Another one for the books

What a fine fine day to quit smoking.
The most emotionally taxing, physically exhausting and mentally draining holiday of the entire year. Sometimes I amaze myself with the brilliant ideas I come up with.
And it saddens me that what otherwise was a very nice day I was spent preoccupied with thinking about smoking. That is addiction. That is sickness. That is pathetic.
I sure hope it gets easier, because today didn't bode well for my confidence.
I'm not sure I've ever chewed as much gum or eaten as much candy as I have today. I hardly ate any Christmas dinner, a sizeable southern sprawl of all my favorite foods - I've heard Wellbutrin is also an appetite suppressant. Which, great. But I don't even care about that right now.

Oh, and I finally got to reach my goal of watching It's a Wonderful Life last night. It may be a wonderful life, but it was a fucking awful movie. I hated it and gave up after the first hour and a half when he FINALLY met his guardian angel. At least I know now what I WASN'T missing. Sheesh.

One good thing. The apple pie I made for George came out perfect. It looked like some shit you'd see in a Martha or an Oprah magazine. I even managed the lattice top - I've never done anything like that before in my life and everyone said I should make apple pie from now on, that it was among the best they've ever had. I personally don't eat that stuff, but it sure smelled and looked right. Take that, homemade pie crust cousin. I was really glad he liked it though.

My gifts from my inlaws amused me like they do every year. See the thing is, they mostly give us money every year - a not insubstantial amount. And it usually comes in handy to fix things that seem to crop up this time of year, like a new tire for the truck since it's started going flat every day or some big bill I need to pay or whatever. The money is great and that alone would be sufficient. But his mother is very attached to the ritual of passing gifts out while sitting around the Christmas tree. Her gifts to me range from the perfect item for home decor because by now she knows my taste so well, to a t-shirt with the South Carolina palm tree/moon logo. Um. Or what she put in my stocking, which included a can of woman's shaving cream (I use Neutrogena Rain Bath), which I can add to the full can she gave me last year, a shaker of sea salt, which I can add to the half-full bottle I still have from last year, a hand soap from Bath & Body Works that she gives every year and a little plastic dish scraper for getting those tough-to-remove food particles off of dishes before putting them into the dishwasher. All those things are very useful (except the shaving cream); I just think it's hysterical to ooh and ahh over a container of salt just because it's in a Christmas stocking. It's funny.

But I will say I am way more comfortable with spending Christmas with them than I was a decade ago. The first time we sat down to open presents and George read a verse from the Bible first, I thought I was going to melt into a big puddle of awkward. And then have the same thing happen when we get to the relatives' house and do it all again. But now? Old hat. No problemo. This is one very adaptable Jew.

I'm now going to see if there's any candy left, read up on how many Wellbutrins it's safe for me to take in one day and then crash on the couch.

The day was great. I'm glad it's over. I hope everyone had good ones too.