For Christmas Susan got to wake up and drink a French pressed cup of coffee without having to pay a premium price with a 20% tip. She also got to play with a bubbly three year old, laugh with Wild Bill, learn how to make cider sangria and cream cheese sausage balls (oh yeah!) and just enjoy a great, low key day messing around with her family while Elf played in the background.

Susan hopes all your Christmas dreams came true too!

During Susan's BLAHgy Christmas blackout she left her folks' Christmas card on the table for at least two weeks and when she finally opened it a little piece of paper with some numbers and a signature fell out.

A few days later Acme Sweatshop held their fancy holiday party which involved a lot of top shelf liquor. By the end of the evening Susan had lost her eyeglasses.
They were gone.
As if they never existed.

Susan likes to live on the edge and not keep a back up pair. So, twelve hours later she had an eye exam and a $474.95 pair of eyeglasses ordered.

Susan's ability to see things clearly again has been made possible by a Christmas card grant from her mommy and daddy.

Susan is RESIGNED

The holiday cat has been out of the bag for a few weeks already. Fake greenery and red bows were suspended from the ceiling of her local department store well before Thanksgiving, chopped down trees are for sale in formerly vacant lots and seasonal music has been heard coming out of car radios.
Susan already duked it out with the daughter over the tree, and lost.
Susan is resigned to Christmas.

Oh, and good riddance NaBloPoMo.

Susan's posting this picture even though she looks heavy and is wearing a forced smile.

Susan would like to invite her bloggy pals to read her tweenly adorable daughter's Xmas list :

Dear Mom,
I added more to my Christmas List, and added links to the things I want.
In order of how much I want them:
1. GHD IV Styler (link)
2. iTunes Giftcard $25
3. Pink with a Splash Fresh & Clean (link)
4. Prismacolor Double-ended Markers 24 pack (You can get it at Michaels and on Amazon)
5. BH Cosmetics 88 Color Matte Eyecolor Palette (link)
From,
The most amazing daughter ever,
Lily.
Yay.

Please be aware that the daughter referred to herself as amazing because of the way her mother feels about that wretched song from last week at the mall.

Last year Susan made it through Christmas while being unemployed. She had help from a girlfriend who hired Susan to do office work and then organize her house.
And they only fought once.
This year Susan is back to full time employment but the recession made sure that the husband sees no payday, which is bad because he's the breadwinner. So, they're out on the high wire until things pick up.

In the meantime, except for her children and her three nieces, any person she has ever bought presents for in the past has been slashed from the list. There'll be none for little sister, none for cousin Lisa, none for her friends,
none for the husband, none for her next door neighbors.
None for anybody.

Christmas morning Susan and her little sister's family always meet for breakfast. Forget about it this year, even the price of eggs at a diner is not in the budget.

Susan had previously told the kids that they'd be getting only one gift this year and they'd better choose judiciously.

The morning before Christmas, coinciding with the availability of Susan's paycheck, the husband went out to purchase each child's solitary gift. He was done by 9 am. Did Susan mention that they both wanted the same thing? It's handheld, electronic and not at all shabby, so don't feel bad for them. Feel bad for Susan because she's not getting sh*t except the bottle of wine that she purchased on the way home from work. That, and the knowledge that she pulled Christmas out of her ass for a second year in a row. Hooray for her!

Happy Christmas everybody.

Susan has fallen into a pit of lethargy.
After two weeks the husband peered over the edge and requested that she start behaving like everything's normal. Bake something he said.
They're both exhausted from having no cash for an extended period of time and neither has done any Christmas shopping. The husband strung colored lights in the windows a while back but that was it, no internal seasonal decorating has been done, including no tree. Susan likes having no tree, she didn't have one last year and Christmas still managed to trip up the front steps and fall into the house.

Susan has been letting the incoming Christmas cards pile up on the table, she doesn't care about them.
She's not mailing any out either.
Boxes of decorations have been stacked on top of each other since last weekend when the daughter asked that they be brought up from the basement.
The thought of decorations gives Susan a headache, oy.

Anyway, a week before Christmas Susan cracks open the boxes, pulls out some stuff and decorates the fireplace mantel. She hangs a bunch of sparkly things from the ceiling. She plugs in the little light up Santa that she bought at a yard sale in Maine. She likes the little Santa.
She can live with this much.

Christmas
I wouldn't mind if you missed us
and lobbed your trees and tinsel and elves
at someone else.

The cheer, oh dear
Feel free to disappear
don't forget the grab bag and the reindeer.

Cross me off your list
I insist,
No cards or gifts
Lest I get pissed.

I abhor
Carolers at my door
Douse them with the eggnog
Until they remain more.

O Christmas tree
O Christmas tree,
bite me.

Susan had the sort of weekend that only comes 52 times in a year. It began Friday after dinner when she and the daughter made sugar cookies. Susan's daughter is now old enough to do many things almost completely on her own while Susan drinks a glass of wine and reads the paper. Like any good team Susan filled in where the daughter was weak, in this case it was with making sure some of the cookies got burned.

Saturday morning Susan helped a chicken keep her job by purchasing some eggs from a girl who knocked on the door. Not long ago Susan had seen this girl's family out in the street chasing chickens, it never dawned on Susan as she watched the silliness of the scene that she might have chickens as neighbors.
In the afternoon, and under protest, the daughter accompanied Susan to the thrift store where her expression alternated between looking as if she were smelling something rancid and absolute misery before allowing her mother to puchase a purple hooded sweatshirt. The day ended with Acme Sweatshop's holiday party where Susan drank three glasses of champagne and managed to say not one stupid thing all night long.

Sunday morning Susan and the daughter took their mutt Lucy for a long walk around the neighborhood. It was a lovely pre-winter walk, just cold and gray and empty enough to be enjoyable. When they got home Susan washed the last of the dog shelter smell off Lucy then hugged and kissed her enough for two dogs,
the other being her recently deceased boxer.

After dinner Susan submitted to the daughter's badgering and dragged out the Christmas decorations. Oy, is it really time for Christmas again? Susan is never in the mood for Christmas. Never. She doesn't even understand why anyone even needs Christmas, aren't Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve enough? But, she will admit to loving Christmas music, the bigger and churchier the better. Choirs of angels? Yes, please.
Twelve more days till Christmas and Susan hasn't purchased a single present although she came close when she found a light up Infant of Prague in the thrift store, she reconsidered when she thought it might scare the recipient instead.
Christmas. Sweet baby Jesus, help Susan get through it!