Twas the night before Christmas…and I was cleaning my basement. Go me. And I’m too tired to come up with a creative title for this post, and I actually wrote over my previous post the first time I tried to update this thing. Reader beware.

Marin and I braved the last-minute shopping rush at Fred Meyer, where the only thing worse than waiting in line was trying to find a parking spot. Fortunately, my years at OSU have taught me a thing or two about how to successfully fight for parking—those other drivers never saw what hit ’em. Followed that up with a visit to the friendly OSU bookstore, which was delightfully quiet. I managed to find an absolutely hilarious, low-to-no-taste gift for Miwa; it’ll be a test of her sense of humor, if nothing else. Now I need to do some last-minute wrapping, and I’ll be good.

Well, as good as I can be for not having gifts for a few people, thanks to an online retailer who didn’t quite hook me up in time. Ah well; my poor, abused sister will understand. My poor, abused friend, on the other hand, will just have to suck it.

Ooooh yeah. I got this Christmas spirit thing down cold.

In other news, FedEx failed me. The card that was supposed to be delivered by 10:30 am the 24th turned out to be in Tennessee at that time. Doh. Guess Mom’s gift is shot, too.

Visiting Fred Meyer gave me the chance to do something that I haven’t been able to do in several years, thanks to my habit of just buying stuff online: put some cash in a Salvation Army bucket. It’s odd, but that small action seems the most Christmas-like thing I’ve done or seen this year. Well, that, and the great Christmas Eve tradition at my office of having absolutely everybody leave as early as humanly possible.

And I must wholeheartedly concur with Mr. Lawson. I’ll be…mildly irritated…if something happens to ruin my break.

A short Christmas tale for you all: many years ago, a family with a young daughter moved in down the street from my house. In December, she worried that Santa might not know where to find her; to ease the gal’s mind, my neighbors decided to create a “runway” for Santa on Christmas Eve, using paper bags and small candles lined along my street (a good stretch of hill). It really looked nice, and everybody enjoyed it; so my neighborhood did it again the following year. [I remember enjoying the chance to play with that much fire, back in the day.] This soon became a tradition and spread to larger and larger portions of my neighborhood. The effect was especially pleasing on foggy nights, as I recall.

This year it rained fairly heavily, so none of the flames stayed lit for too long. Communication apparently also broke down, as the lanterns only extended about 2/3 of the way up the street. In short: Christmas is officially broken in my neighborhood.

What? You wanted something cheerful and uplifting?

Anyhoo, don’t mind me. Merry Christmas/Happy Hannukah/Kickass Kwanzaa/yatta yatta to you all!