Christmas came and went.


Geez, and I thought I was doing a good job savoring it.   Christmas music.  Baking cookies.  Gathering and wrapping presents.  It’s still just one day, though, and the part of the holiday that a lot of people look forward to is over before noon.

There were some very nice seasonal events, too many to list, actually.  I don’t mean to say that I didn’t have a lovely holiday.  It was just fast.  Really fast.

And it reminds me of the truest thing every parent has told me about raising a child.  It flies by!  Charlotte is closer to 21 months old than 20, and she walks and talks and has favorite toys and programs and movies.

I should use one of my favorite Christmas presents (a new camera!) to take pictures of some of my favorite of Charlotte’s presents (is that a sentence?).  She’s got a huge collection of Sesame Street figures (and the accessories) that she calls her “guys” after what I called them.  She sitting there playing with them now.

Now: winter.  And my century-old apartment is so drafty that the heat literally will not turn off.  Instead of the whole shebang turning on and off, the system stays on while the “auxiliary heat” comes on and off.  I shudder to think of our electric bill and environmental impact.  We console ourselves with the fact that we won’t be here next winter.

Gotta give material, to give love?

Okay.  So one present I’m giving this year is entirely hand-made.  I pulled it out of my ass with stuff lying around the apartment.  A few involved some involved hunting.  Several took a lot of time to “plan.”  But I’ve definitely arrived in my 30s displaying some weird belief that fancy gifts are the way to show the people that I care about how I feel about them.

Maybe it’s a MAN thing?  Like how we don’t “express” ourselves or something?

Even the pile of presents (Okay, the two piles of presents) for Charlotte from “Santa” smack of the, “I love you; so I bought you this,” Christmas.  Where did that come from?  Sure, we had presents out the ass when I was little.  But we had a huge family Christmas party on Christmas Eve and Santa and cookies and church and togetherness.  It was a lot more than presents.

I blame working at the mall my last two years of college.  I worked at a bookstore, and we ran the calendar kiosk.  I was famous for being able to “man” that huge display all day without getting sick of it.  Well, there was this terrible non-religious Christmas “music” they used to play.  I think that shit messed with my brain chemistry.  Seriously.  I still can’t look at calendars, especially not ones with dogs or trucks on them.  And last weekend, the mall had NO MUSIC PLAYING, and I felt like going batshit the whole time.  It was eerie.  The weekend before Christmas, and the place was packed.  And I was creeped out because I thought it was too quiet.

Yes, it was Towson Town Center that make me a present whore.  That’s it.

Really, though, my gift to myself was a bottle of Jack with matching glasses thrown in for free.  Seriously.  Because who can’t use some help getting through the holidays?

Merry Christmas Eve.  I am off to shower, drink coffee and watch A Christmas Story with my cuddly wife.

Feels like winter/Xmas in Baltimore – Finally.

After I wore sandals and no jacket to IKEA Tuesday, I was tucked into a puffy vest and scarf last night, walking in the dark with a travel mug of very good coffee and holiday tunes on my little mp3 player.   It’s seldom that I walk anywhere alone anymore.  And, while I miss Charlotte when I do, it’s something I also savor.  The last time was nearly a month ago, when I sped my way on a 3 mile stroll to retrieve a lost Elmo doll.

This morning, Charlotte is helping Mommy fold laundry, which means picking things from the basket, plopping them onto Mommy’s lap and laughing.

Daddy takes a second — a distant second — when Mommy’s home from work and largely on weekends.  She follows Mommy everywhere and wants story after story.  Last night, she told Mommy which three stories she wanted: “Beeah, Henwy and Pond.”  (Long story.)  I don’t mind being second to Mommy.  She did, you know, carry her around for nine months and all that.  She’s never more excited than when Mommy’s home from work.  I can even get her into a mood that would require three cups of coffee from me if I tell her, when she gets up from her nap, that, “Mommy’s home soon!”

Today, we are taking Charlotte to Midtown for some holiday fun.  We both used to work there, and it’s weird not to spend time there anymore, the coffee capital of this fair city.

The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Those weird Hallmark books that allow a far-away family member (or maybe one who can’t stay up late) to “read” a favorite children’s book via a digital recording are going to have very creepy effects. I’m telling you. Charlotte has one. I thought: How cool, to ask her grandparents to take turns reading the pages of The Night Before Christmas. Me, well, I memorized it because I can’t read this one in the dark (weird font). But. Then. One day, Mum-Mum and Poppy are dead. But they can still “read” the book to Junior. And it’s weird.

