Christmas 2008

Christmas was good.

I had to go into Concord to work on Christmas Eve, which was not so good -- the usual 9:30-6:30, and when I arrived there were so few calls and so many agents sitting idle that they began sending people home on the fabled Green Time, which I have never ever not even ONCE taken advantage of in my entire 9+ years with this company, even successfully begging to be allowed to stay at my post on the phone once during a blizzard because I needed the money so badly. Now I actually have a day or two I could use for Green Time and since I'm no longer paying rent and utilities and feeding teenagers, I'd happily even take it No Pay. But do I get offered Green Time on Christmas Eve when I'm an hour from home and it's pouring down rain and we've got 43 agents sitting idle?

I do not.

So I was crabby about that and I sat there knitting

and reading

and went out at lunch time and got a meatball sandwich from Subway

and a six-shot latte from Starbucks

and then at not one moment past 6:30 I rushed to my car and plowed home through the rain -- through the Caldecott Tunnel, sliding down the winding freeway through the Berkeley Hills, across the Bay Bridge,

and back into San Francisco, into the driveway at around 8 pm.

We had decided to go to midnight mass at Grace Episcopal Cathedral this year, the same place we went last year to hear the choir sing carols. Incredibly wonderful building, like an old gothic cathedral in Europe. Packed. We got seats off to one side, near the back, and we were early. The Dean of this particular cathedral, one Alan Jones who is said to be Very Reverend, was at one time the son-in-law of Madeleine L'Engle, which I find interesting, but not as interesting as his British accent and his friendly and clever delivery. In keeping with my tradition of discovering things I really like (10,000 Maniacs, Fleetwood Mac, Ally McBeal) just *after* they disband, break up, or are cancelled, I have just found a well-known man o'the cloth I enjoy listening to, one month before his retirement. Anyhow, that night he focused on Irving Berlin's "White Christmas," a song written by a Nice Jewish Boy who had never really had a Christmas at all, and on how his song comforted and brought people together at the beginning of WWII. As he spoke, a soloist in the back of this HUGE stone building began to sing the song, and damned if it didn't begin to snow up front over first few rows of pews, the choir and the Very Reverend himself. I have no idea what they used or how they made it fall apparently out of nowhere, but there it was floating down through white light, and that was sufficient Christmas Magic for me. And of course I cried, thinking of all the snowy Christmases back in New Jersey and the snowy Christmases in Colorado and especially that very last one, 2006, when the blizzard even shut down the USPS for several days, and David was on the last plane allowed to land late that last night before the weather closed in completely.

It was actually cold when we got out around 1 am, cold and with wind and rain. We hustled home and googled Madeleine L'Engle and brushed up on her life and her work and fell deliciously asleep. Didn't get to the presents til after noon on Christmas. I used to (literally) have nightmares about oversleeping on Christmas and not waking up til after sunrise and everything just being ruined, all of it, the whole day, by not getting to the tree while it was still dark to open presents by tree-light, but it turns out that 'ruined' isn't true. I guess the Santa stuff does look a lot more impressive that way, but for us now brunch works as well as breakfast and the presents have not melted in the sunlight, after all.

David's main gift to me was all three levels of Rosetta Stone French and mine to him was a Teaching Company dvd course on Linguistics. Jonah laughed and said wow, we're both such geeks, which we know and accept happily. It's nice to be comfortable with who you've become -- I wouldn't be a teenager again for anything. Oh, the angst!

We made an easy little turkey dinner and spent the day enjoying the food and music and books, did some talking on the phone. Was annoyed to have to work again on Friday when sensible people wee having a long weekend, but what are ya gonna do? Mostly, can't complain at all, especially as I sit here tonight with a heating pad on my back. Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!

Looking forward to the New Year.