Semper Eadem

Christmas-time is here, by golly;
Disapproval would be folly;
Deck the halls with hunks of holly;
Fill the cup and don't say when!

Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens;
Mix the punch; drag out the Dickens;
Even though the prospect sickens,
Brother, here we go again.

Thank you, Tom Lehrer, for expressing the mid-30s attitude to Christmas for the childless. I'm not really as dark as I sound, actually. It's sunny and warm and I seem to be recovering nicely from the illness with three days still to go 'til the trip to MLA and the seven (seven!) interviews thereat. (Apparently I'm excruciatingly lucky to have received this many. Either that or I'm exquisitely brilliant. I'm inclined to think 'lucky,' aren't you? No? Really? Aw, go on! You're too kind. Anyway--)

The problem with the interviews is that, of course, I cannot focus on the 'here and now' of Hearth and Home, which is a pity, since my family does Hearth and Home rather well; our experience of the holidays is not exactly that of the Cratchits (a. we're well-off, and b. it's a bit treacly, that scene, isn't it--I mean, the only point at which we all perk up is when Mrs. Cratchit starts going off on Scrooge--you go, girl!), but we're pretty much into the tree and the fire and the stockings that would be hung by the chimney with care if we had one that could support such adornment but we really don't. And it's nice, and everyone's genuinely happy to see each other, and we don't have to wait on tenterhooks for that point in the evening when that one family member has just enough to drink to bring up the skeletons in the closet and the ugliness that has festered between him and his cousin for forty-odd years and then the first punch is thrown and why can't you take it outside someone wails and oh man you know someone's gonna get thrown into that tree and knock it over and break Great-gramma Evelyn's antique angel ornament that she managed to smuggle out of Prague right before the invasion and is the only memory she has of her parents and what now is there for her to live for and down she goes with that second stroke and then you've gotta wait for the ambulance to arrive and well great we might as well get s***faced because here's another f***ing Christmas gone to s***, thank you all so much, you've made your mother cry again, and what's that, fourteen years in a row, way to go a**holes.

We don't do that. So, you know, it would be something I'd like to enjoy more than I am, but performance anxiety about these damned interviews is ruining all, thank you so much, MLA, you've made me cry again, and what's that, two years in a row, way to go a**holes.

Hope y'all are merry and bright and whatnot. Merry Whatever...