Justin’s Mom and her partner brought over festive gifts this week, and I’m really enjoying them. We got a tin chock full of fresh-baked gourmet cookies, including a crispy, sugary oatmeal-raisin-cranberry confection that is JVL’s favorite, and this nutty-caramelly-chocolaty thing (by far the most fattening of the batch) that I delight in. The upside is obviously, delicious cookies, but the downside is the continual and remorseless breaking of my oath to eat fewer pastries this month. Egad. My pants, they begin to not fit. I jiggle. I will not worry about this until at least Monday, when I can lament slipping into poor physical condition at the ripe old age of 27 (someone remind me to change my LJ profile to reflect that, will you? I think I stayed 23 on my Diaryland site for about three years running).

The other gift given me by Justin’s mom is a very lovely 12″ porcelain santa wearing a red velvet gown with white furry trim and holding a garland of fake pine branches, rosettes and white lights. He’s not only illuminated, but yes, ANIMATED. If you will recall my absolute terror in the face of the herds of illuminated, animated outdoor reindeer decorations roaming my street, you’ll no doubt think that Animated Santa creeps me out a little. And I suppose he does, in a ‘Christmas with Chucky’ kind of way. But his limbs move in such a slow and methodical fashion that it kind of looks like Kris Kringle is trying to drop a few pounds by taking up tai chi or hatha or something. His hands are posed in front of him, with his arms forming a protective circle around his chest, and he rotates them out and back as though he’s engaging his moola bandha in a deep inhale. At the same time, his head tilts gently from side to side, massaging his anhata and ajna chakras and increasing the flow of his chi. It’s weird, but kind of soothing.

I set up Animated Santa on my desk at work as part of a very last-minute effort to enter the “Decorate Your Holiday Cubicle” contest. Everyone else in my branch started scheming and dreaming their little masterpieces up several weeks ago. My boss has a winter wonderland going on in her office. Recycled media clips lovingly refashioned into cut-out snowflakes dangle from the ceiling, her door and filing cabinets are wrapped in silver snowflake wrapping paper, and there are purple ornaments highlighting the computer console and desk. The admin person across from me constructed a convincing ‘Apres Ski Chalet’ using nothing but coloured tissue paper and a few props like a wooden sled and christmas tea set. The media production person brought in every stuffed animal on earth and put them all in santa hats. Yes, it is as scary as it sounds. All there was left to be done was a kaleidoscope of tasteless kitsch, so I obliged. Tacky is my theme: I have a confused plastic, paper and porcelain melange of reindeer, santas and snowmen. It looks garish and that’s just the way I like it. If you’re all very good little boys and girls, I will post a jpeg of the finished product tomorrow, when the contest is being judged, and you can see what a little elbow grease and some tinsel can do to an office space.

Since I’m on the topic of garish holiday spirit: I bought a hilarious gift for today. Wasn’t going to, since I think he and I have the understanding that we’re both too poor and too practical to shop for one another, but I couldn’t help myself – it was quite inexpensive and too too funny, so I had to. I can’t tell if he’ll really like it or if he will finally go through with throttling me, as he’s been wanting to do ever since I made him sit through watching “The Lady and the Highwayman”. Only time will tell.

I’m going to see the Toronto ballet production of “The Nutcracker” tomorrow with my girlfriends! Exciting!