Almost Christmas

So I realized today that there are a couple of things that thwart Christmas for me. I'll explain:

1 -OFFICE GIFTGIVING:
Today one of the guys I work with decided to give everyone little mini basketballs... Yeah I realized right off that this probably wasn't the best idea since I work with all guys. By the nine bazillionth time that I was on an important call and caught yet another one of these balls in my eyeball I was over the holiday season. Funny thing is that all I could hear everytime it happened was my highschool basketball coach's voice in my head, "dammit crane...keep your eye on the ball."

2 - SECURITY GATES:
I don't know why I thought it would be easy to just load my car up with the already wrapped, already purchased gifts for my friends and just drop them off at their houses. Its not. Somehow security gates have popped up everywhere that I needed to go tonight. And ODDLY no one was home - which leads me to...

3 - HOLIDAY PARTIES:
Everyone seems to have a million holiday parties to attend. I have to be honest in saying that I have never realized how many friends I don't have when I thought I had quite a few. I can't really be annoyed by these parties, because I don't seem to go to any. Later I hear about them and how they were annoying or long or whatever BLAH BLAH BLAH. But it basically leaves me trying to figure out why I thought I was friends with people that I'm obviously not. The worst part is that now my car is full of gifts for all of these people that aren't my friends and as I said, they're already purchased and already wrapped.

4 - HOLIDAY CARDS:
I love seeing all of these pictures of happy people and hearing about their happy, perfect lives.. no really, I do. My favorite card came from my Aunt and I need to remember to give her a big hug. It simply said, "Gordon continues to have back problems and I had meniscus/knee surgery..." I love the honesty in that card that points out that life is not perfect.

5 - FAMILIES:
I have realized that this holiday in particular is not for the single people. It is not in fact fun to buy a tree to set up in your house where you rarely go (except to sleep) because there won't be any presents under it - they're all in the car! It is less fun to realize that you no longer believe in Santa and yet you have to be careful about what you say because someone does and inevitably I'll be the horrible aunt who accidentally spills the beans talking about a guy I know who "dressed up as santa..." and probably scar some poor child or at the very least illicit glares from any other conscientious adult around.

All in all I am just trying to see this as some nice time off work. I think that if I plan on much more I will be very disappointed.