December 22, 2001

Merry PFFT! and Happy New PFFT!

Yep, it's that time again. Time for going broke showing how much you care for family and friends, to be made to feel bad for spending $10 on someone who spent $100 on you, and irritating your bad back wrapping all those gifts with paper that's only going to get thrown away anyway. That's right, it's the most wonderful time of the year!

Don't get me wrong, I like Christmas. It's a week off work and I get to see family (this year it happens to be my family, last year it was the in-laws and you can read all about that here). Fortunately to visit my family we only have to drive 7 hours each way, and since gasoline is fortuitously inexpensive right now, we shouldn't have to spend $2000 on transportation. But it's still a frigging 7 hour trip.

Speaking of the drive, my darling husband says I'm going to have to drive. I'm pretty sure he's full of it because he always says it but then when it gets down to it, he really prefers to drive because he doesn't like sitting idle that long, and he's a little scared by the way I drive (the way I drive?? I'm not the one who actually goes to a higher gear even while the traffic ahead of me is obviously getting slower! but I digress..). I can keep myself occupied reading or working on some history work I'm doing with my trusty laptop (with a handy car power adaptor, which I highly recommend). But it's still a frigging 7 hour trip.

So I imagine we'll get lots of presents since we've been good little children this year. My brother will present us the gifts he worked so hard to wrap with duct tape, his wrapping paper of choice, and we'll gain about 20 pounds because my grandmother will force-feed us things that are bad for us. However, because it's Christmas, we won't mind too much, for the family's sake, and we'll pretend to enjoy ourselves, even while we feel overstuffed with chocolate cake and apple pie. Doesn't it sound horrid?

I'll let you know how it turns out after the new year. In the meantime, enjoy your holidays and try not to PFFT too much, it's a season for being happy, dammit.

Published: December 22, 2001
Editor: stacy