Merry Christmas

Happy holidays to everyone. Have some more seasonal miscellany, on me.


It's almost midnight on Christmas Eve, and I have not yet begun to wrap presents. This is about the first minute of my day that wasn't accounted for. I dropped YFU at her mom's house this morning on my way to the office. I worked until just after noon, then I came home and cooked for almost two hours, then went to church to sing madrigals for the afternoon service, then came home and cooked for another hour, then got the food on the table early enough to have fifteen minutes with the guests (b&c's family and in-laws), then went back to church to sing with the choir for the evening service, then came back home and spent another couple of hours with the guests, and then it was now. It was all fun, but I'm beat. And those presents aren't going to wrap themselves.


I spent much of the weekend trying to shop. I had forgotten how much I dislike really big crowds. Costco on Saturday was particularly oppressive. I think maybe when there are going to be that many people there, they should avoid having twenty or thirty people preparing and handing out samples. They take up a lot of space, and they slow all the shoppers down.


I had much better luck at Ikea on Sunday. Not only did I find some good gifts, but I got to do what I really go to Ikea for. Have you ever noticed the Ikea shopping carts? They're like supermarket shopping carts but with much better wheels. If you're standing in place, you can spin the thing around with one good pull, and it comes right back to where it was. Better still, if you're walking in a straight line, you can give the cart a turn, and it will rotate completely around while still moving in a straight line, so that you don't even have to break stride, and the handle comes right back to where it was, only farther along the straight line. You know what that's called? Physics.


B&c will be taking his mother home tomorrow late morning or early afternoon, and he'll spend a couple of days in New Jersey with her. I have two hookups tentatively set up for late in the day on the 26th. One is with the guy who emailed me last weekend and wanted to be tied to the bed and edged for a couple of hours. The other is a guy who I first hooked up with maybe six years ago and who now contacts me when he's back home for the holidays. He is hot beyond words, so I hope that one pans out. I can take or leave the guy tied to the bed. Well, I can't leave him forever, I guess, but you know what I mean.


Anyway, I wish everyone the best of all possible holidays. I'll be spending most of the day with the kids, and I expect it to be very relaxing, especially since I have a ton of leftovers from tonight so I won't have to do much for dinner tomorrow. I expect a thoroughly pleasant holiday, and I hope that you all have the same. I am not expecting a lot of presents, but then there is very little that I need. When I was in Costco (a different Costco) on Sunday, I passed by a Le Creuset 8 quart enameled cast iron dutch oven for what struck me as a very reasonable price (about $170). I have wanted one forever, and the check my parents sent me for Christmas would more than cover it, so I put it in my cart and smiled broadly for about ten minutes while I shopped. Then I put it back on the shelf, and continued smiling broadly. Not to turn all Polyanna on you, but the fact that I could have had it (and perhaps the realization that I could have had it without the check from my parents) was enough to fill me with gratitude for how much I do have, both materially and otherwise. It's a good life, and I hope we'll all spend at least a little of tomorrow thinking less about what we're unwrapping and more about the whole peace-on-earth-goodwill-to-men thing.