Christmas Fever

My last post was about Halloween.  It seems I have quickly moved on and it isn’t even actual Halloween yet…

I have always been very stern about the rule “no celebrating Christmas until Thanksgiving night”.  I don’t care about the department stores putting things up in September or anything like that.  But to contain myself and my love of holidays and Christmas, I usually try to wait until Thanksgiving night, after everyone is stuffed to the brim and little wine drunk, to pop in Elf for the first of many viewings that year. 

But this year something strange is happening… I have the Christmas bug way early.  My mom and I have been texting each other ideas for Christmas gifts for weeks. I can’t wait to find out what sibling I will get in our Sib Secret Santa drawing. I have already started collecting pieces of a costume for our Christmas party.  I have two Christmas-related Pinterest boards.  I am not out of control yet…but I am definitely spiraling in that direction.  As I am typing this, I am singing Nat King Cole Christmas Song in my head.  Yesterday I was a little under the weather and stayed home from work.  All I wanted to do was watch Home Alone. 

So what is up with this holiday spirit the day before All Hallow’s Eve?  I’ve decided my sentimental scale is off the charts this year.  Frightening for anyone who knows me at my average my sentimental scale is already pretty high.  But this year is different.  We are decorating our first home and first real tree.  It’s the last Christmas before I’m a married woman.  One of my best friends is celebrating her first Christmas as a married woman.  Another best friend is celebrating either her first Christmas as a mother, or her last Christmas before she is a mother.  Babies and weddings and houses, oh my!

I need something to distract me.  Maybe I will try to celebrate obscure holidays between now and Thanksgiving to keep me under control.  November 2^nd is deviled egg day!  November 15^th is Clean your Fridge out day!  November 17^th is Homemade Bread day, and consequently Ryan was just talking about baking his own bread last night!  See, I can do this.  Hopefully I can report on my positive progress soon.  Maybe I need to hide the Christmas movies from myself.

Bah Humbug. 

This is Halloween

I hold a huge grudge against my father for making me watch Halloween with him on Halloween night when I was seven years old.  He followed that with waking me up by standing outside my bedroom window staring with his eyes wide open or following me around singing or humming the many creepy songs from the movie.  I am doomed to ever feel safe anywhere because of this.

But for some reason I still love Halloween movies.  Maybe it’s because I excessively celebrate any holiday, and a lot of that involves getting in the spirit.  It all goes together for me in October– when the leaves are falling, the weather cools down, harvest colors everywhere – and movies about masked murderers or evil supernatural spirits.

The problem is I still do not feel safe in my home.  We have only lived there since April, so this being my first Halloween season there could be part of the reason.  Or it could be because I’m so easily spooked.  Either way, ever since we’ve turned off the A/C and opened the windows, I find myself very jumpy when I sleep.  Every morning last week I laid awake in bed half an hour before my alarm went off (our feline friend is a non-electronic alarm clock that never quite gets the time right) swearing that I could hear noises coming from my kitchen.  The fridge knocks…or animals outside are stirring.  But every morning I convince myself over and over again that a burglar turned masked murderer is in the house, and my bed is the only safe place.  Like I am little kid…and can’t step off the bed because the floor is lava…only in this situation, the floor is a free-for-all to get stabbed to death by Michael Myers.  We have mirrors on a wall in the living room that I can see from the bed, so I sit and stare at them waiting to see something move.  A few times last week I stared for so long that I actually did start to see things move, but realized that I just hadn’t blinked in three minutes so I was getting a little delusional.  

I watched all three Scream movies this weekend.  I love Scream.  I could watch them all over and over again.  And then I watched Paranormal Activity 4...I did not see Paranormal Activity 4 so I was surprised they even made this many of them.  Last night while I attempted to sleep, thoughts of evil Katie snapping the neck of an unknowing teenage boy were in my head.  Neither Ryan nor I slept well last night, constantly jumping awake and hearing noises.  I am convinced Katie was in the house, for Night #1.  If you remember the movies you know there is a lot of slow buildup until she makes her final attacks.  Hopefully I still am updating this blog in a few weeks.  Only time will tell.

Compliments from Strangers

I don’t care how many delicious lunch spots there are in Indy, Panera will always have the key to my heart.  You just can’t do wrong by me with Panera.  The closest one to my office is a few short miles up the road, and is a perfect mutual meeting spot for me and a former employee/colleague/good friend of mine from her office.  We meet there once or twice a month for a dose of gossip, exchanging of work and life advice, and stuff our faces with a yummy soup and salad.

A few weeks ago when we were meeting there, I was climbing out of my car and was greeted by a stranger’s cat call “damn girl…you are GORGEOUS!!”  I might have otherwise been afraid and ran away, but I’d just read an article that women should really not take offense to cat calls, but to take the compliment and move on with your day feeling a little brighter.  “Thank you!” I said and walked into the café with my chin in the air.

Yesterday, my girlfriend and I met on an off-beat day of the week (going out for lunch on a Tuesday? Normally a Friday activity for me).  She’d texted me she was running a few minutes late, so I was standing near the door at the back of the line.  A disheveled young mother and her toddler walked past me, “NICE outfit!!” and kept on going.  I didn’t even have time to thank her.

I told my girlfriend we might have to up these visits to weekly.  It’s so great for my self-esteem (since I have such a problem with that…)

I am not sure if it’s creepy or awesome that strangers at Panera find me irresistible…but I don’t care!