You Don't Call It Christmas Swag, Do You?

It occurred to me that I got a lot of stuff for Christmas, much of which I asked for. Seeing it piled up on a chair behind me, for the purpose of this post, leaves me feeling a bit guilty, actually.
CLOTHES:
mostly pants and T-shirts
FOOD:
various stuff
MUSIC:
LOVE-the Beatles
Phillips 66-John Phillips
Songs from the Labyrinth-Sting
When Carol returns that James Taylor Christmas album, I get to pick the replacement
plus some mixes from KY and elsewhere
BOOKS:
Library: An Uneasy History by Matthew Battles, which I have started reading
Leonard Maltin's 2007 Movie Guide
Television without Pity by Ariano and Bunting
The All Music Book of Rock, which I use as part of my weight training
And of course, the 2007 World Almanac. Since it's really a book about the events from mid-October 2005 to mid-October 2006, except for the November elections, it always misses those end of the year bombshells, such as the deaths of JB, Prez Ford and Saddam.
For some reason, I always look up the weather from two years ago: The high temperature in Albany for 2005 was 94F on June 26, lowest for that year was -16F on January 28. One of the local meteorologists said last week that there were no days in 2006 when the temperature went below zero.

And yet, with all of that, I almost always end up buying for myself the CDs I didn't get. There was only one I REALLY wanted, and that was Highway Companion by Tom Petty, recommended by both Lefty and Nik. However, I SO hate paying postage on Amazon packages, so I also ordered Corinne Bailey Rae's debut album, based on a couple co-workers' recommendations, and Other People's Lives by the Kinks' Ray Davies, based entirely on Lefty's recommendation. If/when I get to Borders with that JT return, I'll get whatever strikes my fancy at the moment. I've listened to Petty and Rae once each, and at work, not always the most conducive venue, and Davies will shed the shrink wrap today.

Not so incidentally, I was more than mildly disturbed by the Wikipedia write-up on Rae (linked above), because of the racial taunting she had to endure when she was younger. I suspect she'll show up in my blog in June.