Layover of the Seasons

Right now is the layover of the seasons— between Christmas and New Year’s. Nourished with clementines and chocolate candy, we’re waiting on the fresh, clean start of a new year— actually a new decade this time. Like a layover at some distant airport, it’s all a bit strange.

Christmas was on Wednesday this year, which especially throws everything off. The festivities began for me this past Sunday with a Christmas breakfast and a special service at church. On Sunday they’ll crescendo with all my brothers and sisters and their families coming for a day of fun, food, and family togetherness.

All this is common enough, but some parts of my week haven’t been so normal.

On Monday night, I got to help with the Midnight Gladness Sale at Good’s Store. I work full-time at Good’s, but my work station is usually a quiet office in the marketing department, just me and the computer, and I like it that way. Still, when they asked for help serving cookies from 10–12 at the Midnight Sale, I jumped for a chance to actually to see customers in real life.

When I arrived to start my shift at the refreshment table, Marilyn gave me instructions. “Just make sure each table has snickledoodles, chocolate chip, and peanut butter cookies available. And there’s chocolate milk and orange drink.”

The Midnight Gladness Sale (sometimes called the Midnight Madness Sale) is the biggest shopping event of the year at Good’s Store, and customers normally wait an hour or longer in line to use their 50% off coupons. So it’s only fair we offer them free refreshments.

Smiling at customers and saying, “Would you like some free cookies? Please help yourself!”, and “You’re welcome and Merry Christmas!” is easy work compared to marketing. After watching people help themselves to as many as six cookies, I decided that my job would be much easier if we could just give everything away for free.

After the crowds thinned, I spent my 50% off coupon on the latest Snader family adventure book, Yes, It Snows in Hawaii. The Snader books are humorous true stories written by a Lancastrian who now lives in Alaska and does a lot of traveling. Some folks around here scoff at the books (famous people aren’t always respected in their hometowns) but purchasing this book on Monday night was a fortunate decision, as you shall later learn.

On Tuesday, Christmas Eve, I worked until two p.m. Despite feeling sluggish from the Midnight Sale, I finally completed a project that’s been nagging me for a while— how to make different sections of our ads clickable. Probably 10% of the solution came from my improved coding skills, the other 90% from my improved googling skills.

In the evening, Christmas Eve, I went Christmas caroling with my brothers’ church. They go to a small country church in the Southern End of Lancaster County, and I know about half the members.

Christmas caroling in the Southern End of Lancaster County is very different than Christmas caroling in Washington, D.C. like I did earlier this month.

We drove all over the River Hills near the Susquehanna River on twisty, winding roads to carol for different people connected to the church, which seems to do a great job of reaching out to their neighbors. Everyone seemed delighted to see us coming. One woman said to us, “You’ve made my holiday!”

The last place we were scheduled to sing at was a large double house. We were singing merrily on the front porch for one side of the house when a man came to the other front door and said something to one of the church ladies, who immediately gestured for us to sing more quietly. The song leader hastily announced we would finish up with “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”

After we finished, the woman who had gestured for us to quiet down, explained what had happened. “That man told us they have a newborn they’re trying to get to sleep!” Oh, no, while singing about the birth of a baby, we managed to disturb another baby!

Following the caroling, we met at the pastor’s house for wassail and snack. Some of the elderly members of the church were waiting there and we sang for them, too.

On Christmas Day, I didn’t have much planned, which was good because I woke up with a bad headache and an upset stomach. When Mom saw me clutching my head, she said, “Maybe you have what Brenda had.” She called my sister to compare symptoms. Yup, probably the flu. “It doesn’t last long.” Mom reported.

I spent part of Christmas morning miserably wandering about the house. At last I realized it might be kinder to my parents to stay upstairs so they won’t have to listen to me moaning.

I napped off and on. Once the headache eased, I dug out my new copy of Yes, It Snows in Hawaii . The combination of light reading and lots of photos was actually a great distraction. I really want to go to Hawaii sometime.

Thursday I felt fine and it was back to work. I got my fancy clickable email ready for next week. Kathryn, who works in the next office, was having a cleaning attack. She loaded the recycle bin with old catalogs and handed out the free samples she gets from vendors. I got a Hershey chocolate candle in a tin and some Bee Manly beeswax beard balm, which I’ll give to my nephew Sean, who is growing a hipster beard. (The Bee Manly balm is in a little can that you dip your fingers in and it was supposed to be a tester in the store, but Kathryn thought that was just too gross, and I agree.)

Next week, I plan to welcome the New Year with my friends (the same people I go hiking with.) We’ve been receiving instructions like, “Bring a white elephant gift” and “Bring what you want to shoot the New Year in with a bang!”

I don’t think I’ll be contributing to the bang part of the party. My bang-making skills are limited to making Amish bombs and I once saw an Amish bomb nearly go off in someone’s hand at a New Year’s Eve party. I don’t want to start off the new decade in the emergency room (or jail).

But my white elephant gift-making skills are just fine, so I’m filling up a bag with treasures. It will come in handy when we clean the house on Saturday, before the family comes.

Happy New Year! May your decade start off well!