Day Before the Invasion

'Tis the day before the night before....time to prepare the troops for battle. I'm oddly not sure what the Christmas plan actually is, other than trying to cram all the relatives into one Blitzkrieg of celebration. We're both working Christmas Eve morning, so we'll get there when we're damn good and ready.

Most of Christmas Eve is usually spent with my in-laws. This is not a problem. Despite growing up with every sitcom planting a subconscious imperative to dislike future mothers-in-law, I actually like Tracy's family. They are, as they said of yore, the bee's knees. Most of my brood went out of state, so we'll be seeing them when they get back. Then there's dad to consider, and my grandparents...we'd better get up and eat our Wheaties tomorrow morning.

A lot of people may think it's a drag that I have to go into my office on Christmas Eve, but my office is like a party on an average week. Christmas is super fun at work, possibly because only one of the five people who will be there is a Christian. All that tedious "Reason for the Season" jazz is instead replaced with my boss running around with a little bag of prizes, handing them out to whomever knows the answers to the bizarre Christmas Trivia game we play every year.

There is one hitch, however. Someone, and I'm not sure who, has supplied all of us with Christmas ties. Musical Christmas ties. Mine has a snowman on it. Never mind that the last time I wore a tie to work was my first day, when I didn't realize that standard office dress code at Fraley Publishing was a T-Shirt, preferably with something cheeky on it, and jeans. I remember the day I showed up in a shirt and tie a coworker was wearing a black T-shirt that read "Satan" in script letters very like the Coca-Cola logo. I don't think I've worn a tie to work since, barring a day when there was a funeral I had to go to after work or something to that effect.

And yet there is this tie.

I considered just wearing a black tie in protest. I have about twenty ties that I seldom wear, and it sort of irks me that on a day I'm expected to wear one I'm also expected to fall in line with that time-honored Christmas imperative, "don we now our gay apparel".

Maybe I'm just feeling bitchy today. The house isn't up to the Christmas standard...which means I should be cleaning instead of sitting here supplying you, tiny audience, with a reason of your own not to be doing whatever it is you should be doing. But since I have you - Merry Christmas. Here's hoping 2009 is footloose and fancy-free.

Cheers.