The Holidays, Part III: The Spirit

So.

I really like this fish.

That's not something I thought I'd say three, four days ago, honestly. As previously mentioned, I am not a "fish person."

Ghost, however, is smart, and he's fun to watch. He's excited to see us, we can lead him to food with our fingers on the glass of the tank, and when he's happy, he's really active and dances for us, puffs out his gills and wiggles at us, and is overall a really cute little guy. If and when he does eventually die, I admit that I will be sad about it -- but who knows, he could live years. Some bettas live a very, very long time. So we'll see. 

Life post-Thanksgiving has returned much to status quo, with both of us going back to work this week and dealing with work in the lead-up to Christmas. My job has been particularly grueling this week, but for some reason the week seems to be moving faster than usual, so I won't/can't really complain about that. The call has already gone out for volunteers to work the four holiday shifts -- Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day. We typically only need a skeleton crew for Christmas Eve and Day as almost nothing happens worldwide for those nights, but it sometimes can be moderately normal around the New Year. 

I work New Year's Day every year as my volunteer holiday day (every manager has to work at least one holiday). I've done this for the better part of a decade now. However, this coming year I'll likely work Memorial Day too as our wedding anniversary is on the opposite end of the week for the first time in many years, and it'll give me a "comp day" (basically a free day off, for working the holiday) at the end of that week when the anniversary is. I told my boss "I plan ahead." 

Statistically speaking, New Year's Day tends to be the easiest holiday to work anyway -- it's not exactly a real "holiday" since it doesn't involve family gatherings, presents, meals, activities, etc. -- and most of the planet either has it off or takes it off. So, it is what it is, I'm not too concerned about it. I've never worked a New Year's Day that wasn't dead quiet. I think last year I spent it reading, glancing up at Teams and my email once every 10-15 minutes, and generally just existing. I can't remember for certain, though. I seem to recall the early morning hours being pretty busy as people started returning from their long holiday vacations. 

People have started receiving their Christmas cards in the mail and have begun letting me know, which I find slightly amusing. I talk a big game on the cards, as you know, but I also back up that game. I'm excited to see who we receive cards from this year as none have arrived yet. Most folks aren't as fanatical about them as I am. 

This year, I'm actually very into the holiday spirit -- something that is truly unlike me. There were many years I hated Christmas and everything it brought with it. This hatred faded over the years once I got married to Daisy, who is an unabashed Christmas fan. Holiday things that once seemed like annoyances or inspired anger in me have now greatly softened as I've gotten older. We've already begun watching Christmas movies. We went to the zoo last week, on the night before Thanksgiving, to walk through all of their light displays:

Yeah, that's me. 

I am excited to drive slowly around neighborhoods and look at lights with Daisy. I look forward to making the house smell like peppermint and cinnamon (two scents I normally despise) and wrapping presents. 

I've roughly planned out most of the holiday time/days I'll be off over the holidays to maximize productivity and get a healthy dose of downtime as well, though I don't know how much I'll get to stick to those plans overall:

• Tuesday, December 19: First day off. Rest and recovery day as I will have worked the night before. This is the day before my birthday, so we may or may not have birthday-related plans when I awaken in the afternoon/evening.
  
  
• Wednesday, December 20: My 41st birthday. I do not have any plans or requests for any activities for my birthday this year. Daisy took it off (and, I believe, took off the 21st too). My original plan was to go see the new Ghostbusters movie, because my birthday was its original release date, but that got pushed back a few months some time ago. I do not want another tattoo this year -- I got the bird in July -- the weather around my birthday is always a toss-up of whether it will be decent enough to do anything outside the house, and I don't really need or expect any real gifts from Daisy or anyone else. Maybe I'll see if Daisy wants to go to Burlington or something and that can be my gift. Maybe there will be a new kitten at the humane society that I'll want. Who knows. As usual, if the weather is good and we're able to leave the house, we'll likely have dinner with the parents as I always want to spend at least some of my birthday with them. 
  
  
• Thursday, December 21: As mentioned, I believe Daisy has the day off but I'm not sure overall -- I will have to consult with her on that to confirm. I plan for the 21st to be as much of a rest day as possible. If Daisy is off, we may go out and do something or we may just sit at home, order pizza or Chinese food, and watch television. It's so rare that she and I just get real downtime together where everything can just stop for a day or two and we can enjoy one another's company without being on a timeframe or me needing to nap to reset my sleep schedule because I have to work the next day, etc.
  
