We went out today with the explicit purpose of finding new cell phones. Last year, we signed up with Cingular, but we’ve both been rather unhappy about the reception and the coverage, and I’ve had the date this contract expires (December 26th!) marked on my calendar for months now. On that day, I’ll call up Cingular to cancel the contract and then Richard and I will pack up the phones and all the accessories and find somewhere to donate them.

But in the meantime, we’ve now signed up with Sprint, a lovely family plan that gives us more minutes than either of us could possibly use, and two phones of our choice. Richard wanted one with PCS vision, which means he has color, and can see pictures and so on. I really could care less about pictures and color – my only requirement was that it had to be small enough to put in a pocket.

We both left the store happy, new phones and users’ manuals in hand as we poked around all the bells and whistles of our respective models during lunch. My new phone sounds like chimes now when it rings. My new phone folds in half and is small enough to hide in the palm of my hand. But best of all, my new phone actually picks up a signal in our house. We have new toys. Whee!

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As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not exactly the most religious of people. I enjoy Christmas for all the things that go with the season, like lights and trees and spiced cider and singing carols and the love, most of all the love. However, I’ve never felt the need to surround myself with the more religious type of Christmas decorations. Then, years ago I saw the most marvelous nativity set, made by Eddie Walker. All the pieces are tiny – barely a few inches tall – and the best part about it was the fact that Mary and Joseph and the angel are all cats. Mary holds a little kitten Jesus in her arms. Granted the three wise men are dogs, which most self-respecting cats might argue with initially, but it is the absolute best nativity set ever. And I fell head over heels in love. I wanted it desperately. But I was, at the time, a graduate student (which meant I lived in eternal state of financial flux, depending on how much, if any, funding I was getting that quarter) and I reluctantly decided to wait until after Christmas when it would be available at a 50% discount. Of course by the time Christmas was over there were no more sets to be had. And since this was a limited edition, this meant that I had no luck finding it anywhere else that year, or any other year.

I’ve been kicking myself ever since, every time I think about it. And over the last few years I’ve done periodic searches on eBay, hoping that maybe someday someone might decide to put theirs up for auction.

Guess what I finally found last week? Guess what arrived yesterday and has been set up on the little table in our bedroom? I am still floating over finally getting my hands on this thing I’ve coveted for years. Isn’t it adorable?

Tis the season for Holidailies!