Happy Holidays

It seems to be all quiet on the blog front today. Most of you have probably taken off for wherever you’re going, or you’re out doing last minute shopping, or perhaps you’re sleeping off an eggnog hangover (in which case, God help you). In some sort of bizarre compulsive behavior, I finished all my Christmas shopping two weeks ago, so I have no last minute things to do. I am not usually this organized, but I took a week off from work early in December since I had some time I needed to use before the end of the year. I went on a crazy shopping jag, and suddenly I was all done. Not bad. I managed to get most of my Christmas cards mailed out by the 21^st (apologies to Singapore; I misplaced your address, so I haven’t sent the card yet. I got your card yesterday and felt bad.). I even wrapped the majority of my presents last weekend. I also wrapped most of Lord’s Kissington’s presents to others (he wouldn’t let me wrap my own presents for some reason). I just couldn’t stop myself. I really love wrapping. I bought all this pretty paper and ribbons, and the packages look so cute. I figure, even if the present sucks, at least it came in a nice package, right? Last Saturday, we bought our tree (a beautiful Frasier fir. It’s all Frasier, all the time for me. I can do a Douglas fir if there are no Frasiers, but don’t even try to sell me a Scotch pine. Oh, the horror.). I decided I wouldn’t decorate it until Sunday, since I was tired and feeling kind of sick that day. But then the Christmas compulsion took over again, and I just had to decorate it that evening. I was good this year; I didn’t criticize his lordship’s placement of the ornaments, and I didn’t redecorate the tree after he left the room. (Yes, I am really that awful. I can’t help it. My tree has to be PERFECT. This and the fascination with lovely wrapping jobs are my only Martha Stewart-esque qualities, I swear.)

On Sunday, I got my mother a tree. Normally, getting my mother a tree is just a painful experience. She always picks the coldest day of the year to do it, and sometimes she wants to look at several different tree lots, just in case the perfect tree is at the next lot. We usually end up going back to the first lot. This year wasn’t bad at all. It’s now in the stand, but it hasn’t been decorated yet. Decorating her tree is sort of a Christmas Eve tradition. When she was a child, her family always decorated it on the 24^th. (It’s my impression that this was much more customary back in the day.) So, come Christmas Eve, I always drag my hungover self (hey, there is always someone visiting on the 23^rd who wants to go out) over to her place and work my decorating magic. This year, I’ve promised myself that I will not be hungover. This is not going to be hard. Lord Kissington and I are having dinner with his parents tonight, and I don’t really make a habit of getting wasted in front of the future in-laws. (Fortunately, they are very nice people who seem to really like me, so excessive drinking is not at all necessary to deal with them.)

Every night, I get home from work, I turn on the Christmas lights, and I inhale the delightful pine scent. The presents look so pretty under the tree that I almost hate to give them to their recipients, because they’ll just rip all that pretty paper to shreds. But that is sort of a metaphor for the transitory nature of Christmas. All this buildup, and then it’s over so quickly. The day after Christmas is always sort of depressing. I’m usually exhausted from dealing with my entire family. The presents no longer look so pretty, as there are all opened and piled willy-nilly under the tree. Sometimes, there is a feeling of letdown. But then you remember that there’s always next year.

Ok, sorry, didn’t really mean to end on such a downer note. Merry Christmas everybody!