slowing down any time soon. The irony is that it's 100 degrees outside and I've spent most of the day so far working on Christmas albums.

The fact is that in order to get Christmas albums into stores at the appropriate time we have to start working on them as early as March. Yes, March. By the time Christmas actually rolls around, I'm ready to tell Rudolph where he can stick his White Christmas. Indeed, come December, I'm hunched over and Grinch-like and ready to kill at the first few bars of "Feliz Navidad" (which just may by my most hated Christmas song of all!) It's not that I hate Christmas songs. I just hate Christmas songs when I'm working on them in the middle of spring and through the summer when I would much rather be contemplating sticking my toes in the pool.

So, I shall lament the rest of my office day before the long weekend, surrounded by holiday cheer of the non-July 4th variety.

Happy Holidays!

I've been saving this bit of holiday cheer to share with you closer to Xmas. Every year at work, I head up the "adopt-a-family" program at work. A local charity that helps families in need throughout the year assigns families for adoption that need help over the holidays. This year, we adopted 4 families with a total of eight kids ranging in age from 4 to 15. They send over their wish lists for Christmas gifts, and we collect what we can, wrap everything and donate to them. Even with the economic downturn this year, my co-workers were generous as always and we put together a ton of toys - from Barbie dolls to an iPod, plus gift cards to Target, Best Buy, Blockbuster and a variety of other places. We also do a food drive to collect non-perishable goods and top it off with a grocery store gift card for each family. I thought it might be fun to share some photos of the process. =)
On that note, HAPPY HOLIDAYS to you all!!