It's a white Christmas for lots of people today, but here in Charlotte it's just wet. Really wet and cold. So I'm baking a pie and doing some holiday reading. Scroogenomics. It's all about how gift giving is totally wasteful because we hardly ever value the gifts we get at the dollar value people spend on them. The book says we'd be better of not giving them at all - or giving gift certificates. Which is totally bah-humbug but makes absolute sense from an economic perspective (the author's an economist and I've been reading lots of economic theory stuff lately trying to make up for the sleeping I did in Econ 101.) It's a fun read, but it's also making me very self-conscious about the gifts I give. I hope you got just what you wanted this Christmas!
I couldn't look at that big FedEx box any longer, and I had an inkling there might be some chocolate inside. So I caved. But it's Christmas Eve and opening presents today is okay in many cultures, so I don't feel badly. In fact, I feel thrilled and sugared-up. My dear, dear friend who really doesn't know when to say "when" sent me this amazing stash. The Shakespearean Insults mug is hysterical - watch out next time you make me mad. I might call you "light of brain" or a "highly fed and lowly taught." The Penguin thing holds a tea bag and has a timer so it lifts the bag when the tea is perfectly steeped. Brilliant!And then there's a mountain of Rocky Mountain Chocolate treats including chocolate-covered cinnamon bears, of course, and oreos and toffee and hot chocolate and it's 9:45 a.m. but I've already tried it all.PLUS, the first season of The Guardian featuring the tasty man from The Mentalist. I am SO SPOILED! And I already got a package of amazing lotions from my mom and back there on the mantle are two presents from my sister I'm waiting until tomorrow to open.Now, if only I could stay home all day and eat chocolate and watch The Guardian. But alas, I'm heading in to work. When I get off at 7 p.m. tonight I'm going to catch midnight mass, since it was such a highlight for me last year. . . the music and ambiance are the perfect capstone to Christmas.Tomorrow morning I'll be having brunch with a family from church and then off to work. When I get off at 7, I'm going to join another of my surrogate Charlotte families for some post-Christmas hanging out. Maybe we'll see a movie. . . the new Sherlock Holmes is at the top of my list.Merry Christmas to all!
I can't resist making Christmas treats. When I was young, we used to help mom make amazing braided sweet bread wreaths for the neighbors and I looked forward to it every year. Bread isn't in my repertoire, but cookies are hard to ruin. Once I get started, though, I always make too many. It just doesn't seem right to give a plate full of the same cookie, does it? I made wedding cookies, peanut butter chocolate chip cookies and put a festive twist on sugar cookies to take tonight when a group from church goes caroling.
I was standing on the sidewalk downtown this morning at 8 a.m. in freezing (28 degree) windy weather trying to find strangers willing to talk to me for work and it occurred to me if I were to rewrite Dante's Inferno, this would be one of the circles of Hell.
After an hour I decide to call it good and I'm walking back to my car when I hear screeching tires and that car crash-crunching sound that makes you hold your breath momentarily.
Some gonzo driver in a black SUV runs a red light and sideswipes a little silver car in the middle of main street. Three bike cops happen to be right there on the corner and we all freeze for a second letting the situation sink in. The SUV driver sizes up the cops and decides to make a break for it, so he peels out and the cops chase after - on bikes. Like that's gonna work.
Meanwhile, a few of us go over to the car that got hit and the driver's okay, but a bit freaked out. We tell him the cops went after the bad guy but they'll probably be back soon, so stay put.
Three blocks further down, I come across the bike cops. One is talking to the driver of another silver car that must have been bumped by the fleeing hitman, too. The other two cops are just hanging out, laughing and shooting the breeze while their buddy works.
So I walk right up and say, "You know, the other driver that got hit is still back there waiting for you."
The cops say, "This is the driver that got hit right here."
"Uh, no. The first driver is still back there. This one's a woman. The other's a man. I just talked to him. He was in a silver car."
"This is the silver car," say the cops, condescendingly.
"No. The driver must have hit two silver cars because I watched it hit that other one first and the driver's still back there. You should go check on him."
It went back and forth like this for a few more minutes and finally one of the cops says, "Oh, you mean the other driver? Maybe there was another one. I'll go back and check."
Duh. He takes off on his bike. I hope he really did find that poor other driver.
So if one level in Dante's inferno is wandering around in the freezing cold asking strangers questions they don't want to answer, the next level is a world run by pea-brained bike cops.
Sometimes when I get to missing my nieces and nephews too much, I talk one of the young couples at church into letting me babysit their kids. Saturday night I hung out with Ava. We made reindeer hats and ate popcorn and watched White Christmas. The parents always try to pay me and act like I've done them some big favor and I have a hard time explaining that I'd actually be willing to pay them for the chance to spend time with their kids.
Once you've seen the lights on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, nothing else much compares. However, I gave the botanical garden a shot this weekend and it turned out to be pretty fun, though a bit cheesy. This part of the garden felt like Smurf Village with over-sized tulips and hummingbirds made of bright-colored lights. They're not much for the natural look, I guess. The fact that is was 30 degrees helped make it feel Christmasy, too, I suppose. In the lobby they had a 16-foot tree made out of orchids and ferns, which was pretty unusual. And there was another room dedicated to model trains with all the tiny little details (scout camps, moonshiners, 1950s-era trailer parks, fishing holes, etc) that make model train set-ups so fun. We used to go see a model train setup just like that in the garage of my grandparents' neighbor when we would visit for Christmas, so to see one at the gardens made it feel all the more like the holidays. Ho, ho, ho!
I couldn't bear to see my perfectly good fireplace go unadorned for the holidays. I also couldn't bear to go out and buy a tree, lights, decorations and other stuff I don't have room to store once Christmas is over. So this'll have to do. 
My stocking doubles as a nativity (it has an embroidered scene on it). The star garland and little lanterns (from a trip to Thailand) are old standbys and the random tree ornaments I've been given through the years are hanging from the prongs of the mirror.
Good thing I don't believe in Santa, because if he saw this pathetic nod to the season, I bet he'd try to reverse directions in the chimney. And I bet he'd get stuck.