  
• Friday, December 22: The Wrappening begins. I've scheduled this day to be the day where I begin or complete wrapping of Daisy's presents and/or any presents I/we have gotten for her parents in the interim (such as whatever I find if we go to Burlington or other places like that). It's also the last working day before Christmas for Daisy, so it will likely be quite busy for her and we won't interact much throughout the daytime hours because of that. It is the only day aside from the following Tuesday that I know I will be completely home alone and left to my own devices to do whatever needs to be done before the holidays hit.
  
  
• Saturday, December 23: The Wrappening concludes, if it wasn't finished the day prior. December 23 is a "pivot day" of sorts -- it is the last day we can feasibly/reasonably get any last-minute stuff done, such as last-minute presents or food shopping for the holiday dinner(s) and it is the day that all plans for the holiday itself must be finalized by. We'd need to know by this date what the timeframe is for Christmas morning, Christmas dinner, if any family is going to be in town, what we need to bring/do/etc. for the family gathering -- if it will be just us and the parents or if Daisy's sister and family will be in town, etc. I have not yet gotten full confirmation on all of that yet but everything will need to be locked down by end of day on the 23rd. If all of that is already taken care of by this point, great -- then I'm going to see if I can get Daisy to sit down long enough on the 23rd to wrap whatever she's gotten for me as well as for the parents, so that she's not doing it many hours into the night on Christmas Eve at the very last minute like most every other year and losing sleep because of it. 
  
  
• Sunday, December 24: Christmas Eve. It is a Sunday, none of us have to work, and unless the weather is horrible or one or both of the parents (or us) are sick, there should be nothing stopping us this year from going to the afternoon Christmas Eve church services -- the only church/religion-related activity that I will ever do for anyone, and something that I get genuinely excited for every year. This is usually followed by a snacky, finger-foods like dinner at the parents' that is relaxed and family-focused, and the time is set for when we're expected to return to the parents' the next day for actual Christmas -- whether it will be an early-morning thing (if Daisy's sister and the kids are in town) or if it will be a "whenever, maybe for breakfast, maybe not" or "wake up and come over whenever" thing. Daisy has a tradition that she usually bakes muffins of some sort for breakfast on Christmas and we do that with the parents, but again, there are no concrete plans yet this year. Also, if I have not yet posted the photos of the front and back of this year's Christmas card on Facebook, this is the day I do it by.
  
  
• Monday, December 25: Christmas. Whether it will just be the four of us (me, Daisy, and her parents) or a full-on family gathering this year remains to be seen, but we tend to follow the same beats every year -- I call my parents in the morning, we either open our own presents in the morning or when we return home for the night, we go to the parents' for presents and the holiday meal(s) with Daisy may or may not cook most of either here or there, and then we leave to drive around and listen to Christmas music and look at light displays in the rich neighborhoods before generally arriving home fairly late. Christmas is the culmination of everything the month has been leading up to and we celebrate it until we feel that we're done, usually. 
  
  
• Tuesday, December 26th: My final day off work for the holidays, taken off specifically because I don't want to work on a Tuesday night the day after a holiday weekend -- Tuesdays are generally nightmarish anyhow, and Tuesdays after a holiday weekend when everything goes back to being business as usual are usually doubly so. I also took the day off because I know I will need a day of buffer time and recalibration/sleep reset downtime before I return to work -- a day of peace, a day of rest. Daisy returns to work this day, so it will be a quiet day at home with the cats to basically recuperate and do what I wish as my holiday vacation winds to a close. 

I return to work myself on the 27th for a two-day work week -- the 27th (Wednesday) and 28th (Thursday) before I have another long weekend ahead of me, as I took off New Year's Eve -- the 31st, the following Sunday. I don't think we have any set New Year's Eve plans at this juncture, but generally we spend at least some, if not all, of that with the parents as well -- at least until they're like "we're tired and going to bed" and then we come home and watch the ball drop. 

Once Christmas is over I find myself completely out of the Christmas mood/spirit. Christmas music becomes abhorrent to me, I don't want to look at lights anymore, shopping (generally) becomes the devil, etc. It's like a light switch for me, and the day after Christmas almost always feels like I'm coming up for air after being submerged underwater for two months. With that, though, also comes a deep sense of seasonal affective disorder -- basically a low-lying depression that blankets me and everything I do until the winter ends, because cold and snow and nothing else to look forward to for four months. Some years it hits harder than others. 

So those are the rough plans, anyway. We'll see what happens.