The Fireplace

Yesterday I pulled out all of my Christmas decorations because I couldn't resist the temptation any longer.  Christmas is my absolute favorite time of year, and I normally pull all of my decorations out early then count down until it's "acceptable" to have them out.  I might make an exception to this self-inflicted rule this year because I'm so ready for Christmas.  I blame this Christmas craziness on two things:

(1) My grandmother could be Santa himself if she weren't a woman.  I know of not one person in the world who loves the holidays as much as she does, and
(2) Given my little wedding/new job/moving escapade at the end of 2009, I didn't get much time to enjoy the holidays to their full potential a year ago, so now I feel the need to make up for lost time.

There is one slight (ok, major) problem with my Christmas plans this year.  It revolves around this thing (hint, it's on the left side):

Here's a closer view of it once the walls were painted:

Yes, the fireplace--or what's supposed to be a fireplace.  Is it heinous, or is it heinous?

Kind of hard to decorate for Christmas with that thing looming in the corner.  Kind of hard to decorate at ALL with that always starting directly at you.  We have great plans for it--put in gas logs, build the mantle and surround, put a tile surround on the front of it--we are just scared to tackle this thing.  We haven't been scared of much in this house, but this thing scares us.  Today I decided to pull back the board that's over the actual opening to the fireplace to have a peek at the inside again.  I'd looked at this when we took all the paneling down in this room and quickly covered it up because it was so scary.

Like I said, super scary.  And yes, that would be dirt on the floor in it.

This is after I pulled out the shop vac and cleaned out the previously mentioned dirt.  There's still some bricks missing in the back, so there's a sandy substance just chilling at the back of this fireplace.

We are at a total loss for how to tackle this thing.  We aren't even sure what type of professional to call about looking into fixing the fireplace to make sure we CAN put gas logs in there.  I've scoured the internet looking for options on how to fix this, but nothing gives me a straight answer.

So now I have no cover over this gaping hole in the middle of our living room and stockings that need to be hung by the chimney with care in the next 6 weeks.  I am open for ideas from anyone...because if not, I might try to tackle this scary project by myself.  Help!