Then There's This Holiday Party...

Your office one. Nothing says Xmas like a pot-luck lunch in the conference room. This year someone brought traditional Xmas empanadas instead of the usual ham. So, that was interesting. Carved myself a lovely slice of empanada. I usually go with the veggie platter which no one eats. This year I went with pie. Which everyone would have eaten if the person that brought the special individually wrapped cookies hadn't tried to one-up me. Christmas is not a competition, people!

So once we've all eaten our meal in relative silence - as a group we get together once a year so you would think there would be more to talk about...

Then let the games begin! Or more accurately, let's do the White Elephant gift exchange. The best part about this? The fighting over the rules. I keep hoping that one year it will end in either a brawl or tears but usually just a lot of raised voices. One can live in hope though...

Our limit is $20 which some people seem to think means $5. Last year someone received a $5 Starbucks gift card. Embarrassingly, they continued to search around in the festive gift bag but to no avail. Sometimes you get a good gift, like the person that received my cheeseboard set complete with slate blackboard plate and chalk so you can write the names of the cheese on it. I tried really hard to get that back but there's a rule that says if someone "steals" it instead of keeping the gift they chose, it can only be stolen twice before it's dead in the water. 

I think it would be a lot more fun if we all opened the gifts we picked, put them in the center of the room and hit an air horn with a free-for-all. I would bite and scratch and I bet I'd come out of it with a lovely cheeseboard set. The problem with this game is that we're a bunch of people who negotiate for a living so you're lucky if you come out of it with anything.

This year I actually did ok, got myself a lovely soft blanket*. Although I started out with chocolate. Which would have been nice to eat under my lovely soft blanket with the candle that the person next to me got, burning in the background. Could not close the deal with them though.

All in all, an awkward end to the year.

*Thank you Harvard School of Negotiation. Yet again, you have paid for yourself.

Getting A Xmas Tree - The Finale

Sounds quite fancy doesn't it? You would think I'd gotten the tree to beat all trees. Like this one:

This is at the mall by my house - The Grove.  It's the largest Xmas tree in North America at 100 ft - so clearly my 10 ft calculations in my previous post, were spot on. I might have made that up but I can say that I verified the fact by looking at it and it was f&%$ing tall.  I should submit that entry to Wikipedia.

Anyway, I decide not to get this one and go for something that will fit in my house and not overwhelm my ornaments. Ta da!

Now, I don’t know exactly what size this is but I can say that my tiny foot stool dwarfs it. In a tree versus foot stool fight, my money's on the foot stool. This tree was hard won. By the time I got it home, I was all f*%$ Xmas, this is bullshit, man. But the wine calmed me down.

The first place I went to wanted to charge me $28 for something half this size plus a $12 holder. I think not. Possibly they weren't aware of my Harvard Law School of Negotiation diploma. However, they may have had one of their own because when I said no and walked away, they let me. Hard to come back from so I really did have to leave instead of just loitering at the corner.

Next place was Whole Foods and they don't do small trees, however they were prepared to chop the top off a big one and give it to me. Only catch was, I had to buy the big one first. I saw straight through their plan. Thank you Harvard Law School of Negotiation.

On to the next where they were selling X size of tree* for X number of dollars. The one I picked was $45 dollars. There were some canny people measuring the trees and trying to talk the guy into selling them one that was clearly between two sizes for the lesser amount and he wasn't budging. Think he went to Harvard Law School of Negotiation.

Finally, I ended up at Home Depot. Along with all of Los Angeles. So that was fun. There was a massive line to get your tree trimmed, evened up and put in some kind of safety Spiderman net for the drive home. Newsflash people, the tree was cut from the ground, it's already dead. It won’t notice the wind running through its branches on the drive home while strapped to the roof of your car. It won't even feel a thing if it slides off on the freeway.

I was given a tree from the $20 area - where no one else was looking, this is America, after all, bigger is better - about the size of a small child which is how I'm now measuring everything. Decided it didn't need any trimming or protective gear so went straight to the front of the payment line. See, used my Harvard School of Law negotiation skills yet again - not only did I pay what they wanted, I took whatever tree they gave me. This course has paid for itself a thousand times over already.

But just when I thought it was all over and I could look forward to the decorating, they informed me that the person in front of me - apparently the only other person there who wanted a "petite" tree had taken the last stand. Not to worry, I thought, Rite-Aid is on the way home, I'll get one from there. No, I won't, they just sold out. No big deal, I'll pop into Target. For the record, no one just pops into Target - you come out with stuff you didn't know you needed and no money. And no Xmas tree stand. Luckily I have Kiwi ingenuity – stuck it in a casserole dish in a tall sided basket. Very classy. A bit wobbly and leany but that could also be the wine.

And after all that effort, turns out this is not the finale and you'll have to come back tomorrow for the finished product. And the nostalgic ornament memories. So, that sounds fun, doesn't it?**

*Wasted on me since feet are just what I keep in my shoes.
**Who else thinks I write great stuff when drunk? I just read this over and it's brilliant. Not even going to proof read it or reread in the morning. This is gold. Driving when drunk is bad, texting is bad but typing is the bomb!