It’s July and I’m still brazenly using Christmas address labels.

Why, you might ask?

Are you a huge fan of Christmas?

Is it so you can feel the holiday cheer all year long?

Do you live in a freaking igloo?

The answer is simply this: the alignment on my printer is out of whack and I haven’t been able to print my own labels. No matter how much whacking I’ve inflicted upon said malfunctioning printer.

In my defense, sometimes whacking things gets them working properly again. Admit it. You know you’ve done it a time or two. Or three.

Anyway, I’ve been shamelessly relying on the charitable contributions of charities and their solicitations of donations through the gift of address labels.

(There’s something horribly wrong with that sentence, I know.)

I’ve been using the same sheet of irritatingly festive Christmas labels since last November.

I’m sure my mortgage company is getting a good laugh out of the monthly bills affixed with labels featuring dancing cartoon reindeer or bundled and bloated penguins.

Or maybe they’re secretly concerned about my cost-cutting measures and taking bets on when those prompt mortgage payments are going to abruptly stop altogether as part of phase two of my penny-pinching crusade.

But just when I’m in grave danger of running out and having to- *gasp*- hand-write my return address on all correspondence, lo and behold, a new set of summer-themed labels arrives in the mail.

So now I have six sheets of non-holiday themed labels. Yay!

Talk about practical. I plan to make good use of these well into the New Year.

After all, if I can pretend it’s Christmas in July, I ought to be able to pretend it’s flip flop and Mai Tai time on some tropical island in the dead of  winter.

Works both ways, doesn’t it?

T’is so not the season!