Euphorbia aphylla makes an excellent Christmas tree

This year I’m celebrating Christmas with my roommates, who have become part of my chosen family.  I’ve mentioned before that I really love Christmas, but it’s probably hard to understand how much I love Christmas until you’ve lived with me in December and had to deal with the nonstop Christmas music and continuously flour covered kitchen.  My roommates do a good job of not strangling me.

While giving presents is one of my favorite parts of Christmas, I’m not as excited about getting them now as I was when I was a kid.  This year, however, I got a fantastic, fantastic present that I can’t help being incredibly excited about:  I found out that one of my grants is funded!  Since my lab didn’t get the grant that was supposed to fund half my wages for the next 6 months, this is a huge relief.  Plus, getting a grant is very good for my ego.

If you have to spend Christmas with people that make you crazy, I hope you can escape quickly and that New Years’ makes up for it.  For everyone that I didn’t send cookies to, here’s one of my favorite pieces of Christmas music from one of my favorite movies:

Hopefully it makes you as happy as it does me!