Holiday roundup

I thought I would catch up on my Christmas tale. We begin with Christmas Eve.

My box from Amazon finally showed up (it was crammed into the box up by the mailboxes and I really thought Widget and I would have to run back to get my box cutter because it would not come out!) and I wrapped the last of my gifts while wondering why it was so damn sunny. It didn't feel all that... Christmasy, to be honest, but I did get the joy of telling people no, I would not be wrapping their gifts for other people this year. Normally I cave and say yes, and have ever since the year it snowed for Christmas (1989) but this year I was enjoying the not having anything hanging over my head so... my gift to me was saying no.

I went into work and as I'm walking through the door I notice two things. One, they've got the two newest people working the registers. Two, there is a line and a half. The second wasn't unexpected but the first was. Who throws newbies to the wolves like that? One of them has been working here less than a week, guys. I hurry by newbie M and hear her page for a manager to register 2. I clock in and hurry back to reg 1 because I know that she'll want to take a breather... but while I'm waiting for there to be a break so I can cut in, I notice newbie M is still waiting with the same customer who is clearly irate. I wander over and try to help and it doesn't work, so I back up newbie and tell the lady to head on over to Cos because in order to do the price adjustment the way she wanted it done, a manager has to do it. I even break my normal policy of not saying why and tell her that it exceeds the price limit we're allowed to muck with and the only person in the store who can do this particular trick is a manager, and no, newbie M wasn't mistaken about this. We even point out Cos to the lady and there is one person MAYBE in line there. They might have just been shooting the breeze with the manager, I really don't know.

Lady will not move. She gets beligerent about it and goes OFF on me about having three kids in the car and how she shouldn't have to wait and I send newbie off because she's turning purple with rage and this ain't gonna end well for annnnnnyone. I tell the lady once more that I cannot do what she's asking because the machine will not let me, I would if I could, and I tried just to make sure policy wasn't relaxed for the holidays (before they allowed non-management to do any returns/exchanges, they would rig the registers to allow us to do it on Christmas Eve) but either she's going to have to walk over to cos and *maybe* wait there or she's definitely going to have to wait here because someone is going to have to walk. One way or the other she's going to be waiting, but only one way is she guarenteed to get what she wants.

She won't move. The guy behind her in line shoots me this look of "I am so sorry you have to deal with this" and then he backs me up on the whole waiting is going to happen but if you move and move now, the wait will be that much shorter. Nope, not moving.

She gets on her phone and I page once more for help and the next thing I know she's speaking a language I cannot ID and she is very clearly cussing about me because I can read body language when it's really freakin' obvious. At that point I ring the guy up because if she's going to be a royal cunt about it there's nothing else I can do.

I'd like to point out that she was my first customer of the night.

As he leaves, he stresses the "Merry Christmas" while giving her a dirty look and then C comes over to check on something unrelated. She fixes the lady's issue and only later do I relay the story.

Really hate it when the first person of the night is a jackass, especially on a night when I don't really want to be there, y'know?

Then everyone disappeared before 10:30. Because you leave early on the busiest night of the year, right?

Oh. Wait. No. You don't.

The next three hours are spent mostly on the register. I escape somewhere around 12:45 for a bathroom break and then spend the next half an hour or so ringing people up before breaking free once more to make the rest of the store look okay. Things tapered off earlier than I would have expected, but there wasn't really any Christmas magic. It made me sad. In other years, Christmas Eve has yielded people who feel guilty for being the reason we're open, so they buy you a drink or aren't complete dicks about waiting in line.

To be fair, there were a couple of guys who did retrieve our carts from the parking lot, and I really did appreciate that and not just because the temperature was falling fast.

Mums showed up a little late and she did a little last minute stocking shopping (my Hello Kitty came about because of this) and we went home where my original plan was to sleep after playing Santa.

Yeah. That didn't happen. I was a little wired and I honestly thought Widget would wake up pretty early. He didn't roll outta bed til 8:30 or so, and Mom went back to bed before then. If 8:30 doesn't seem all that late, consider the fact that I'd been up all night. :p

Mom got up first and Widget and I watched the PInky and the Brain Christmas special (I cried, I always do). Widget tried to wake the boy. Didn't work. Mom kept bringing up the fact that the boy promised to make breakfast. Keep that in mind.

Somewhere around 10:30, the boy finally sort of wakes. Presents commence in a weird timeline because Widget hands out his presents and then wants people to open their stockings. The boy disappears after some of the gifts are opened because he needs to wrap Mumsy's gift. When the gifts are done, Mums manages to prolong the wait for breakfast by mentioning she bought firewood.

The boy spends the next hour trying to start and keep a fire going while Mom whinges (I say this with love, Mums!) about breakfast. Don't introduce the boy to something he'd rather do, lady.

Eventually breakfast is had after irishgypsieand I trade texts. :) At 1pm, that is. I consider trying to stay up but I get bitchy without sleep so I go up expecting a couple of hours of sleep before Widget descends.

Nope. Next thing I know, it's 7pm or so and Mums is saying dinner is clearly going to be late and I have half an hour to get downstairs. I take another ten minutes to wake up, and then another ten to look less like I just woke up.

Dinner is uneventful although I am less than thrilled by the boy turning the mashed potatoes into loaded ones complete with bacon because bacon and turkey are not tastes I find complimentary, especially unexpectedly biting into them.

Partway through dinner, Widget gets up and heads into the living room to sort of doze while watching TV because he's been coughing all day. I'm a little sad because we were supposed take a walk and enjoy the lights but I also know he's not feeling well so...

We finish dinner and I go up to get dressed for my walk. Widget decides to come with, and I make him promise to tell me if he wants to go back home and we will. Yeah, I think the walk cured him because we made it over to the streets where he trick-or-treated (farther than our normal walks) and I realized just how big those cookie cutter houses are. The front yards are pretty much non-existant but the houses go back at *least* three large rooms' worth. We're talking rooms the size of those in the house I grew up in and that was, for the most part, a fairly rich neighborhood. (Every year on the first bus ride home from school, there was someone who would actually whistle/gasp at the neighborhood.)

We came across a cat with no tail who was very, very friendly, and by the time we left kitty behind, I was very glad to have grabbed the scarf zallia gifted me with.

I think the walk was my favorite bit of Christmas because we were gone so long that by the time we came home, we'd looked at so many other houses that it was kind of weird to come 'home' to this one. Weird in a good way, I don't know how to describe it. It was like getting to see it from an outsider's perspective.

We never did get a fire to stick because the wood was damp, but we did watch How to Train Your Dragon on FX. Widget was super wired at this point, btw. After Megamind started, I wandered back here to kill time before my Lifetime movie started. I spent the next two hours watching that and dashing downstairs to see if the AG sale had started. It never did, but Ozma and I enjoyed our quality time with our tree. :)

Tomorrow: pictures of the house decorated. Try to contain your excitement.