I Hate the Holidays. Mostly. (On a brighter note, hurray for the New Year!)

So... it's finally over.

If December were a person, it would be a bitter mid-aged woman. She would wear too much make up and wear clothes you only find in stores on Hollywood Boulevard. Bags of skin would reside under her glazed over blue eyes that once held beauty beyond a clear night sky. She would scarcely be seen without a cigarette dangling between her lips and her forehead would weave a wrinkled map of a thousand worries that have worn her down over the years. Her blond hair would be flawless, her teeth brilliant as she smiled. Not a real smile, of course, but the kind where you pull your lips apart just enough for it to look like you are smiling. Not the kind of smile where your mouth is agape and little indentations appear across your face and your cheeks press into your eyes making them a bit smaller.

My December was all sorts of bad. From being very sick to holiday stress. I tell you what, I am so glad it's over. I missed quite a bit of work due to my sickness. December is such an inconvenient month to get sick and miss work in. It's the most expensive month of the year. Christmas party supplies, Christmas decorations, Christmas food, gas money driving around to all the different places you go on the holidays, not to mention the presents. Christmas is a drainer for sure. I was very upset this year because I was broke when it came to buying gifts, and I hate receiving when I have nothing to give. I love giving people presents, and it was tough to not be able to participate in the giving side for the most part. Besides the sickness and financial difficulties, there is the well-known dread of being around certain relatives. I am not in any way trying to say that everyone hates being around their family. I am just pointing out that there are a couple of bad eggs in every family that are not very pleasant to spend time around, and they usually show up around, let's say, Christmas Day or so.

I miss being a kid and loving Christmas. I have had this conversation a few years in a row now. The magic and joy of Christmas has withered away in my life, and I feel like my appreciation for the meaning of Christmas is drowned out in a hullabaloo of holiday commercialism madness. When you're a kid, that whole 'how the presents get there' thing is not an issue. You are just so excited for Christmas to come so you can get and give presents, eat delicious food, hang out with your family, gorge on stocking stuffer candies, listen to the story about Baby Jesus, and wonder if Santa is really real.

I don't want to seem ungrateful for what I have. I am so thankful that I have family and friends that love me very much and want to spend time with me on the holidays expressing that love. I gladly reciprocate it... usually. This year, however, I was still pretty sick on Christmas, and perhaps this year I was one of the 'bad eggs' that was no fun to be around. Unfortunately, I was not even well enough on Christmas to muster up an appetite for all the amazing food there was to eat. That was one of the saddest parts.

Moving on. Yes, I am totally done whining about my horrible December. Relieved? Thought so.

The week after Christmas was actually pretty fun. A friend of mine from Sweden came to stay at my house for a week and a half to visit the West Coast of the USA for the first time. Although it was lots of fun having him around, it was definitely not stress-free. As his host, I felt very compelled to organize my friend's time at my home. I wanted to plan entertainment for every day, and it was quite overwhelming to attempt to execute those plans without overworking myself, especially since I was recovering from being very sick and very stressed out from the holidays. We were only able to follow through on about half of my plans, but that's alright because he convinced me that he had a good time anyway.

And then came New Years Eve.

Unlike Christmas, I loved New Years this year. I hosted an amazing New Years party at the good ole Web House. To summarize, there was lots of dancing, karaoke (aka drunken singing to all sorts of pop songs), eating, drinking, laughing, crying (I can't prove that one, but is it hard to believe after I mentioned 'drunken singing?'), more dancing, more singing, chocolate cake, seeing how many people we could fit in the sauna, and there was even a point in the night when Petey the Pirate Pinata had C.P.R. performed on him because he definitely had a broken arm and definitely needed some reviving.

And so here we all are, in the new year.

Hopefully 2009 holds some turns for the better. Inauguration Day is only a couple days away. I am a little bit excited to see some changes. I am so sick and tired of the word "economy" appearing in the headlines of every newspaper. I work in a Bagel shop and even we, in our humble little store, have had to cut the store hours and cut shift lengths. I was mentioning this to a few different customers today, and they were absolutely blown away by the fact that even we were affected by the ever saddening state of our economy. I have never really lived in fear of not being able to make enough money, but I have reached that point. One little funny fact that is a side affect of the whole hours being cut ordeal... some of the Bagel shop employees have NEVER been so efficient with their work as they have been this past week because everyone is afraid that they will get laid off when (if) things get worse. I found this kind of amusing, to know that so many people I thought were slackers have the potential to be really good workers if they so choose to be. funny how that works out. Maybe this rough patch is a good thing in some ways. Character building, at least. Myself not excluded.

Happy New Year, everyone. May this year bring nothing but the best it can to everyone's life.