It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

When the boys were young, we used a Countdown to Christmas calendar. It had a pocket for each day that held a strip of paper with an activity that would help us get ready for Christmas. Even though I haven't used that calendar for many years, I still like the concept of spreading out the holiday activities, and try to do one or two things every day to make the season less hectic.

Christmas is only two days away.  Even though I'm off work today, I still got up early this morning. There's a lot to do!

Son Tony flew into town today.  We picked him up at the airport shortly before lunchtime. The rest of the family will be rolling in over the next 36 hours. Everyone will be staying for at least a couple of nights.  Even though our house has four bedrooms, two of them only have twin beds.  With the addition of daughter in law Nicole the family is growing larger, and we need more bed space.  Last week I bought an air mattress and electric pump. Today I got it ready to be used.

The full-sized vinyl mattress has a soft-looking flocked cover.  According to the information on the box, it could be inflated in 110 seconds.  That sounded like a challenge to me, so I decided to time the job.  After I took the air mattress out of the box and spread it out on the bedroom floor, I attached the pump to it, turned the pump on, and started inflating.  At the same time I started the stopwatch on my phone.

Although the job went quickly, the box was incorrect.  I inflated the air mattress until it was firm, which took 2 minutes and 25 seconds.   After I was done, I stood the mattress against the wall so the cats couldn't get on it, then put the pump back in the box and set the box in a corner of the bedroom.  That way whoever uses the mattress can make it firmer or softer if they'd like.

Tomorrow I'll put linens in the room and dust the furniture.  Then it will be ready for guests.