The Season

I don't know why my job has suddenly become such a drag, but this week more than ever, I have had such a hard time keeping a good attitude about it. Each day I just dread it. It's probably because it's Christmastime. I know that makes me sound like a grinch, but there is nothing less fun than working retail at Christmas. It's super busy, so nothing can really get done properly, and you feel pulled in a million directions. Everyone is trying to close a big sale so they need what they need, and they need it fast. Everyone is working long tiring hours, so nerves are raw. Everyone is stressed because they also have lives besides their jobs, which require gift-buying, baking, decorating, entertaining, traveling, etc. Add to this chaos the fact that my boss has suddenly decided to do all kinds of crazy wheeling and dealing with his watch-dealer buddies, and his wife, my other boss, gets mad at him, and I am stuck in the middle just trying to make sense of everything! It's crazy. I don't usually lose my cool at work, but in the past it has always happened at this time of year, when my grasp on sanity is worn the thinnest.

BUT, it's not all bad.

I enjoy seeing people's happiness at finding the perfect gift for their loved ones, and seeing the salespeople create gorgeous gift-wrapped presentations. I love getting little gifts of chocolate or cookies from artists, clients, and fellow-businesses. I enjoy the buzz of midtown in the middle of Christmas, and being so close to Rockefeller Center, where the giant tree is so gorgeously lit. Sometimes on my lunch-break, I walk over and visit it, and I like to stand right under it and look up at it against the winter sky. I like watching the ice skaters, and hearing the Salvation Army bell-ringers and making their day by throwing my change into their buckets. I love the imaginative store window-displays! And I love that the street vendors sell freshly roasted chestnuts.

This week my roommates and I have been building gingerbread houses. On Sunday we baked the dough in the shapes of walls and roofs and steeples and chimneys, and the next day we made icing and put the parts together. Then, we commenced to decorating every surface of the houses with candy. It's a lot of work to build a proper gingerbread house--or a church, in my case. Every night after work I come home and forget about the stresses of the day by tessellating Neccos onto my roof panels or applying colored m'n'ms to the eaves of my little candied folly. I'm especially proud of the melted-Jolly Rancher windows with their stained-glass effect.

I'm just counting down the days until I will be able to have a little vacation from work and go home. I'm leaving New York on Christmas morning and flying South. It's going to be a great Christmas. E will be there, my brother will be there--newly sprung from the clinker--and my other brother's cute new girlfriend, and all the rest of the family too. I'm planning on having a grand time! Now if I can just get through 6 more days of work...