25 Days of Christmas List

I'm hanging out at the family farm and it's my last night in the middle of no where before I head back home to Seattle tomorrow. It feels like a writing night so I thought I'd make a list - but I found this one on another blog and promptly 'borrowed' it..

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? I did both this year because though I love it when friends get me lots of little things and wrap them individually, I didn't think my family would appreciate that so both my brother's and mother's gifts went into bags. Everything else was wrapped in paper. I like to mix it up.

2. Real or artificial tree? I've done both, but in the last few years, I got a bargain deal on a mini tinsel tree that I love. It's silver, folds up and down, doesn't shed pine needles everywhere, I don't have to water it, it won't go up in flames and it's super shiny and hip. I have these mini Santa ornaments that are freakin adorable for it too. It's très apropos for a city girl like me.

3. When do you put up the tree? Yeah, um.. this year, I sort of didn't. Ok.. a little more than sort of. I just didn't get around to it. And yes, I know - even tho it would take all of five whole minutes due to the answer to the last question, but for some reason, it took a while to feel like Christmas was even here for me. It's been a weird year, what can I say.. I'm waiting for 2010 to feel better. But usually, I wait for December to hit and then anything holiday-ish goes.

4. When do you take the tree down? Well, it's really easy if you never put it up in the first place.. but usually, after new year's.

5. Do you like eggnog? Actually, yes - but I avoid it cuz there's just too many other homemade sweets and their ilk around to waste the calories on one glass of eggnog even if it's spiked. Not when you can have Gram's chocolate covered peanut butter balls. The best!

6. Favorite gift received as a child? Probably the bikes 'Santa' brought us. Mine was a yellow Huffy, complete with banana seat and basket. It was fucking awesome.

7. Do you have a nativity scene? I try to avoid Things That Collect Dust.. even for baby Jesus.. I hope He'll manage to forgive me..

8. Hardest person to buy for? My mom. She was poor growing up so she's since made up for her past by always buying whatever she wants whenever she wants it. Tho this year she was clear about something she wanted. She said it was called 'The Rabbit' - and it took a moment to figure out she wasn't talking about the specific product a whole Sex And The City episode was dedicated to. This one is a wine opener. And everyone in the room breathed a sigh of relief. But as we all agreed 'no presents' and still got small things anyway, I went with dvds and coffee I knew she'd like instead. It's a whole lot better than giving her cash like I said last year I was going to do because she hates everything I ever get her.

9. Easiest person to buy for? My sister-in-law. She's girly and we have similar taste so I know if I pick something out, she'll like it. This year she asked for wine glasses so off to Crate & Barrel I went, picked out two different kinds, four of each in case one set broke or she liked one style more than the other and.. and voilà.

10. Worst Christmas gift ever received? I love my mom, but she likes her ideas rather than listening to mine. She always asks what we want or asks if we need something like a gps system when I have a Blackberry and a Macbook and know my way around Google maps already. I always say no, just money towards my credit card or something practical and she takes it in and then who knows what she does with that info but pay attention to it she doesn't. Then she presents something like a handmade wooden chair that transforms into a step stool in a pinch.. but is also so big, it's kind of awkward for a little apartment like mine. And since she got my brother one as well and he now lives in a house, guess where that chair went oh.. immediately? Right. Um.. thanks!

11. Mail or email Christmas cards? I decided against either and went with Christmas texting. The unlimited plan is the way to go people. Cards aren't cheap and only come in packs of 10 or 12. Stamps are excessively expensive and why send people things they'll just have to recycle? I chose the instant gratification form of communication AND the environmentally conscious one at that. Yay me!

12. Favorite Christmas movie? Elf. My favoritest ever part is when the manager of the store announces Santa is coming the next day and Will Ferrell starts yelling 'Santa' at the top of his lungs. High-larious!

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Well.. I think about it a lot after Halloween.. and I only ever managed to do it over the course of the year once and be completely done in time and within my budget.. so as usual, this year it was the week before Christmas.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? I'm pretty proud to say that I'm a good re-gifter. And I think that's ok. Along with the answer to worst present ever, Mom included a waffle iron along with waffle mix. Considering I already had a cute waffle iron I liked and only used once in a while as is, it became my office white elephant gift. And this year, one of the office white elephant gifts I'd received a few years ago became my family white elephant gift. I also re-gifted a few small birthday items into this year's office white elephant and it was a huge success because the sales people thought they'd make great stocking stuffers for their kids and ended up stealing them a couple of times. It's just the circle of life.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? The aforementioned chocolate covered peanut butter balls. Ohmygod.. they are the most amazing thing Gram makes and I savor them every year, take some home and ration them out as long as I can make them last - usually til Valentine's. I'm so not kidding.

