Sunday, November 25, 2007

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.

7 comments:

Lani said...

Who are you and what did you do with my brother??!!??

Perhaps Jess spiked your eggnog.... :>)

Jerry said...

funny you should ask...that's exactly what jess said when i told her of our itinerary for saturday...word for word. (substituting "husband" for "brother" of course.) As for the eggnog, that came at the end of the day...and i spiked it myself. :)

Lani said...

MMMMmmm.....

The real test is are you listening to Christmas music yet? I have those old reader's digest tapes we had when we were kids, and it's never really christmas until I listen to those same old songs!

Jerry said...

Even as I type... :) I haven't put any on myself, but I haven't complained much when Jess puts it on every day. I don't mind the instrumental Christmas music anymore, but some of those old songs with singing still drive me crazy.

Lani said...

Really? They bring back memories for me. We have an Awesome Christmas Jazz CD that I should give you. It's really easy listening.

Jesse said...

You should check out Over the Rhine's Christmas CD. "Snow Angels", it's called. It's a good one to make out to. ;)

Anonymous said...

Okay, so you can ignore the Myspace comment. I found you here. :)

I've done the same thing with Christmas this year (though with my son, not my wife). :) Bob & I are both the usual scrooges, but with Austin we've become excited for him (we're putting the tree up Friday while he's in bed and I can't wait to see his face Saturday morning!). We even did the unthinkable and bought him a skateboard. :O

I'm glad to here your trip went well and that you were safe from the fires.

Peace!