Oh what a nice Christmas break I’ve had. My time down in Phoenix with family turned out great. Christmas Eve day we had a blast. My niece, Lisa, brought my great nieces, 8-year old Catherine and 3-year old Allison over to my sister’s house (I always stay at Susan’s place — she’s kind enough to allow my dogs to come along). My sister, Susan, has an 8 and 3 year old too: Jamie and little David.
We made holiday cookies, went over to a local park and played frisbee (and I thought four frisbees was way more than we needed – silly me), and went out to eat for lunch. This all worked great, because when we gathered that night at my brother’s house for our annual Christmas Eve extravaganza, the 3-year olds were fast buddies and not shy at all.
As for the presents, Santa and friends were very good to me. I got the anniversary edition of A&E’s Pride & Prejudice, which I watched in its six hour entirety the other day. A nice Henckel’s knife, a blender and toaster, plus a variety of other fun and useful things were part of my haul. The gifts that I gave seemed to be appreciated, but there were some folks that were hard to buy for — my brother-in-law Larry, for example.
Christmas day was also fun. Larry’s sister lives here in Flagstaff, so every other year they come up to Flag for Christmas. I stayed in Phoenix. It was another chance to have fun with Catherine and Allison. They live in California, so we don’t see them as often as I’d like. After a second viewing of Charlotte’s Web I went back to Sue’s house. Alone in the large house I did what any good couch potato would do: I turned on cable TV. Whoo hoo! I choose not to purchase cable or satellite, so consider it a treat when I can switch from E’s Hollywood Story to the Arrested Development Marathon to parts of Fields of Dream showing on HBO.
I grabbed my blankets and decided to sleep on the couch, thus seeing sections of that classic film, Armageddon, at 2:00 in the morning (man, is Michael Bay a horrid director or what?). The TV stayed on though that day after Christmas as I tried to put together many of the toys for the kids. It takes a college degree to finagle through all the packaging some of these toys are stuck in. I finally turned off the TV to have one more dinner with Lisa and Jay and their kids, along with my brother Lorin and Mom. I’m telling you, I have some great nieces, nephews, and great nieces.
So I headed back to Flagstaff on Wednesday and have lounged around the last two days. It helps that it has snowed. Snow days are all about lounging.
Now it is Friday and I’m trying to force myself to go to work. The university closes down over the holidays and many of us are forced to take vacation days. This sounds lovely, but I have a project that I want to get done before we get back next week. Due to illness — someone else’s, not mine — I was not able to finish this before the holiday break and so have a few days to work on it.
But, do I have to? Can’t I goof off one more day? Sure, I do have to go feed my fishes at the office, but maybe that’s all I need to do, right? Oh shoot, I better do something. This project needs to be done so I can start working on the next big project when I get back. It will cut down on my stress levels if I do work today and tomorrow, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it.
Well, let me head out and see what I get done. Just a little bit will make me feel better, so I better go do it.
Meanwhile, I hope the rest of you are lounging about enjoying your day.
