And so it begins...

The holiday's are upon us. Resistance is futile, there is no escape... And surprisingly, (shocking in fact, even to myself) I find that as the mad holiday season prematurely descends upon us, I am almost...well...enjoying it? For one who is most often characterized as a humbug or a scrooge, this strange feeling of pleasure is quite different. Frankly, it's odd enough to internalize it, much less act upon it. But yet I already find myself willingly partaking in holiday activities. The day after Thanksgiving, my crazy wife went out shopping before the first of her two shifts at work. And in between her shifts, guess what? More shopping. And I offered to join her. The next day, she had a rare Saturday off, and I had the itinerary ready to make the most of it. My mom joined us, we had lunch, and then went shopping all afternoon - I even braved Michael's to help her pick up ornament-making supplies. Later at night we went and picked up a tree, then I sipped egg nog while we watched a movie and did some present wrapping. Now mind you, Jess would have done all that with or without me, but the point is I volunteered to join her. I planned half of the activities, for goodness sakes! And dang it, I had a good time!!! I remember being told that I would start to enjoy Christmas again when I had kids of my own to enjoy it with. Of course, kids are a little ways off yet, but apparently the same principle applies to my wife. As the complete opposite of me in almost every way, she doesn't have an ounce of scrooge in her. She loves every minute of the Christmas season, and I suspect she enjoys it even more than most children do. So since making her happy makes me happy, it would seem that I must come to terms with my new appreciative nature for the holidays.