Pros and Cons

The benefits of being one gal in a two-gal business operation during the holidays are:

1.) No awkward holiday parties where the local high school performing group comes and puts on a show and sings Santa Baby to the highest ranking male administrator. Usually the superintendent. Ew. (Every year at the school district.)

2.) No awkward holiday luncheons at a restaurant you would never pick because the food tastes like 3 day old scrabbled eggs, with people who only seem to be able to talk about 1.) their husbands/ex-husbands/lack of husbands, 2.) their cats, 3.) their hatred of the incoming president. (Last year's party with the Doc.)

3.) No holiday luncheons involving the food being spread out on top of the table where dogs are prepped to be spayed or neutered. This site being chosen because the surgery room needs to remain sterile and the top of the freezer where the euthanized animals are kept before pick-up seems slightly inappropriate. (The one Christmas I worked for the vet.)

4.) No obligatory gift giving to every single person you work with, even those you would never socialize with outside of work so you end up giving them a cheap plastic ornament of Santa on a surf board or a CD sampler of synthesized Christmas music you picked up in the discount bin at the gas station for $1.99.

Drawbacks to being one gal in a two-gal business operation during the holidays are:

1.) No office treats brought in my co-workers or clients/patients.

2.) I can't think of anything else.

I came home last night and Katie was, once again, buried in baked goods. She's been baking since October. Okay, no, that's not true. But definitely since Saturday. She's made fancy flavored olive oils and caramels and brownies and cookies and chocolate covered popcorn and seven-layer bars. And she's been wrapping presents and making up goodie plates and for the last three mornings she's hauled off boxes and bags filled with food. And it has made me slightly nostalgic for those days when you could go into work and know that if you wanted some peppermint bark you could probably find some. At the school district we would freeze most of the treats people would bring us and snack on them clear until spring break.

So there are no Christmas goodies in the office. There's no one to bring them in. I suppose I could bring some in but Chiquita is freaked out about her cholesterol (classic Chiquita quote: "I've been eating like two wild dogs and my blood work came back looking like a funeral program.") so I would be the only one eating them and that's just pathetic.

But, on the flip side, I haven't purchased or made a single obligatory gift and there will be no awkward holiday parties as we will probably just go out for tacos or something and Chiquita has too much class to bring up her ex-husband, her cats or politics when we're trying to enjoy some good Mexican food. I'm considering it a Christmas Miracle.