Getting Shit Done

If you suddenly felt bereft of jollity last Saturday afternoon, that was just me officially ending Christmas for everyone. Once I put the last string of lights back into its box to lie dormant for the summer, the holiday season had ended for everyone.

I celebrated the 12 days of Christmas, thanks to unused vacation days combined with company holidays. My vacation was a mix of family stuff, sitting around relaxing and getting shit done.

There was the three-day trip to Ohio for Steve’s family Christmas party. It was fun and we left with our Yankee swap gifts of a rubber chicken and a toilet paper holder shaped like a bear. The eight-hour drive each way did leave me beat so it was nice on Christmas Eve to relax at home and just stare at the blinking lights on the tree.

I had a few days after that to sit around the house in the afternoon and stare at the aforementioned lights. It was therapeutic after running around the previous few weeks with Christmas preparations and staying late at work for over a week, since we were on deadline and had to send the issue before the holidays. I did have some work to do on our website while I was off but it wasn’t onerous.

That’s one of my favorite parts of using vacation time the week between Christmas and New Year’s: Sitting in the living room and having the time to listen to my new music and read my new books. I so rarely get the chance to do so that I feel like a kid when it happens. Just half a week of that is enough to recharge me.

I also continued to get our shit together for the wedding. The main thing was finalizing the design for our favors, which will be glasses with a secret special design. We also wrote the ceremony, sifted through the invitations list and looked at some rings. Steve says we seem to be on track, at least according to the timeline by the good people at the Knot.

Most importantly, I took care of the fun part: I booked our honeymoon. Five nights in Fort Lauderdale, where we will sit by the pool and relax. Not that the wedding itself isn’t fun, but after the flurry of planning stresses me out, I will really need a few days to stare out at whatever body of water and concentrate on nothing more than reading a book.