Sure I Can Procrastinate, It’s Christmas

In addition to my cornucopia of typical procrastinating techniques, the holiday season adds a veritable arsenal of intriguing options for goofing off and Not Writing my last two academic papers. (Aside: How much time is there between Thursday night and Tuesday night? Lots, right?)

Anyway, I’m enjoying one of my very favorite end of year rituals, the thorough scouring of best of the year album lists, which means spending hours zipping through sonic samples on amazon, picking just the right new additions to my MP3 library to make me feel aurally spanking fresh in the new year.

Earlier tonight, I decorated our Charlie Brown-sized Christmas tree. Decorating Christmas trees makes me all perky and makes me sing Christmas songs to myself. Where does the joy come from?

I like giving presents, but I have a rocky prior relationship with Christmas. The Holiday Trees, however, escape my seasonal wrath. I just love that I get to take a very big plant form that has no business spending time in my living room, and I force it to spend at least two weeks with me indoors, and I make it up like a Barbie doll or an aging rock star–it’s swathed in light reflecting glittery things.

Or maybe it’s about the miniatures–I love artfully arranging the shiny miniature ornaments I buy at the German store in the Christmas Village on the tree.

Maybe my moments of seasonal magic are tied to my memories of getting up in the middle of the night in high school and going down to the couch in the living room where I would doze off to the blinking Christmas lights, so faery magic pretty.

I also enjoy the less classic holiday songs including, Elvis’s Blue Christmas and All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth, and Zat You, Santa Claus?

Other easy seasonal distractions:
1. Watching holiday comedies
2. Going to holiday parties
3. Deciding I haven’t been reading enough fiction lately and researching those “best of” lists (can you tell I’m a sucker for a best of?)
4. Shopping for gifts I have not budgeted for, but excusing the indulgence for the sake of those I love
5. Writing Christmas cards to people far and wide
6. Listening to and singing holiday songs
7. Planning my birthday outings
8. Planning my spring vacations
9. Writing holiday letters to myself on futureme.org
10. Finding new humor websites like theoatmeal.com
11. Holiday themed status updates on facebook
12. Going to visit relatives not exactly for the holidays, but within earshot of the holidays
13. Seriously pondering committing to a December cleaning spree, so I can face the New Year with pride and less clutter

Merry, merry, everyone.