A large bag of Christmas decorations, including bells, slid to the floor from a chair about an hour after the Milpitas-centered 4.1 quake.

Another reminder to put holiday stuff away.

On Christmas night, the two sons decided to add movies to their Netflix queue, collapsing into hysterics every few minutes. No film was too awful, apparently, including one about a very strange dwarf. I was careful not to remember the name of it. Earlier, they had forced me to watch the Doc Ellis No No video.

Here is a list of underrated movies from the Guardian. Of the ten, I’ve only seen one, Spirited Away, but I saw it three times.

Every few years, I get up when it’s still dark, and head out to look for gift wrap and other supplies. Last year I slept in, probably the year before that too, but this morning the traffic sounds were too compelling. A family member was forced to go with me.

We didn’t make it out the door quite as early as I’d hoped, but this was a positive since it meant we wouldn’t be standing in lines. Surprisingly, the crowd at Target was sparse. The last time I did this, I waited in a cold but very congenial crowd who huddled close for warmth. Either the shoppers got in and out very fast, or people just weren’t interested this year. Lots of stuff left, so much that I didn’t have to go to the Hallmark store.

All year long, one of my neighbors gets packages. When a UPS truck comes down the street, it will pull up at their house. Ditto FedEx. Twice a day, usually. This gets tiresome, and I wonder if they have a thriving eBay business, for instance. All those packages! All that stuff!

For the last few weeks, all the trucks have been stopping in front of my driveway. Both UPS and FedEx, and just now, a fellow pops in with two packages, but I don’t see a truck. He came by in a plain white van, but the packages are from Amazon. Perhaps a third party seller.

Meanwhile, nothing is being delivered at the other house. I don’t understand. I know they have Christmas because every year, despite my extreme lateness in getting up lights, I know they will be later. Their lights went up last night. But I win this year because I’m not through putting up the last strings on the Christmas bush. (I’m trying to recover from the nasty respiratory whatever that I got from wrestling with said bush.)

As we walked in, a little girl in the riding seat of a cart was pummeling her brother lying down in the otherwise empty cart. Mom either didn’t see or was not bothered by this. In the vastness of the grocery section of the remodeled Sunnyvale Target, a small child was whining ‘Cookie, COO-kie’ in ever more desperate tones to his oblivious parents. The rest of us wanted to go over and have a serious discussion with him about You Better Not Shout, I’m Telling You Why.

The frozen section extended as far as the eye could see. They have organic bourbon vanilla ice cream. I think they have every frozen food known to man. Boursin cheese, sweet Italian sausage. Fresh fruit and veggies.

I only needed some Hershey’s kisses for peanut butter blossom cookies. Did I want plain, caramel-filled, peppermint pieces, Irish coffee or mint? When we staggered out of there, we had four of five bags of stuff.