Christmas Vacation

Started out a sunny, cold, blustery day with the very last thing I need to make for Christmas. For the last few years, I've made my dad's girlfriend Jodie and her sons Jesse and TJ a pumpkin pudding pie for Christmas, since they like the ones I make at other times of the year so much. That concludes my Christmas baking, wrapping, and shopping.

After I finished with the pie, I ran some errands around the neighborhood. I'm going to be meeting Rose, Craig, and Khai at Uncle Ken's house around 10 tomorrow, so I made all my neighborhood present deliveries today. I dropped Miss Ellie's cupcakes at her side of the house. I left my neighbors' bread on their front door. I brought the Dorias' cupcakes to their deli.

Went for a walk around the neighborhood after I left the Dorias'. I got to check out all of my neighbors' decorations in the daytime. As lovely as the lights are, there are other things to see, too. Some people had huge inflatable Santas or reindeer. Others had doors that were guarded by vintage light-up hard plastic nutcrackers and snowmen. Houses with elaborate front doors had big evergreen wreaths on windows. Snowflakes and large, glittering plastic ornaments hung from trees and porches. Windows that didn't flaunt wreaths had lovely candles or figurines. My walk felt very, very festive.

I stopped by the Oaklyn Library, hoping to do some volunteering. Alas, while they are open again, they're apparently only open for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week and next week before starting a full week's schedule again on January 3rd. That's ok. I'll just go back early next week.

Spent the remaining hour at home having lunch and watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and the Remember WENN episode Christmas In the Airwaves. I figured Christmas Vacation was appropriate, considering that many adults and children will be going on their own holiday vacations starting today. I hadn't gotten around to Airwaves yet and had missed watching it with the other WENN chat members on Sunday; enjoyed it, as always.

It wasn't really busy in the neighborhood this morning. Must have been because everyone was already trying to get home. There was traffic on the Black Horse Pike around quarter after 12 when I was heading to work. I'm assuming everyone got off early and wanted to rush home or to their relatives' homes as quickly as they could.

Work was busy when I got in, too. It was really crazy between 1 and 4, confirming my suspicion that many people got off early and went shopping as soon as they left work. After about 4:30-5, it slowed down to on-and-off steady. It was still on-and-off when my relief arrived and I finally headed out.

I made a quick stop at Arby's for dinner (after buying pumpkin at work to restock what I used on bread and mousse pies this week). Despite my getting off at 6:30, Arby's was completely dead when I came in. I guess everyone is eating on the road or at home. I had a Philly Steak sandwich that got burned a bit on top and some Curly Fries.

Went straight home after that. It wasn't nearly as easy as getting to work. The wind was whipping something fierce, chilling me to the bone! I was so glad when I finally got inside and jumped in the shower.