The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas
Familiar title?
It is a sweet children's book as well as a Christmas cartoon circa 1973.
It is also how I spent my Christmas.
I worked until 1:00 am and had to leave. We must have a minimum of eight hours between shifts. I was down to my eight hours. I came home at to find Rand still awake (Rand actually got Christmas eve off!) and visiting with Rob in the kitchen. Yeah! Robby's home!
We went to bed shortly thereafter. A few hours later I am awakened to a cold a cruel world by the alarm.
The world of retail is not pretty on Christmas Eve. These are not festive holiday shoppers. These are desperate, frustrated, procrastinators who think they deserve the same as everyone else without working as hard. The current answer of the day is "we are sold out of that". This seems to set off a frenzy of sorts. I imagined they were hyenas who wait for the lions to feast. They want what they think is theirs, but you won't catch them working to take down a gazelle to get it. We literally had to chase the last few scavengers out of the store after close.
We have families and we want to go home!
After arriving home, we popped down to friends and neighbors, Tim, Angela, and Gabby; to start our Christmas cheer. Willie was already there. It was a very pleasant evening. Fun to share Santa stories with Gabby and see the excitement in her eyes! We went home opened our gifts, and were all in bed fairly early. Between Rob's finals and the rest of us working Christmas retail - we were pooped. We all slept in, got up to discover a few gifts we had missed.
After celebrating them, I went back to bed.
Rand woke me up about noon or so and said it was time to head to my folks' house. Brother Don, Mo, and family's arrival was expected soon.
I awoke from my hibernation long enough to get dressed, slept a good part of the drive and took a long nap after we got there. Eventually Don and clan arrived. We ate way too much good food and we had a great deal of fun. I got to impress Mary Teresa with my hair styling skills. Dave showed off his talent for making balloon animals, hats, and swords. Sam even did a bit of nice music making on Grandma's antique accordion.
Rand and I left the party first. We both had to get up for work in the morning. Exhaustion and sadness ruled me on the way home. Mary Teresa reminds me a lot of her cousin Sandra at that age. The little princess who changes outfits, wants her hair pretty even down to the ever present tiara.
This was the first Christmas our little family wasn't whole. And it should've been more special than ever.
We still haven't heard from Sandra and Ryan. We have no idea what state they are in or when to expect them home again. We know nothing about Lilly's first Christmas.
Back again, I went to face the after Christmas crowd. What a long and non-stop busy day! Does anyone keep the gifts they received? Do you realize just about everything you buy after Christmas has a past? It's probably been with someone else.
More people should give and get gift cards, but we do get our share of complaints about them as well!
"What if I don't like to shop in your store?"
Tell your friends and relatives, complaining to us won't fix that.
In years past, I have seen people react to receiving a Target gift card just as disgustedly as if they had been told they had been given the gift of head lice.
I have a few days off now. Hopefully, I can catch up on some rest. My cold/virus is still clinging on and wearing on me pretty good. Body aches, sore throat, nagging cough and congestion.
My house needs to be cleaned a bit.
First is hopefully to go visit my nephews and niece one more time before they head back to KC.
Rob headed for home last night. And I was surprised to see him back this evening. He had left quite a few things behind. Rob remembered his clean laundry, but not much else.

Night, night, Lilly, love you. And Merry Christmas sweetie. We miss you so much.