Hot damn, I've missed the 6 a.m. shift. It was so good today, even though the only merch I did was pretty much just sticking a bunch of stickers on things and almost breaking my fool neck trying to put a couple of signs up. The hours without customers were a relief. And the early hours when we were open, but not many customers were there yet: also awesome. It's funny, I kind of remember back when I wished there would be more customers, because registers and customer service can be kind of boring when there's not enough. Now I long for it. But things should be settling down. And the fact that I have two more 6 a.m.'s this week should also bring some relief.

I brought in my application for the supervisor job, and left it in boss-boss's mailbox, and am now having my usual paranoid worries that she won't see it or something. But I would rather worry than actually tell her I turned in an application and then have to have a conversation about it. If I get the job, that's good, and if I don't, that's too bad, but if I don't get it, I'd rather just not know why rather than have someone tell me that I suck, and they only keep me around because I'm the entertaining sort of spaz.

Speaking of work: I should probably give up the code names now that no less than three people from the store know where my blog is now. Four, probably, since one of them dates someone else who works there. But I like most of the names I've come up with too much. I even actually thought up two more lately, though they're not for people that really come up that much. I like how a lot of them have my own little dorky story/history related with them.

Oh, I have another work related thing before I get onto how my Christmas was. There's this regular customer who totally saw me at Noodles a couple days ago and waved at me from across the room. It creeped me out. Then today he was all talking to me. He hadn't before, I guess he thought acknowledging me in public means we're friends.

My Christmas was pretty good, I think a lot of the best parts were probably because of my nephew. When there's a little kid around, it kind of helps you remember how exciting it used to be. And since he's SO little, he of course was jazzed by everything he got, and, of course, the wrapping paper, boxes things came in, etc. But he's old enough to realize something's going on, he'd say "ooooooh" whenever we opened things, which was really cute. And we'd give him a present, and be like, "give this to _____" and he'd actually run over to the person with the package.

As for the giftage:

I got a number of CD's, I go into more detail on Karaoke Supernova. But they were all exactly what I asked for, and I already especially like the Nada Surf and Sufjan Stevens albums. I complain about how scripted my family's gift giving is, how everyone has meticulously thought out, typed up lists submitted months beforehand... but the obvious up side is you really do get what you want that way.

A little cash.

Giftcards to Gordman's and Best Buy.

A giftcard for McDonald's and a cannister of Necco wafers from my grandpa and his girlfriend. Which, I've actually (I'm a horrible person) kind of mocked these gifts to people because I just think it's an odd combination. And they're both obviously not "cool" gifts. But I LOVE them. The McDonald's card reminded me of how when we were little, my grandparents would give my sister and I those little booklets of McDonald's gift certificates they used to have, and the cute little ornaments they used to come with (which my sister and I would always fight over whichever one we both liked best), many of which I still have. Plus there's a McDonald's near the store I go to fairly frequently at lunch. The Necco wafers I loved too. For anyone who doesn't know what those are, they're pretty similar to that candy they sell around valentine's day with the little messages on them, only wafer shape instead of heart shape. I used to eat them a little bit when I was little, and had thought they were discontinued, but not that long ago I kind of rediscovered them and realized I had a freakish love of them. Anyway, the last time my grandpa and his girlfriend visited, I had bought a roll of them and was telling them how excited I was when I found out they still had them. I thought it was really sweet and thoughtful of them to remember that and give those to me.

Candles. Yeah, I've never been much of a candle person, but if you're a girl, and people don't know what to get you, they get you candles and smelly bath & body products. The hilarious bit is my mom actually bought them at the store I work at, and more than once in the past have I mocked this exact set of candles to my fellow coworkers for being particularly noxious. I mean, one's Frankinsense (sp?)! I'm pretty sure the only thing that's good for is rubbing on dead bodies and giving to baby Jesus. So I guess I'm good for presents on the second coming, if the Lord doesn't mind re-gifting.

Pig calendar. Every year my mom gets me a calendar, and I think she does pretty well most years. I got penguins last year, and I love penguins, and I was able to use the calendar to prove to new penguin groupies from March of the Penguins that I was into penguins way before they were. This year though, she got me this one of pigs dressed in various outfits, and I have to say that's kind of dropping the ball. I regard pictures of animals in goofy costumes only slightly less nauseating than Anne Geddes pictures, and you know from various Anne Geddes rants I've posted here over the years: that's pretty nauseating. Weirdly though: the picture in April, of the pig wearing the beret: really does tickle me. I like to imagine that the little couchon is french, and I imagine him saying pig things to me in the french accent. It's more understated and conceptual than the pig wearing the ballet tutu, or the not one, but two pictures of pigs in boxes.

Which: btw, I realize it's horrible to complain about gifts, but eh. It's a calendar of pigs wearing outfits! And I admitted usually my mom does good on calendars, and that the beret pig was almost good enough to make up for the rest.

On a good note: she got me something else from the store, a little book called The Book of Secrets, and it was one of the surprises I was more fond of. It hurts my brain to read for very long at a time, but it's got a lot of interesting little-known facts and trivia, like a list of famous stonemasons (with some of the obvious ones, like founding fathers, and just plain random ones, like Colonel Sanders) or how an atomic bomb works (though actually I knew that. the laws of physics that make it work, I mean. not actually how to make one. I swear!)

She liked my surprise gift for her, the "thank you mom" book made by the guys that made The Blue Day Book. My dad liked his stuff, my sister seemed to as well. My brother in law said, "What a surprise! It's a book!" after anyone opened anything from me, but still liked the Bill Maher book I got him.