How The Grinch Stole My Christmas Spirit

I am sure many of my readers have wondered where the hell Carrie's been this past week, especially on Christmas. Well, truth be told, the Grinch stole Christmas from me this year. And after I had such a great start, damn it!

First, a little history.

I am obsessive to a T about having my Christmas gift list started early, usually in August. Then I set the budget. Usually sometime between Halloween and Thanksgiving, I have ALL of my gifts purchased AND wrapped. True, true, true.

So, the whole point of the tree aspect of Christmas for me is to enjoy the multitude of presents I have under the tree until I start giving them to the people they are meant for.

One year, I bought my tree the day after Thanksgiving. Boy, I'll never do that again, as the tree was dead the week before Christmas, and I couldn't even put the lights on unless I was for sure in the house to make sure nothing caught on fire! So, I learned to buy the tree the week after Thanksgiving so I would get at least three weeks before Christmas of enjoying the tree, and the week after Christmas I could care less if the tree is dead. And, no, I would never, ever, consider a fake tree.

So, this year, after having done the shopping and wrapping on time, all that was left was for the tree to be purchased. I had already pulled out all my Christmas decorations and things. Just for the record, I have an incredible Christmas village that grows by a building and a person or something every year, and now encompasses at least two full bookshelves to show off. I have Christmas dishes and silverware, and place mats, and napkins and towels, and all the crap that goes along with celebrating the one month long holiday event.

So, the start of the Grinch. First off, while getting all my Christmas stuff out, I realized how much "shit" I also had stored in my closets and cabinets, such that I decided to have a garage sale. I set the sale for the week before Thanksgiving (who would attend a garage sale Thanksgiving weekend anyway?). However, at the same time, my daughter was downsizing from her one bedroom apartment to a single, and she was too lazy to get the permit required of the city she lived in to have a garage sale at her own place, so she asked to have hers piggy back on mine. I agreed, but as usual, the kid failed to get her shit together and never showed up. Problem number one, she moved all her shit into my house to hold until she could have a garage sale (again, being too lazy to just get a fucking permit to have it in her own city). So now, I can't get a tree because all her shit is in the place where my tree is supposed to be.

Next Grinch happening occurs when she does have her garage sale on the day I was supposed to get my tree. Except she did not make arrangements for anyone to help her with the sale, and she brought along the grandkid, so I was forced to (1) help with the sale and (2) watch the grandkid, which pretty much prevented my getting the tree that day. Now we are at December 4, and I still do not have a tree, nor have I been able to set up even my dining room set because all of her stuff was IN my dining room since before Thanksgiving, and I had to put my dining room set up against the wall to accommodate the computer, desk, cabinets, etc. she had for sale.

When her garage sale was done and over with, many of her large items were not sold, which meant they came back into my house ... further preventing me from setting anything up. I was able to repurpose some of her stuff in my house, including the desk (putting it in my grandson's room), but that meant at an absolute deadline, I needed to get the tree no later than December 11, so that I could at least enjoy the gifts for a week before I had to bring most of them to my office.

Well, Grinch, part three. Guy who usually helps with the tree (since I do not have a car) bailed on me (no phone calls or nothing, just a no show) and so, I had no tree that weekend. By Monday, December 13, I realized I could call a few friends to help me get a tree, but by then I was beginning to get really pissed, knowing that I would only enjoy that part of the tree that I enjoy every year, for like four days! That's when I got mad. And for those of you that know me (Tony, ahem) know that when I decide I'm done with a person, I am really DONE with that person, and so I ended up "erasing" that person from my list, i.e., deleting email address, phone number, etc. Even when the person called, I refused to take his calls, and my poor receptionist at the office (for whatever reason) felt it was her place to tell the person why, and just how mad, I was.

Thus, I never got a tree. I ended up putting all the Christmas decorations and other stuff back into the closets and cabinets, and pretty much blew off Christmas for this year. I stopped playing the music, stopped making Christmas posts ... and ironies of all ironies, didn't even attend my own office Christmas party (due to an unexpected medical condition ... I caught scabies... ewwwww).

I am not bitter, but I am mad at the person that could not just do the right thing and get me the tree, although I realize now that my old lady basket I use for shopping could have held a small tree, and next year, I'm just going to go to the grocery store, plop the tree into the basket, and wheel it home. Who the fuck needs help, anyway, damn it!

Now, if my daughter and my grandson were going to spend any time with me the two weeks prior to Christmas, I would have most certainly overridden my anger and got a tree and did what needed to be done. But the fact of the matter was that she and Zaire were spending the holidays with my daughter's father's family, so I wouldn't be seeing them until this week, so ... I just let Christmas go this year.

Hey, it comes around every year, so next year, I just won't ask anyone else for help, I'll just make what I need happen on my own.

At least I'll be having a cool New Year's eve, as I am not working this week, and I will have my grandson from Wednesday through Sunday. That is more important to me than being in the "holiday" spirit.

Plus, I have a really CLEAN house thanks to the fucking scabies outbreak that caused me to buy a new bed, new pillows, clean the entire house, dry clean and wash everything that could be dry cleaned and washed (laughs, but it is not a funny laugh). Plus, after repurposing some of the new furniture, I now have my wetbar that I've wanted for years, and some really neat shelves for my glassware. And I still get to give my grandson his presents (including those left by "Santa"). He's only 7, and I am pretty sure by next year, I won't get away with the Santa shit, although ... maybe.

Hope everyone else's holiday was fun, and let's all get spectacularly drunk this New Year's eve! Me, I do it New York time, at 9:00 p.m., watching live webcam feeds from Times Square.