16. Clear or colored lights on the tree? I'm a big fan of white, but it just depends. Since I don't do my own, I appreciate everyone else's and however they do it. I did put up clear lights in my living room, which I think are particularly awesome even sans tree.

17. Favorite Christmas song? Baby, It's Cold Outside and then the Muppet's 12 Days of Christmas always cracks me up. Animal is my favorite.

18. Travel or stay home for the holiday? It'd be pretty lonely if I stayed in my little place and the family certainly isn't fitting there so I travel to the family farm in Oregon or wherever they tell me to go. No plane travel is involved so I'm grateful for that.

19. Can you name Santa's reindeer? Uh. Yeah. Easy. You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen.. and yes, Rudolph.

20. Angel or a star on top of the tree? I had neither when the tinsel tree was up.. but if I could find a little one, probably an angel. Sort of my namesake.

21. Open presents Christmas eve or Christmas day? We do both. We have Christmas with the immediate family the night before and then the stockings and other 'Santa' type gifts are done the next morning. We'll usually head to a grandparent's or aunt's house to spend with Mom's side of the family which is a big dinner and a white elephant gift exchange (as noted above). That lends to a lot of laughs when yours truly opens two gifts in a row that are tool-related: a shop vac (wtf?) and a set of wrenches, and there are jokes about them attracting men to my life - either gay or hick - neither of which are directly useful and then I beg an uncle or male cousin to 'steal' them so I can end up with the bamboo cutting boards Grandma had to steal for me. Yay! Success!

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? I'm torn between the crowds OR the traffic driving down to the farm. I hit Target the week before Thanksgiving solely for toiletries and it was already insanity but it's a 4 1/2 hour drive from Seattle to BumFuckEgypt where Mom lives on the farm outside of Salem. Getting thru Washington is the worst part because Washingtonians are oblivious to the driving rule established everywhere else that the left lane is for faster traffic and you should be polite and move to the right when a faster car is coming up behind you. Oregonians have that down so once you cross into Portland, it's easy. Washingtonians act all self-righteous about it however, the freeways lend to that arrogance because there are exits and entrances right next to each other on the left side. Not sure what genius came up with that idea.

23. Ugliest Christmas decoration ever invented? Probably the Christmas sweater. It's decor for your body. Works for grandmas. No one else tho.

24. Gingerbread or sugar cookies? I think sugar cookies are boring. Gingerbread is fine.. but I like the holiday cookies that Shine makes every year with her family. She made some the year we lived together and they're divine! Orange-cranberry goodness with an orange glaze. Mmm!

25. Do you like fruitcake? Not in the slightest. Who in their right mind would?!

Holiday Cheer Times Three..

I don't know what happened in between the end of Thanksgiving and oh.. practically the day before Christmas, but somehow, time got away from me. Work has been insanity with a lot of hours and not a lot of recognition, but at this time of year when lots of people are out of work, I have to be grateful I have a job and a fairly decent one besides. But this time of year makes you reflect, creates a sense of longing for lots of things as the year comes to a quicker end than you thought possible..

Oh and I also came down with the best bladder infection known to man. So when they say your medical insurance is great - maybe read the fine print. It's amazing to me how they admittedly use people as guinea pigs. The doc sent me home with a prescription that only worked for one of the two nasty bacteria occupying my insides saying 'Let's see if that works,' which should've been my first clue. Three days later, the doctor's office called saying I needed to come back so they could tell me the second bacteria was resistant to the first set of antibiotics so they were going to prescribe me another - even tho this could've been done over the phone. They asked for another co-pay and I defiantly said, 'Uh.. no. They asked me to come back.' Yeah, screw you.. I thought.

Then randomly that weekend, I came down with a migraine for most of the nicest Saturday we've had in a while. And one should know that I don't get migraines - and yet, there was a pretty bad headache plaguing me from the moment I got up til about 6pm that night. I've had three in my life including that one. One very light one years ago with halos and everything and one while Boy and I were in the midst of one of our do-we-break-up-on-our-scheduled-date-night-or-not-and-we-love-each-other-so-what-do-we-do cry-fests of mine which reduced me to a whiny, horizontal blob, eyes closed due to the pain and the massive nausea so bad it felt like the worst hangover of my life and I literally couldn't move til the pain subsided.

