Tiffany's Not Included

My first holiday season in retail is proving to be manageable and actually rather boring. Today was the first day of holiday hours, Sunday are usually noon to 6pm but we were open from 10 to 10, and basically will be till Christmas Eve. I knew I'd be out late last night (at the DP's holiday party, one of my favorite annual events) so I asked to come in as late as possible today. I got exactly what I asked for (it's true what they say about being careful) and had the honor of closing at 10pm tonight. Thank goodness I didn't have to be there till 2, that was just about the time that I managed to come back to life from last night's festivities. Business was decent but it wasn't all that busy. Between 8 and 9 we made $83.07, and between 9 and 10 we made $83.79. And when I say between 9 and 10, I really mean between 9 and 9:24 because there was no one in the store after that. My two lovely coworkers got the store cleaned and straightened and I let them go home early. I got the drawers counted and most of the closing tasks done and ready for that clock to hit 10. I think I clocked out at 10:05. I have the pleasure of closing at 10pm the next two nights as well. I hope it's a little more exciting than tonight. CF actually went to work today too, and being the nice guy that he is, he drove me to work so I didn't have to deal with holiday mall parking. How's that for service? We came home, ate some ice cream (some of the delicious Bi-Rite Creamery loot I brought home after my haircut in San Francisco on Thursday), watched the Something Wicked This Way Comes episode of Ugly Betty (yes, I am still very much behind on all the television that aired while we were traveling, and also yes, I did love the Wicked footage), and now we're hitting the hay.

Ms. D is coming over in the morning and we're going to walk up my neighborhood hill. I actually am crazy enough that I pondered getting up for 5:30am spin with my favorite teacher since I haven't seen him since before the trip, but I am closing so I really would have had to come home and go back to sleep in order to make it through the day. So instead I will hike our crazy diagonal streets and D has agreed to come with me. What fun to have her around so much lately! Last Wednesday she came over and kept me company while I made Baby's First Christmas cards for my sister, then we went to a matinee showing of Enchanted (I loved the good, cheesy fun, but she found McDreamy to be its only redeeming quality), had a very successful mall run, then we came home and watched 3 DVD's while I finished the cards and CF cooked us dinner. Not a bad life! The three of us had a good time getting dressed up for the party last night. We were as chic and as French as we could manage. We'll all be together again this weekend for another holiday get together. We keep making jokes that we'll be sick of each other soon. But I really just don't see that happening.

I've been back to the gym a whopping two times since returning. Both times have left me quite sore. I returned from Europe around the same weight I was at the beginning of the trip, but apparently somewhat leaner/smaller (the dress I wore to CF's company holiday party used to be snug and now is lose enough that I had to be careful to keep things "in place" during the evening), and getting the muscles lifting what they did a month and a half ago is proving to be a challenge. The day I went back to the gym I brought a Swiss dark chocolate bar and a Belgian bar filled with a cognac creme to my dear friends the trainers. O, a 7 foot tall, buff as can be, black man squealed like a little girl when he saw the sweets. L, my favorite grumpy Italian, played it cool but later called my cellphone and informed me that she didn't care how I did it, if I had more at the house or if I had to go back to Europe, but that I had to bring her more cognac filled chocolate. Uh oh. I guess I have to go back to Belgium! It's nice to have friends at the gym, they keep it fun.

This week I've got to get back on track with going to the gym, getting the house cleaned up and Christmas-ified, and actually buying some Christmas presents and not just the wrapping paper. Today wasn't such a good jump start on that plan, since the whole day was eaten up by hangover and working, but I did my best. What can I say? I tried to do better than I did last year, and I did manage that. There's always next year to try for even better!