Tis the Season...

That's right, boys and girls! It's that time of year again. The time when all the accountants and their rosy-cheeked accounting elves (that's me!) put in crazy overtime hours at a workshop (er, corporation) of the northerly persuasion to prove that they've been good little girls and boys this year. You guessed it. It's Audit Season! Fa-la-la-la-laaaaaa, la-la... what's that? There's another season that runs between November and February? Holidays, you say? Oh, yeah...

It's Christmas! Christmas, Christmas, Christmas!

Now, you sticklers out there might inform me that the Christmas season doesn't start until Thanksgiving is over and, while I agree that October is too early for the Santa Claus display in Macy's, I am of the opinion that the Season begins the weekend before Thanksgiving and lasts until the Monday after New Years (longer if you're too lazy to take down your tree). So it's official (in my book, at least) - Christmas is here!

I decked the halls of my apartment this weekend, did a bunch of my Christmas shopping (cuz mailing to Hawaii always takes a week longer than they say it will), and crammed my iPod full of holiday tunes. I'm set.

I love the holidays. Please allow me to repeat for emphasis. I love the holidays. Family and laughter and feasting. Wrapping presents and clocking my nephews on how many nanoseconds it takes them to unwrap them. I'm sure my niece will soon catch up to them in speed, but she's still at the phase where she spends most of the holiday playing with the boxes.

I'll be home for Christmas (sing it, Bing!) this year, but my folks are coming to my place for Thanksgiving. For the first time ever, I am hosting Thanksgiving for my family.

It should be noted that I do not cook. This is not to say that I cannot cook and I have even made a Thanksgiving dinner or two in my time - most notably the Glenview Feast of '03, which featured numerous phone calls home for guidance and moral support, and such memorable quotes as "I put my hand where in the turkey?" and "How many Northwestern grads does it take to stuff a turkey?" The answer: Three. One to hold the slippery little bugger, one to shove the stuffing into its various cavities, and one to shout instructions across the room with a cellphone pressed to her ear because she is so grossed out by the stuffing of food into orifices where food should not live - such as the chest cavity - that she cannot stand closer without dancing around in circles squeeling "Ew, ew, ew!" Which one was I? The one on the phone, of course. Yeah, I have a low gross out threshold. This year, I bought a frozen turkey because the fresh ones - particularly the ones named "Jenny-O" - were too squishy and lifelike. In my world, frozen turkeys are more dead than fresh ones and therefore more edible.

So I have a frozen, unnamed turkey thawing in my fridge, a little tree with flashy lights and sparkly ornaments in my living room, and Jingle Bell Rock bopping through my apartment. Life is good.