The Holiday Season

It's exactly one week away from Christmas. Sure, the weather is cooperating as well as can be expected for SoCal. We've all the decorations up in the apartment. I've got the magic box making the outside lights dance. We've gone to Thoroughbred Lane to walk their streets to take in their nutty, over-the-top lights. We've gone Christmas shopping. We've seen the fake snow at Victoria Gardens.

But it just doesn't feel like the holidays yet. It still seems weeks away. I know part of that is the fact I have to work until Friday, the 21st. Then it's the weekend and suddenly it's Christmas. It sucks to have to work that late in the season. (Yes, yes, I know, working in education I'm lucky to have two weeks off for the holidays, paid, when no one in private industry does. Doesn't stop me from complaining sometimes.)

I think part of it too is that this is a weird holiday season. It's one in which Amanda and I and indeed our entire families are kinda waiting for the other shoe to drop. Amanda is 9 months in and could go into labor concievably at any point now. Her due date is January 11, and first time mothers are apparently typically late. So it's entirely likely little Lorelei Leigh will arrive somewhere around January 15 or so. But it doesn't stop us from having that thought in the back of the head that no matter what we are doing or where we are going, it might all have to come to a screeching halt to go to the hospital.

It's not a bah-humbug sort of mood; it's just kinda weird is all.