Checking out at B&N shouldn’t have taken long last night, but did, thanks to their brilliant strategy of having only two (2) clerks on*, which gave me lots of time to peruse their strategically placed selections of Christmas cards & assorted seasonal crap.

Despite the fact that at the time I thought my brain would explode like a goose force fed on ChristmasCheer ^tm,the delay turned out to be a good thing. It gave me time to get through all five stages of Christmas Card Grief:

1. Denial - There is no way Christmas is in a month! I refuse to believe it- we just had Christmas! This is totally a scam! Nonononono. No. Absolutely not.
2. Anger - Alright, dammit. It’s coming, fine. I’ll have to get the crap out of the attic, and- aaargh!! the cards, the aggravation, the shopping. F*ck!
3. Bargaining- Alright, well, if I can find some funny, non-syrupy cards it might not be so bad. Maybe if I just did a few, the really important ones, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. Well, until I run into somebody who didn’t make the cut…
4. Depression- Oh, who am I kidding? I’ve never once gotten them done on time! How many boxes of cards that I intended to complete with personal and meaningful sentiment were never even opened? And even if, by some unlikely miracle, I did get it done, they’re still mass-produced damn cards. How many looks of smug superiority will I have to endure from parents who had professional photos taken months ago to show off their perfect little angels?
5. Acceptance (with a big spiked cup o’ eggnog)- Well, wtf. Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, right?. Why bother with the farce?

So I now proudly admit to all the world: I am a bad little Christmas Elf, and have decided that I am just fine with it.

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*one of whom was tied up for 20 minutes with the world’s oldest human being doing a detailed cost/benefit analysis of joining their discount program, and other of which was arguing with a customer attempting to return a book that was bought in FEBRUARY. And it’s not even Black Friday yet. Bah – freaking -humbug.