Monday, December 31, 2007

Moment of Zen

In the bustling run-up to Christmas, I often look around me and wonder what it's like to be a non-Christmas-celebrating person surrounded by nonstop Christmas crap from Halloween until Boxing Day. Would it be a drag? Would I sit back in detached bemusement watching everyone scurrying like panic-stricken rats?

Today I have the barest glimmer of understanding. It's New Year's Eve, and while the rest of the world is cranking out Best of 2007 lists and chilling the champagne and making resolutions and party plans, well, I'm sitting here at work with maybe six other people, fighting a nasty cold that's been hanging on since Wednesday, and wondering what to have for dinner.

Never been a big New Year's kind of person; flipping the calendar over really hasn't felt like a big deal since I was maybe twelve. The lone exception to that was the turn of the millenium--hey, how many times does that happen in your lifetime--although the anticipation was deadened a bit by the fact that I was camping outside Patagonia and was thus unable to ascertain whether the post-midnight silence heralded the spontaneous annihiliation of civilization or was simply an effect of being way out in the boonies.

So while I'm glad for the paid day off tomorrow, no major revelries are planned. I'm old and cranky. I may glance at a few bowl games tomorrow, may go for a walk, or may just come in to work since nothing else is going on. Is it the equivalent of Christmas Eve dinner at a Chinese restaurant? Hmmm. Now that I think of it, that's sounding pretty good.

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