Looking Back at the Christmas Weekend

For the working person, it's a little weird when one of our major holidays falls on a weekend.  When Christmas falls on a Thursday, we (I'm speaking for my place of employment) get that day as a paid day off of course, and are also usually forced into taking Friday off.  In other words it's a free day off, but it's without pay.  When the company is closed you don't have a choice.  If Christmas falls on a Friday I believe they tend to pull the same thing--giving us Thursday off as an unpaid "bonus" day.  When Christmas falls on a Saturday, that's when things really seem to get hectic.  A lot of people work right up until Christmas, and because of that, Christmas eve day is the funneled madness day of filling in the shopping gaps.  To me it's the worst scenario as far as bringing out the madness and the surliness in shoppers that are already pushed over the edge by the "season of giving" in general.  They have to do their end of week paycheck/banking stuff, their last minute grocery shopping for their holiday meal or food shopping in general, AND they still have to fill in their gift shopping gaps for presents or stocking stuffers.  Given those day-off scenarios, I think I prefer the way it fell this year.  When Christmas falls on a Sunday it gives people Saturday as an "extra" shopping day to search for that one last item on their list, more time to prepare for their fancy feast, or more time to travel.  One factor that changes with a weekend holiday is which day off you get with pay.  I think this worked out the best having Monday as our paid holiday. Extending the weekend one day further into the work week is better for people mentally I think.  Throw all of the previous notions and discussion out the window if you work in retail though.  They get little respect for holidays.  For them it's holiDAZE.  I feel sorry for them sometimes.

So what did my weekend consist of?

Saturday morning we drove to a few stores to see if I could find something in the way of a hand-held electronic game for my dad.  He spends so much time sitting in his easy chair barking requests at my mom that I thought it would be nice to see if I could find something he could actually use his brain on.  I didn't expect to find anything, nor did I really care if I did or not.  After all--it was an afterthought.  We hit Fry's in Renton, Radio Shack in Factoria, Toys R Us in Bellevue, and Walmart when we were back in Auburn.  Nada.  I did pick up a couple goodies for my parents though:  Coffee for mom and chocolate for my dad.  The good news was that we were out and back home before traffic was impacted, and also before the store clerks ran short of smiles and good attitudes.

Since it was Christmas Eve Day (hmm... that doesn't look right all capitalized) it was also the day that my family all gets together at my folks' house for gift exchange and dinner.  I waited until the last minute to wrap the few things I had to wrap.  I'm going to say it's because there is no tree to provide me with a visual incentive, but in truth I was just lazy.  It was a good gathering.  For a change, my parents just gave me stuff to eat.  Finally, no weird stuff I will never use.  I know they mean well, but you're supposed to give gifts for the sake of giving.  That means they can be anything.  A couple bags of my favorite potato chips?  Excellent!  There was a good turnout of people there, and as usual Jackie was the one with the interesting stuff.  She gave my folks a calendar with childhood pictures of them on each month.  She also brought homemade things, and had a grab bag.  She is just always like that--thinking a little outside the box.

Sunday morning.  A day like any other for the most part.  I left for Sarah's house at about the same time Suzie left for Meeting.  As usual, she was surrounded by quite a pile of gifts from her mom.  She is one of those people that shops all year long, and by the time the giving day arrives she is lucky to find them all or remember she even bought them.  Sarah bought me lots of good snacks.  I got candies and nuts, and lots of them.  A couple movies too.  I gave her a new (duh) GPS unit for her car.  This year has been a year when she has become a lot more mobile.  She was constantly having to go places that she didn't know directions to and would have to Google directions or ask me.  Having a GPS in your car is a major step in independence that we never had the luxury of when we were young.  I think she'll use it a lot.  I was only there about an hour so I was back before Suzie was.

We rounded out Christmas Day with a photography trip to downtown Seattle.

The weather here at home was nasty and we had to force ourselves to go, but we are so glad we went.  The closer we got to Seattle, the better the weather was!  It was so weird though.  The city was practically deserted.  Imagine being able to stand in the middle of 1st avenue and take a picture of a street that was empty as far as you could see.  It really was weird.  We took lots of good pictures and had a great time.  I'd say it was the high point of the weekend for sure.

Yesterday?  Eh... Boring.  We took one shopping trip out just before lunch, but I didn't feel all that enthused about doing anything else so I just hung out the rest of the day.  Sue went out again on her own though, so she was more productive than I was.  Of course, that's almost always the case.

Back to work.  At least it's a 4-day work week this week and next...