Leading Up To Christmas

My mother has recently renewed an acquaintance with an old boyfriend of hers from high school. This time, it's strictly platonic, but it's really sweet that she's been enjoying her time with him so much. I haven't seen her this happy since I graduated from college. They spent a good deal of time talking about their teenage years back in Orange, New Jersey, and looking through old yearbooks. :-)

Meanwhile, I've still been working at my department store job, and I'm thankful that I don't have to work again until Sunday. I know I haven't been spared the worst of the Christmas retail season; the day after Christmas is traditionally (in America, anyway) a day of many unhappy returns - usually for a different color or size - as well as after-Christmas sales allowing you to buy what your family didn't get you for Christmas because they couldn't take a hint. I suppose we could celebrate December 26 as Boxing Day, like the Brits do, and spend it relaxing and giving a gift to the local mailman, but both extra relaxation and kindness to government employees are distinctly un-American activities. Plus, it would compete with Kwanzaa, which, being a politically correct holiday invented out of the need for black activists to indulge in identity politics, is very American.