The 40 Days of Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!

What's that you say?

Why no, I don't think it's a little early. Yes, I know it isn't even Thanksgiving yet. It's The 40 Days of Christmas today. See, back in the day, JoE and Phil, my fellow Christmas enthusiasts, created The 40 Days of Christmas to celebrate their love for Christmas and everything it stands for. Notice that it is The 40 Days OF Christmas and not the 40 days TO Christmas. It's not a countdown. Every day, from November 16th until December 25th, is Christmas. If you're as big of a Christmas spazz as me, it's actually 41 days, because I always tack Boxing Day onto the end of that period.

I'm so excited. I've had a hard time this year waiting for it to be Christmas. On Halloween night, I stopped by Target on my way home for who knows what reason and ended up spend over two hours in there walking through their already set up aisles of Christmas decorations. I also bought a new Christmas CD that day. Because, you know, clearly 30 Christmas CDs are not even close to enough.

Yesterday was the slowest day ever in the history of time. I thought the day before The 40 Days of Christmas was never going to end. I was biting my lip waiting for the elevator after work, when a woman who work for the building came out of her office laden with three giant shopping bags. One of them was emitting a shimmery magical sound and my face lit up like a Christmas tree (har, har). "I hear jingle bells!" I announced. That's how excited I was - I deliberately started a conversation with a total stranger. She grinned at me sheepishly. I think she was expecting to get made fun of for running around with Christmas items in the middle of November. So I set her at ease and explained to her about The 40 Days of Christmas, and my nine Christmas trees and nativity collection and Santa collection and 30 Christmas CDs. She told me that the building was putting it's decorations up the day after Thanksgiving and that there would be musicians in our lobby every Thursday serenading us with Christmas tunes. "Oh my God, Christmas songs every Thursday? Carolers? Will there be carolers? CAN I SING WITH THEM?" I was practically screaming this. By now we were in the middle of a busy street walking to the trains.

"I don't know if there are carolers. You know like when we had the string quartets serenading us for a while? Like that. But if there are carolers, just go ahead and start singing with them if you want."

"I will so be singing with them! I want to go caroling! Maybe we can carol in the building, like go to people's offices. That would be so cool. Will you carol with me?" By now the girl who thought she was way ahead of everyone on Christmas joy could not get away from me fast enough. No one out Christmases me. No one.

I'm not sure how well The 40 Days are going to go on the homefront this year. The bartender's birthday is Christmas Eve, so his birthday has always been overshadowed by Christmas. Because of this he's not so much a fan of my Christmas cheer. Hopefully I can distract him with cookies and he won't kill me.