My kid has a lego Star Wars advent calendar (thank you Grandma and Grandpa) and every morning he announces the date over breakfast and then runs off to build his little ship or droid for the day under the lights of Christmas tree. It's like a tiny little empire is marching me closer and closer to Sunday.
That's no moon; it's a space station.
I feel like Christmas sort of ran me over this year. I'm not grinching out here or anything. I like Christmas. I like the carols, and the old favorite movies (you'll shoot your eye out, kid) and turning off all the lights but the Christmas tree and cuddling up on the couch to watch it twinkle with a glass of eggnog. It just seems like it hasn't started yet, like I blinked and it's the 20th. I'd say it's a mistake but there's a tiny A-Wing perched next to Mary and Joseph that says it's so.
It's not like I've been shirking. The tree is up, lights on the house and all that. The shelf in the closet that's too high for three-feet-tall people to see has a couple of fun things on it waiting for wrapping. Meanwhile there's a Crow deadline approaching, the car needs to go into the shop, work is doing the end-of-year hustle, and the kid barfed all over everything but the house guest on Saturday night.
And if someone breaks out into "Where are you Christmas?" I will barf on you too. That's a festive promise.
Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la.
Thursday the shortest day of the year. And I believe it. I'm leaving the house at sunrise and coming back after sunset everyday, leaving the growing pile of stuff to do for the darkened hours. By the time I pull into the driveway after work, school, and errands, the Christmas lights are on up and down the street.
My neighbors have one of those albino reindeer made of twinkle lights on their lawn. It moves its head slowly and jerkily to and fro like a tarandus zombie. The little bugger has red eyes, I kid you not. And it’s looking right at me when I get out of the car at night.
If you find me unconscious in front of the house with hoof prints on my forehead, you know how I went down.
It feels like yesterday that I was in the coffee shop down the street joking with the folks behind the counter that they were playing Christmas music already and it wasn’t even Thanksgiving. Now it’s five days until Christmas. How the hell did that happen?
Today Shawn and I stared at each other via a blinking cursor across an internet chat.
Enough.
Tonight we have takeout chinese and watch a Christmas movie, the three of us. I'm putting on my Christmas jammies and taking all the crap I need to do and shoving it into the little hole with whatever droid is waiting for us behind the door marked "21". The laundry and the dishes can keep Santa Vader company.
May the wassail be with you.