holidays

It’s finally over! No more holidays for a while. Don’t get me wrong: I love Christmas. If it was up to me: we would be singing “Jingle bells” from November on! There is no such thing as too much decorations either! At least not in stores and on commercial streets is my view on the whole thing. Don’t have too much of it myself though. Changing continent tree times the last decade as well as housing a million times, does not provide the best conditions for saving up a lot of Christmas decorations. It does put me in such a good mood to buy – or on rare occasions: make – Christmas presents, wrap them up and hand them out! Every now and then I’ve been known to go overboard a little bit actually. One year I worked at Nordstrom’s over the holidays on top of my “real” job as an accounting manager. They give their employees a nice discount. Don’t know why they bothered to give me a check each pay-day though, since I turned around and spent it all at Nordstrom’s anyway. I think my near and dear-ones (and me!) got more than they had expected that year and Nordstrom was the happy provider. Same with the year I spent abroad the last three months of that year. It gave me quite a nice per diem allowance to spend on presents that Christmas as well. It fills my heart with joy to spend all my money on presents and wrap them up in nice packages! Although I always curse my habit the following months when I hardly have money for bills and food. Not sure why it always comes as a surprise to me that if I spend all my money: I won’t have any. The years when money is scarce, I still spend a lot of effort on wrapping the presents. That is half the pleasure actually: listening to Christmas music, eating goodies and wrapping gifts. My room-mate Simon must find it odd that I sit on the floor for so long, because he wants to lean on me the whole time. This means that all the gifts have black-lab hair taped to them. Or maybe he just wants to contribute to the gifts as well. Although I DO write his name on the “from” box on most of them anyway.

One of the downsides of being single on Christmas is the sleeping arrangements. If you don’t come with a couple of kids and a husband, or at least a boyfriend: it’s sofa city over the holidays for you my dear! Or some horrid spare bed they pull out from under the garage or something. I scored this year though: I was the only guest for the first two days. I got to sleep in the guestroom with the best bed those nights! Peace and quiet and a room all to my self. I had time to finish two whole books before the other guests arrived.

Another thing I don’t understand is why couples have to argue at Christmas. Single people miss having someone to open presents with on Christmas morning or evening, depending on the country, but the people who DO have someone to kiss and unwrap presents with: they argue. What’s wrong with this picture?!

And then there is New Years. I asked some newfound friends in my position (30+, single, all-round, cheerful etc) how they viewed the evening to come. They all agreed: rather alone on a tropical beach, than being at a party and being the only one that didn’t have someone to kiss at midnight. If my job didn’t require me to work 24-7 around the holidays: I would have been on that beach with a strong rum-drink (filled with umbrellas), listening to the waves in the dark. Hmmmm! I did the next best thing though: ate six course meal until 2am with some good friends. Not too shabby ;-)

I usually don’t make New Years resolutions. Don’t think I have too many bad habits to kick. Or maybe I just don’t care if I do. But I did think of something though: This year I promise not to make the same mistakes again. I will make them differently! I will try to get into my thick head that if I have done something the same way over and over: I will not get another outcome the next time I do it. I have to change my ways. Since I start a new job in March, it will be a terrific opportunity to change the way I work. To keep the New Year’s resolution, I have to work smarter and not harder (I stole that from a workshop!). Maybe I have to find something outside work that requires my attention as well. And I’m not going to fall for the same men I already fell for in previous years. (They would have to come up with something that is different if I was to fall for them again…). I am so tired of living the life of re-runs! No more déjà vu for me. It’s time to write my own script for this sitcom called “Life”. Now, if I only knew what I wanted it to be about…