Christmas is a crazy time of year.
Boy. That sounded dense. That was like saying ‘Ice is very very cold’ or ‘Carson Daly is a bit of a tool’ or ‘My sister Mo tailgates like a mofo’.
But seriously, I am borderline haggard. I had a mini-breakdown last night before I left work, thinking of everything I had to do that evening: get baskets for some gift baskets I’m putting together, get a gift certificate for my boss from my team, pick up a muscle relaxant from the pharmacy for my neck muscle which tends to go all wacky when I’m stressed out, purchase many many frames for various Christmas gifts, buy beer for said gift baskets, buy snacks for said gift baskets, go to the Post Office and return a package, finish wrapping gifts for a Christmas party tonight at Ward and June’s house, prepurchase movie tickets for ‘Lord of the Rings’, fa la la la la la la la la!
First stop: Pier 1 for baskets. I tried to do a bit of shopping, because truthfully, I totally enjoy Pier 1. Five of the seven pictures hanging in my living room are from Pier 1. Most of my glassware is Pier 1 as well, as is my entire bar set of martini glasses, champagne flutes and decanters (the rest is all inherited cut crystal from Esteban’s family).
It could reasonably be said that Pier 1 rocks my world. However, someone should probably tap Kirstie Alley on the shoulder and let her know that the flakey thing just doesn’t work for her. Also, the Pier 1 shopper is either a young, quirky, poor college student with a penchant for funky candles and cheap china OR an older, established yet still desperately trying to hold onto the avante guarde older woman with a manicure and expensive shoes.
I found two baskets which will undoubtedly not be appreciated, as the recipients are men and apparently the gene which allows one to understand the whole basket genre is recessive and located upon the X chromosome. Sometimes I think I have been cursed with trisomy-Wicker. (Which I’m certain no one will get other than my Human Variability professor, Dr. Mahoney’ Hi Joe!)
I then perused the store, which was extremely full of older women with poofy highlighted hair, strange bottled tans, and expensive hand-knit Swedish sweaters. I stopped by the kitchen glass, and tried to pick up one of the glass canisters, to see the price tag on the bottom. The lid fell off, caught each vase on the four shelves below it, and crashed to the ground on the tile floor, exploding into some fairly impressive large shards of glass.
If anyone in the store DIDN’T hear the sound of six pieces of glass independently breaking, I’m most certain that they heard me yell ‘JEEPERS!’ at the top of my lungs.
Only it wasn’t ‘Jeepers’. It was another word all together.
Far off, perhaps near the authentic yet reasonably priced African masks, I heard someone gasp in shock. Not only was I destroying mass quantities of $12 vases, I was assaulting the very hip atmosphere of Pier 1, with its diverse merchandise and retro Christmas tunes and six different kinds of Charger plates, with the most guttural of all Anglo-Saxon curses.
A woman, a very thin woman with tipped hair and far too much eye-makeup, stepped into view, looked at me and gave me one of the most evil, hate-filled glare I’ve ever received in my entire life. I was shocked. I met her eyes and gave a weak smile, about to warn her to watch her step so she didn’t cut herself, and she continued to glare at me as though I had offered to ritualistically slaughter puppies in sacrifice to Hitler or possibly as though I had admitted to being the person responsible for that ‘Christmas Shoes’ song that is being played to death.
I stood there until a very hip sales clerk with a nose piercing came by and said she’d go get a broom. Then I waited for her to return, still making sure that no one would accidentally walk through the field of glass. When she returned, I offered to pay for the six vases, including the one whole one with the broken top which started it all. She thanked me for offering profusely, but said that they didn’t make people pay for broken stuff. Then she gave me all sorts of props for hanging around to guard the glass.
It was then, helplessly watching her clean up the glass, that I had a sinking realization. She was being super customer-focused because I was no longer one of those penny-pinching but uber cool college girls. No. Me in my new suede sheerling jacket which still smells like a leather store, matching gloves, shoes which had been priced still in the double digits, but just barely in the double digits, kind of funky silver necklace, and department store makeup. I was one of the women who come in and think nothing of dropping $100 on goofy stuff, one of the women who sashay in and out of the store between manicures, toting their cellphones, with tons of plastic in their designer purses. I was one of those women. I was a mixer of cocktails. I was a baker of cookies, a driver to soccer. I was the gatherer of a household. I was the holder of a joint checking account, fed greatly in part by a husband who enjoys living in a tastefully decorated home. I was concerned about how my fingernails looked. I was one of those women.
I was going to hurl.
After being assured that my little glass mess was no longer a threat to the sisterhood of Pier 1, I paid for my baskets (with plastic, god help me) and fled. The store sighed in relief and I had a horrible vision as I walked out the double glass doors that they would shatter in my hands.
Next stop, the scrapbook store for a gift certificate for my boss. That went fairly uneventfully. I then drove home, where I would meet my sister to go shopping for picture frames. I tried to decompress on the drive over, but ended up tooling around a bit while listening to Nickelback and Sarah McLachlin.
When I finally went home, about ten minutes before Mo was to arrive, I found her car already in my driveway. Esteban had stayed home sick, so I figured he must have let her in the house. When I walked in the door, Mo was sitting in our recliner, watching Buffy.
‘Where’s Esteban?’ I asked.
Apparently, Mo had stopped over a half hour early. She had knocked on the door, seeing Esteban’s truck in the driveway. No one answered. She tried the front door and found it open. She yelled a bit and then just walked in and sat down. Our bedroom is in the far back of the house, in an addition. It is virtually soundproof from the rest of the house, being outside the natural walls of the original house. Esteban never heard her and was sleeping, as he does, in his underwear.
And then he needed to go to the bathroom’ which required him walking through the hall, which was in full view of Mo.
Luckily, Esteban doesn’t care. It was very funny when she told me. I then left with her without going into the bedroom to talk to him, as I didn’t want to be somehow blamed for the entire Fruit of the Loom calamity, as I was somehow certain I would be.
We then went shopping. I purchased $140 in picture frames, (which was supposed to be a cheap alternative to actual Christmas presents’ ha! The pictures that will go in them will likely be another $200), then took Mo to dinner. Then I just gave up. Part of the problem with Christmas stress is that apathy sets in very quickly when I’m pushed. I had it during planning my wedding as well’ we didn’t have wedding programs because I declared ‘Fuck it!’ the day before my wedding.
But, unfortunately, I cannot declare ‘Fuck it’ for the remainings of my shopping. I have exactly one present wrapped, and that was only because when I bought it, there was a table setup, offering free wrapping with donations appreciated for Special Olympics, so I had the $5 book wrapped and gave them a $3 donation. One down, 153 presents to go.
Thus, I am taking a half day off today, to go and wrap roughly 34 necessary presents for tonight, as well as purchase the beer to go into the gift baskets, assemble them, wrap them and place very attractive bows upon them. I create this stress. I realize this now. I should know not to attempt the basket trap. The basket trap begins with the notion that it will be a really cool present for a hard person to shop for’. A $17 basket, $40 in snacks, $30 in beer later, you’ve got an $87 present for someone for whom you normally spend $25-30. And a bucket of stress to go along with it.
Next year, I think I’ll just shop with my older, affluent sisters of Middle-Aged Hipness and get the guy a nice wool sweater or something. Maybe even a Swedish hand-knit.
And her heart grew three sizes that day.