Parent: “I thought I heard voices in here, Junior. Who’s in here with you?”
Junior: “Grandma and Grandpa were reading me my story.”
Parent: “Uh, honey. Grandma and Grandpa went up to heaven. They can’t read to you anymore.”
Junior: “But they did. They read it the way I like it.”
Parent: “Why don’t you go to sleep, sweetie?”
Parent [to Other Parent]: “I think Junior has lost his freakin marbles. He thinks my parents are reading to him.”
Other Parent: “Oh, shit. We’re better call Dr. Shrink.”

Christmas be over, 2008.

xmasover0108
Okay, so Christmas and all those other winter holidays are over.  I can’t tell if I’m sad or glad.

I remember when I first became a Christmas Grown Up wherein shopping and gift giving replaced getting presents as the hallmark of holiday excitement.  Instead of staying awake at night thinking about that awesome slot car set or my first CD player, I would get so thrilled with being the instrument of happiness in giving gifts that I would constantly drop hints and think about nothing else than how my brother would shit when he opened that custom garden gnome holding a sign with our last name for his new house or the look on my girlfriend’s face when she put on the necklace I picked out as a teenager.  Etc.  Christmas went from being fun because you were lucky enough to get presents to being lucky enough to give presents.  But it still all hinged on shit wrapped in boxes or lazily thrown into those cheesy giftbags.

At some point, though, Christmas became about family and togetherness and traditions and that kind of thing, probably because I spent most of my 20s living far away from all of the people I care about.  It became why I would drive for 18 hours through the mountains and snow and traffic without sleep and dodging deer carcasses to see the people I wanted to see, which is no huge deal for me because I do in fact really like my family.  At least my immediate family.

But then people get married or engaged or pregnant, and too many families try to still have their same holidays when they are connected to other Family Christmas Networks.  I’m sure I’m not the only one who has accidentally gone to someone else’s Big Family Party under the pretense of it being some kind of integrated party that transcends last names and bloodlines.

Everyone has traditions they enjoy, and everyone thinks their holiday awesomeness is more awesome than your holiday awesomeness, and because of the limitations of space, time and our being embodied beings in the world, there’s only so much you can do.  So we all take turns giving up what we like to do during the holidays if we’re lucky.  If we’re not, we never get to do anything we like to do.

Even when you try to not take a shit all over someone’s party or traditions, you wind up doing it.  My youngest brother and I are very particular about Christmas Eve.  If anyone trys to mess with it (and people always do), it gets messed up — no matter how good the intentions are or even how much frikkin fun the plans might be.  We get pissed and ruin it for everyone.  Maybe from rigidity.  Who knows?  One could argue that our Christmas Eve activities are so long-standing that we’re almost allowed to be rigid and that anyone who knows these plans and trys to change them is a dickweed.  I wouldn’t argue it, though, since I realize that we’re not going to get to perform our Christmas Eve rituals much longer and probably, most likely, almost definitely, never again.  Even if sitting around watching those stop-motion animation things and drinking coffee is not as fun as some of the stuff people have gotten us to do, we’re pissed and resentful, and we’ll be unhappy on Christmas Eve until we can accept that what we used to like to do is over.

The bad part about traditions: Their rigidity.

Of course, the other bad part that we’ve seen is that traditional people seem to enjoy pushing their traditions on other people, which is of course what my youngest brother and I did to my wife with our favorite mode of Christmas Eve.

So this year, as I was prevented from doing most of the things I like to do, I was pissy and a jerk and overly critical of other people.  Then empty.  I wondered if I should have a kid soon to recapture some of the “magic” of the holiday season.  I don’t know.  It might work, but that’s a stupid reason to have a kid in itself.

What I wonder is if it is possible for a creature of habit like me to have a tradition-free holiday without making that a tradition.  That would be a fun holiday.  At least, with little pressure.

But would it be Christmas without all the annoying things you have to do?

New camera, someone else’s new computer.

