settling into the season

Thursday night: lots to do. Attend work holiday party, intending to stay “just a little while”. Have a holly jolly time. Hard to make myself leave. Stay longer than planned; don’t finish everything I had in mind. Oh, well, it’s that time of year.

Friday morning: alarm goes off early, still very sleepy. Still lots to do. Bustle through my morning routine, notice I am feeling lighter than usual, for the morning and heading to work. Merry and bright. It’s the last day. One day of work to get through before I can declare it officially the holidays ~ for if there is no more working, surely one is on holiday. Thus, am energized despite lack of sleep.

Friday commute: put energy to good use; on the train, manage to get cards written, envelopes addressed/stuffed/stamped. Christmas cards are posted by 9 am, same time as they’d have been mailed if I had done them the night before.

Friday work: told a friend I’d be a subject in his experiment. This means the morning is spent in the lab. Always feels more social than sitting at my desk. Especially when we put Christmas music on Pandora. The guys may roll their eyes a bit, but in the end they are bopping their heads, or even singing along. Attend afternoon seminar, on restoring eye blinking for people with facial paralysis issues. Quite interesting. Do some organization at my desk. On gmail chat, Husband asks me out on a date to go see the Nutracker on Sunday. The excitement is growing.

Friday evening: get my hair cut at the curly salon. Now even my hair is festive. Then quiet night at home with husband as we make pizza and watch a movie.

Today, so far: luxurious sleeping in. Omelettes as brunch. Brainstorming what else to do with all this time. Excited to put finishing touches on decorating/shopping/wrapping, and to begin baking. It feels extravagant to use my vacation days for this time off before Christmas; I have not had this much time since college, I think. But I will still have 4 days remaining for the year – not too shabby considering the trips we took in the summer and fall. I am hoping that the time off will restore my brain functions a bit :) It feels so nice to have things finally quieting down, for the home stretch to Christmas, instead of frantically rushing to finish the last holiday tasks. For now, I settling into the period of comfort & joy with some hot chocolate while looking up new recipes to try… so many tasty options!