Sunday, December 16, 2007

Season's Greetings

I love the holiday season, I really do. I love the lights and songs and yes, even the schmaltzy sentimentality. The only thing I don't like about it is agonizing over what to give as gifts. This year I think I set a personal best by managing to start and finish the entirety of my holiday shopping in one day - December 9th, to be exact.

Most of the shopping was done that night on Amazon, but the trip actually started the night before. I'd gone into Manhattan with my dad to go to Central Park, and the annual gathering that goes with the anniversary of the death of John Lennon. This was my fourth time going since 2000, and it might be the hundreds of people and even more candles, but I've never felt really cold there, despite the December weather.






I stayed over at my dad and stepmom's apartment that night, and in the morning went to Union Square, which has holiday gift vendors set up. On my way there, I passed hundreds of people marching down 3rd avenue yelling to free Tibet, and on 14th street I passed a gift store, which is where I ended up buying most of my gifts.

Anyway, I still spent almost two hours wandering through the vendors' booths, and here was my favorite item from my favorite booth.




Here's what it says, in case you can't read it: "Lookin' good for Jesus. Virtuous vanilla spf 18 lip balm. Be worthy, be noticed. Get tight with Christ!"

In case you're worried about the nature of the booth's merchandise, what I ended up buying there were a box of bandages that looked like strips of bacon.

This last photo is actually not from Union Square, but my local CVS.



Yes, that is a Christmas ornament. Look at the shape of it again if you didn't catch it the first time. That would be a magen David. I should have bought it. It's the perfect ornament for me, someone who celebrates both Chanukah and Christmas.

This coming week is the most stressful of the year, what with four performances and two night rehearsals. Coordinating all the kids this week is something that I like to refer to as the giant Tetris game, and that's just the start of everything that needs to be pulled off. But then I get to relax, get presents, and gorge myself on food. It's a nice trade-off.

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