Holidays... part 2

Working in retail at Christmas time tends to be stressful as you can imagine. It's not very often that you get your days off placed together but this year I got lucky. I ended up with the 23rd, 24th and 25th off, which is pretty darn cool. The only unfortunate part is that I have to work boxing day, which it turns out I would rather have the two days off and not work boxing day, but that just means I have to smarter next year and book it off ahead of time.
Most people in retail find that on the 24th your brain and body take an early leave of absence, because you've been working so fast and hard for so long, you can see then end and you start to give up before it's really here. Well since I didn't work the 24th, mine came a little earlier, around 5 on the 23rd, which isn't bad except that I had to work until 10... opps. I was expecting a really busy day so I was ferociously trying to get things done before the big rush. When it never came, and I realized it wasn't going to come, I pretty much gave up, even though I still had stuff to do. I paid for it on Boxing day but i'm still not convinced that anything I actually would have done would have helped me, but it's one of those live and learn things.
As for my days off they were quite nice, peaceful, laid back and full of good food, fun people and lots of drinks. On the 23rd I meet up with my old high school friends, had a fun 'tacky gift exchange" which kept us laughing for quite some time. Caught up with everyone and had a few to many drinks. Even pass out on the ride home... ahh back to the good old days.
The 24th was much the same, went to mass, hung out with my family at the neighbours place and again had to much to drink, but this time stumbled home instead of riding in a vehicle.

Christmas Day is a very exciting day for me, usually one of my favourites of the year. I love going to church and seeing all decorated for the holidays. Relaxing and hanging out with my family all day, and the present thing isn’t so bad either. This year I was very nervous for most of the day. It was the first time I was to meet Andrew’s parents after dating for almost 9 months. He had been feeding me horror stories for the last 3 or 4 months on how his parents would behave. Yelling while guests are present, not necessarily because of anger but this is how they discuss things they’ve even gone as far as throwing dishes at each other while other people were present and of course, my favourite, at some point his mother would take me in a room by ourselves and talk about sex… I still can’t wrap my head around it. I was comforted by the fact that his older brother and his brother’s girlfriend would be present to take some of the tension away from me

Needless to say for the entire drive I was very nervous, probably talking to my self for the whole trip! When I arrived I was visible nervous and even repeated my name twice but that was the worst scenario of the whole evening. Andrew took me on a quick tour of the house so I managed to get myself back together. We had some very interesting conversations, mostly his mother, father and brother all trying to talk to me at the same time. And yes they are really loud and opinionated, but I kind of expected that, because that is how Andrew is. I had to bite my tongue when his father was teasing his brother for being so opinionated, when I know for sure is father is the same way. But we got thought the conversation, Andrew and I even took a nice little walk before dinner to work up an appetite. Dinner was delicious and even managed to not spill on myself!!! We watched a bit of football after we eat, then the weather turned kind of sketchy so I ended up staying the night and leaving for work in the morning. I was very happy to have everything go over so well and I’ll think I’ll be able to handle any odd questions that come my way after getting the worst part over with. Plus I know they like me so life is good.

I will publish yet another Holiday edition with details of New Years later in the week.

As an update for the passport, it’s still not completed, turns out what I did on the internet was just filling out the form so I’ll still have to go to the office and wait in line….blahhh!! Thanks for the reminder Christielli, I’ll remember to bring something to do with me