Monday, December 24, 2007

Merry The-Day-Before-Christmas... we should create a word for that...

Hello from work! Where I am! Where I am working! Much to the shock and awe of pretty much everybody that I know, apparently, judging by the shocked and horrified tones of their voices when I call them from work to ask a question.

“This caller ID says you’re at work!”

Yes, I am

“But WHY????”

Because it’s not yet Christmas. It’s very, very close, I grant you. But today is actually Christmas EVE. EVE. As in “the day before, but not actually the day of.” As in "the day where you keep thinking how cool that it's so close, but you're not actually celebrating the day really." As in "the day where, if the holiday in question were New Years, it would be very strange for you to already have a hangover." Not that I’d be against being home right now, because I enjoy being home (just as general rule) but I am officially done defending my being at work today as though I’m working on a holiday. I’m working on a holiday EVE.

But enough of that grumbly tone, because today is a lovely day of cheer and the like! It’s almost Christmas! All of the shopping and wrapping and shipping and planning is finished and now we’re just about to reap the rewards! In my case that comes in the form of me sitting in my pajamas in my ‘rent’s living room, watching them open up stuff and looking for that “wowsers!!” reaction. My parents are the ones for whom I finished shopping last. Not because they’re necessarily hard to shop for, but more because I COMPLETELY overthink them. I load on tons of pressure around finding exactly the most excellent and perfect of perfect gifts for them. After all, seeing as they gave me that pesky little gift of life it’s gonna be really tricky to find the thing that is a proper “thank you.” But I’m gonna keep trying.

It’s the super-ironic part of this holiday for me: my favorite part is the giving, not the receiving, and yet I make myself CRAZY trying to make sure that my people are happy with what I give them. And by “happy” I really mean “overjoyed.” Or more like “ecstatic.” Or most accurately like “This is the best gift that ever have I received, oh friend/family member of mine, and I will cherish it for ever and for always and will write in my diary today about the wonderful gift you gave to me and if I don’t keep a diary I will start today because lo, this is a gift well worthy of documenting in a diary!!” Which is asking a lot from a pair of fuzzy socks or a stud finder.

I finished my shopping on Saturday, but spent a chunk of today phone-shopping for my sister and her husband, looking for gifts that they want to give each other. They’re the ones who have been chewing through a super-ambitious house remodel since mid-year and are only just getting back into the house. Like yesterday we were helping them find the hardware for the shelves which will hold dishes. So that they can have dishes. They’re all fancy like that. Anyway, the point is that they’ve really not had the time to do all the shopping they want or need to do, so I was all over the online phonebook and the phones and letting my fingers do all kinds of walking so that we could find the perfect things from them to them as well.

I just feel like everyone should be as happy as we can make them this time of year, you know? I know that we can’t make everyone perfect and we can’t solve all the problems and we can’t abolish hunger and poverty and stuff overnight, but if at least one day a year we could all work towards making everyone else happier wouldn’t that be cool? Couldn’t we at least afford one day of 100% generosity? Hmmm? Anyone? Anyone?

Well, that’s my wish for all of you lovely readers. Thanks for taking an interest in my lunacy, and no matter what you celebrate I hope you celebrate (or celebrated) it up good!

Happy Merry Bon ho-dreidel-stuff!

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