EastGirlsWest

I’m in Cape Cod. I just did an extremely satisfying and much-needed shot of Enbrel. Before that I drank two glasses of cabernet. Before that I spent the entire day driving around Massachusetts to retrieve our lost luggage. And prior to that I spent a day getting from the Pacific to the Atlantic. And in the beginning? There was shopping. Lots and lots of Christmas shopping.

The first few shopping trips are actually fun. I’m filled holiday cheer and the giving spirit. I buy beautiful and thoughtful gifts. I treat myself to an eggnog latte at the mall, and smile at my fellow shoppers.

Then quickly, it all goes to hell. By the last week before Christmas I’m a bitter, broken woman. I’m filled with stress, hate the mall, hate everyone, have no time for lattes and actual nightmares about people not getting presents. I think this photo that Aaryn took of the two of us at Fascist Valley a few days ago says it all.

But somehow the shopping gets done. And briefly, relief. It’s fleeting though, because mere hours after buying my last present I have to start packing all of my purchases into a too-small suitcase for transport to the east coast. (Here’s Tay, lying on a luggage conveyor at Boston’s Logan Airport. The same conveyor that did not deliver any of our bags, all containing gifts.)

Yet despite the shopping, and traveling and the stress, there is still some real Christmas joy. Yesterday afternoon my sister and I walked through the middle of Boston, arms linked, past the Macy’s Christmas windows, eating warm, roasted peanuts. I was wearing a hat, scarf and gloves, smelling the winter air, and listening to Jingle Bells play over the loudspeaker for all the pedestrians in Downtown Crossing.

And just tonight, in Provincetown, with my family, we found a Christmas tree made of lobster traps. The tree topper was a bunch of buoys. Only in New England, people. Only in New England.

Finally, there’s this. The most honest, hearwarming and real holiday video I’ve seen so far on The Internet. It’s two EastGirlsEast, my dear friend Mary and the love of her life, who completely charmed me with this wish:

I would like to erase abstinence-only funding on the federal level, as a stocking stuffer.

Watch it. It’s the best of Christmas and it will make you smile.

And any minute now, I will have come full circle back to that eggnog latte.