I am at my family’s house in Hampden, in my old bedroom, on my Dad’s new computer.  (I’m seriously stealing this frikkin monitor when I go back home.)  After much drama, research and, well, bullshit, I have a new camera.  It’s sitting here in the tiny (and kinda over-priced) case I bought for it, charging.  Did three test black shots, and there was a weird spot in the first one.  I almost pooped.  But I took three.  And the others were fine.  Took two photos of the wife and put that baby on the charger like it told me to.  It’s tiny.  About the size of a deck of cards.  I can actually carry it around!  I didn’t check to make sure there’s no crap under the LCD, but that’s only happend to me twice (knock on wood), both with a Canon.  The same one that died twice on me.  Four of the same model (!).  And the other dead pixel one and my favorite old A60 which up and died totally, else I’d probably still use it.  With the luck I have with digital cameras, maybe I shouldn’t check?  (Kidding.)

I am going to my brother’s house for Christmas Eve, and I’m stoked that I will have a camera.  Enough eggnog in my baby brother, and I’d be a fool to miss it.

I should really post more candid photos of people on here and Flickr.  But I don’t take a whole lot.  I’m photo shy.  I used to sneak photos of people and call it a pretentious name (look it up with the search function!).

I can’t sleep and didn’t eat much for dinner because I’m pooping myself with excitement over Christmas.  I think being away from my apartment and job (and bike, poor thing) and seeing the presents I have for people is infecting me.  I wanna wrap and give and take pictures of people opening the awesome shit I got for them.

I went shopping with my Mom yesterday like I used to before I started my VISTA year.  People were nuts.  You know, proof of the existence of God might lie in the way that more people don’t either die or kill each other over the stupid things people do when they are lurking and speeding their metal cages around with them.

You might think it’s weird to spend one’s day off with one’s mother, but I don’t give a shit if anyone thinks that.  Hell, I like my parents a lot.  I have fun with them.  I feel badly for people who don’t enjoy their parents’ company, and that is at least half of the people I know.

Mrs. P. and I went shopping with my Dad tonight for a camera and other things.  When I was in college, my Dad and I used to go shopping just days before Christmas and do all of our purchasing.  I don’t think anyone really did online shopping back then.  When I was living away, Mrs. P. got to come along, which was supposed to be understood as an honor.  With the advent of online shopping and DOORBUSTERS, we’ve sorta fallen out of the tradition.  I was glad to revive it tonight, quite unexpectedly.

I have a little more shopping to do on the Avenue tomorrow, a half a block away.  And TONS of wrapping.

If you don’t hear from me before then, very happy holidays to you.  And to everyone else I love or hate.

Ish Crissmus an awl, hon.


I don’t have any recent photos of Christmas because my camera pooped out.  This is my Grandmama-in-law [who is one of the sweetest people I know] back in 2004.

I don’t get/have to travel for the holidays these days, which takes away some stress/excitement. I still eat too much and feel guilty about it though.

Not that I don’t do that a whole lot during normal times.

I did too much research and picked my new camera, which I’ll order later.  Hopefully this one will come sans imaging processor errors.

Christmas feels weird these days. It’s been suggested that I need to have some kids to get back into it. Kids? I wonder how long it will take before we have a kid or two, as if I don’t get a say in the matter. Any children we have will probably show my green eyes and F’s big hair.

So cute that they might destroy the world. Or save it. Maybe even make a real, really, totally-for-real Santa Claus.

Holy shit.

I am pooped. And I haven’t wrapped my presents yet.

Where is my Christmas spirit?


I think I’ve been not much in the holiday spirit because I haven’t been shopping much at all.  And also work business.  But I think it’s largely a lack of shopping.  What?

Christmas came early for my bike though.  The seatpost clamp that is not QR doesn’t fit, but that’s Okay.  The seatpost does, and the saddle’s on, too.  The stitching is wacky on my seat.  But.  Whatever.  At least I can ride it today.  While staring at my maimed bike all last week across my desk made me ache to defy death in traffic, The Duke sitting here while I work has made me excited today for the chance to ride home.  For all it’s annoying quirks and imperfections, I do love my bike.

I think that my old (stolen) bike got me out of my car and into the fun world of getting around without four wheels.  This bike was under my butt when I really got into cycling in traffic and to get places that people look at me funny for riding to, like weddings, job interviews and community meetings in questionable neighborhoods.

There have been times I’ve badmouthed it myself, for all its hyrbid dorkiness, but I’d be beside myself if someone stole this one.

So he’s coming to the office with me until my workplace threatens me.  And I’m prepared to fight them, given what little anyone does to prevent bike theft these days.  (Though a UB detective tells me that they are getting siren locks to lend folks….)