In the past, adults I have met have fallen into two distint categories: Elves and Grinches. I come from a family of Christmas Elves. We go nuts at Christmas, decorate everything in sight, sing Christmas carols and love to give gifts. We take a million pictures, drink lots of punch, and have a grand ole time. Elves adore making and selecting just the right presents for people, love to wrap things, and spend hours decorating their Christmas tree one ornament at a time. They tend to enjoy Christmas shopping and baking Christmas cookies and the like.
Then there are the Grinches. They don't understand the fuss and tend to be annoyed by the holiday traffic. Driving an hour in the snow to get to grandma's house bothers them. They would rather sleep in on Christmas morning. Having children can bring a little bit of life to the Grinch, however a Grinch will never be a true Elf, no matter how great a parent he is. They don't sing Christmas carols. They complain incessantly about shopping and having to send people cards. They are duty-bound to comply with the holiday plans, but they don't look forward to it at all. I'm intimately familiar with Grinchdom, since these people are the ones who whine and complain at me about the lines and the crowds when I work in the mall at Christmastime; which of course is a waste of my time, since there's nothing I can do about it. They get very irritated with me when I smile and sing them a Christmas carol to shut them up.
Forest is an Elf. It's easy to tell, because he started whistling Christmas carols in the car yesterday, and proceeded to sing along with me all night, even though he says he doesn't sing. (He also says he doesn't dance, but there are exceptions to that one, too.) He already has presents stashed in a forbidden drawer in our house, and it's not even Thanksgiving yet. We've picked out presents together for his sister and dad, and have started making plans about how to decorate our house. He wants to climb up on the roof to hang lights up there, isn't that crazy but adorable?
I started Christmas shopping this weekend. For the first time, I have actually ordered some Christmas gifts on the internet, trusting that they will arrive in plenty of time for the holidays. There were some things I wanted to get Forest that you can't get around here, and I saved a lot of money over retail by getting one of Kirstin's big gifts that way, too. Amazon toys rules. I also spent some money at the store where I'm working for Christmas, happily using my employee discount to some advantage. Forest made me agree to stick to a budget so that we wouldn't both spend way too much money, and I enjoy the challenge of trying to get lots of really nice things and staying within the allotted amount. It's going to be difficult, though, and I don't know if I will make it.
This weekend I was of course incredibly busy. I put in 16 hours of work, making my monday-thru sunday grand total 64 hours. It sucked. I'm incredibly tired and unfocused today, and have to admit that my day job is probably suffering, but I am just too much of a chicken to quit working at the mall. I would hate to have some miscellaneous household item explode and break my Christmas budget, and everything is just a little too tight for comfort.
On Friday night Forest and I both went to see the new James Bond movie (It's grat fun) with his family, and then went out to eat, went home, and crashed. Saturday after the busiest day at the mall to date, we went to see a really great production of Richard III at MSU with Forest's friend Kim. She's a neat lady, and we had a nice time. It was a THREE HOUR LONG production, though, which was a bit baffling. I think they added a lot of time in the scene where Richard is haunted by the people he has murdered. It was a *long* sit.
We ran into Jeff there, and he seemed to handle that in a very grown up way. I felt kind of bad, since here I was with my date and a third person, and he appeared to be alone. I thought about asking him to join us for drinks afterward, but he looked rather uncomfortable, and afforded me courtesties similar to that which he would offer a stranger to whom he feels he must be polite. He made small-talk, and I know he hates small-talk.
So I decided to leave him in peace.
After the show we went home and played D&D with Darci and some of Forest's friends. I really had a good time, and had no idea I was staying up as late as I did. We played until after 4 AM!! I haven't done that in years. Forest's friends are fun to play with, and don't take the game terribly seriously. We had a nice lighthearted game, with more wit and silliness than combat, which is fine by me.
In the morning on Sunday I was very very sorry to have stayed up so irresponsibly. I had another full day of work at the mall, and then Forest and I had promised each other we would clean our house. So we did. During our cleaning breaks we sparred a bit, and I was overjoyed to actually get a couple of good crescent kicks that would have been clean head shots, had I not pulled them at the last second. It was my first time getting points on him. Woo hoo! We stayed up really late, cleaning and playing and listening to Christmas music.
Which is why we overslept this morning.
This evening the cleaning trend continues, as Forest and I (and as many *real* martial artists we can recruit) will be taking brooms, bleach, mops, sponges and towels to the dojo and scrubbing down all the mats. It has needed to be done for a long time, and as an added benefit it sets a good example for the students to see everyone working on it together. Sometimes people in martial arts get hung up on rank and experience, and need reminders that black belts are people, too.
At lunchtime today Forest and I realized that neither of us has had a single day off in over a month. We're both wiped out. We dreamed all through our lunch that we would both like to call in sick, or take a day off, just so we could have the chance to sit down in our house and read a good book. We would have some tea, or cocoa. If we felt really energetic we might go for a walk to one of the little sandwich shops in town, and have a leisurely stroll back. We wouldn't look at the clock once the whole time. We'd play our music, and cuddle and watch a movie, and hide under a big floppy blanket. We'd relax together, maybe trade backrubs, each of us would take a hot bath. We'd cook dinner together and eat it at our own table. Three meals in one day, all eaten at home. It sounds like heaven. We couldn't decide whether we would rather take the phone off the hook and not be disturbed, or have some pleasant conversation and catch up with our friends on the phone; it will depend on the mood of the day. Maybe a little bit of candlelight, and maybe some sunbeams coming in the windows, depending on the weather. Nothing would really matter, since we wouldn't have anywere we had to go.
Ah, it sounds lovely. Dream as we may, however, neither of us is in the habit of missing work. I've had a really good attendance record at work, and don't want to rock the boat... and of course at my mall job I don't get paid days off for anything, so I have to work the hours or I lose the money. All of Forest's income depends on his being at his jobs all the time. Waiting tables is a killer job that way, and his new job at the university is paid by the hour. We're both on tight budgets, and Christmas is coming.
Hence it was nice to dream, but neither of us will be taking a day off anytime soon. Matter of fact, it only gets busier until Christmas Day.
I am hoping, however, that we can arrange our mall-working schedules so we can attend a few events in the interim. The Messiah is on the 11th of December, and I would love to see that... and Kirstin is singing in a concert with the symphony and her honors choir that I would hate to miss.
There's also a play in Chicago, called "THE TRUE DEADLIEST GAME OF DEATH: A KUNG FU MUSICAL" that just sounds so funny and terrible that we have to see it.
Oh well, maybe we will have a day off in January.