Saturday I thought it was just a caffeine headache.. but I was feeling nauseous after trying to do a few errands and with only having had three drinks in a span of six hours the night before, it couldn't have been due to that. I had so many plans that day - a date, the gym, a list of things to do and spent it horizontal trying not to throw up, wondering why ibuprofen wasn't stronger, and wishing the pain away.

Then, last Tuesday morning, half asleep and in the shower trying to wake up, I noticed my arm was covered in little red bumps - and I realized it wasn't just on one arm, but All. Over. My. Body. And I thought - damn karma.. because after freaking out and heading to the doctor's again, she told me the hives had come from an allergic reaction to the antibiotics most likely. Awesome! I'm so glad you gave me medicine that made me a different kind of sick! And an itchy kind at that! Yay! Love it!

She told me to stop taking them. Right Doctor Obvious, except that I'd finished the prescription two days before that. So for another $20 co-pay, she told me to keep taking Benedryl and let her know if it got worse. Um.. really? No cortisone shot? Nothing stronger? Ooook.. so off to work I went. All day. No sympathy from my boss and jokes if I should even be there or was contagious which just exasperated my already exhausted self. By 6pm, the last co-worker at the office had noticed my face was blotchy and red.. and the hives had spread and when I checked my arms, had become a lot more concentrated so I had the on call doc paged who was super nice and prescribed me a much stronger antihistamine. I tried not to freak out, but I called my mom on the way home crying because I was just so mad and felt like a walking circus side show. And my mother - God love the woman, but she pronounces Washington with an r in the middle, and even SHE knew the hives were caused by the antibiotics. Apparently, a sulfa base medication is a common allergy. Common? Yup - even the pharmacist said the same thing. THEN WHY DO THEY PRESCRIBE IT?!?! For someone who doesn't have any allergies, that should tell them something. This is not a good medicine.. and in fact, is not medicine at all.

So finally, after a very long week of work with lots of overtime, crabby afternoons and company-free evenings because I couldn't bear to have anyone see me, I met up with Vi for some holiday improv downtown on Friday night, and it was so nice to be out and social I would've asked her to hang out longer if we weren't both so tired.

Saturday, finding myself deficient of able-bodied men who are responsible for things like the bbq, killing spiders and hooking up electronic devices, my friend Ryan generously offered to help hook up my new LCD flatscreen my brother gave me even tho we wondered if at 19 inches if it was even necessary since it's eight inches smaller than my giant and ancient version, so how much sense does that make? But it takes up less room and is actually kind of kick ass.

Ryan's part of the group of new friends I made dating Boy. His progressive church group uses Boy's theater on Sunday mornings to meet. They also voluntarily work the box office and that's how I met them. Nothing against God, but He and I are good and I just don't feel the need to go to church, even an awesome-sounding one as theirs probably is. I grew up Catholic. I got plenty of church, thank you.

But my POINT is they're so funny and some of the nicest people I've met in ages. They drink, they allow me to be myself around them, they don't preach, invite me out all the time to their homes for dinner and game nights and they're sort of my favorite rockin' extended family, which I was in sore need of this year. How could I not hang out with them when they asked? We played Scattergories last night, drank, ate a bunch of not-good-for-us homemade mac n' cheese in addition to fondue and candied pecans I brought.

Today I'm hitting the gym, hanging up my Christmas lights no matter how much it makes the upstairs neighbor's dogs bark and hopefully meeting my new niece, Leila, who is Cayenne's new baby girl.

These are all much better ideas in my opinion than fighting the holiday shopping crowds. It's just too much madness for me this weekend. I'll try to get it done this week before I leave for Mom's Thursday night because yes, my office is open for business on Christmas eve and yours truly will be wondering why I'm there when the phones will be completely dead and not one of my clients will be in their offices. But I'll get to spend four days with my family after that - uninterrupted. Not sure if that's a good thing or not considering Mom never likes what I get her and last year I swore she was getting cash only. Seriously. But I'm bringing a great bottle of wine, we're ordering Chinese in, and probably watching a lot of movies, which is just fine with me.

I hope none of you are plagued with illnesses and find yourselves hive and swine flu free this holiday season. Be good to your mom, even if she drives you crazy, travel safely, reflect wisely, forgive yourself your mistakes this year, breathe before you snap at the driver who just cut you off or the Prius driver who doesn't know how to use the pedal that makes the car go. See a good movie, hug your loved ones, and relax. Next year will be here before you know it and the madness of forgetting what's important to us will start all over again.

Happy holidays everyone!