If you are looking for a tale of seasonal excitement, this isn’t it. If, instead, you are interested in a bland summary of a Christmas come slowly, read on.

Due to the pressures of my last master’s semester and the intenseness of Jason’s work schedule, Christmas was in no hurry to embrace us with its spirit or sparkle this year. We didn’t finish putting the ornaments on our tree or hanging the stockings by our chimney with slight care until just a few days before Christmas. Presents didn’t begin accumulating under our ever-plastic Tannenbaum until even later. This isn’t standard Rachel M.O. Rachel M.O. involves planning precisely, one could say anally, well in advance. Some aspects of our holiday, however, fit our norm all too well.

It’s a Rachel habit to enter a neurotic cleaning mode right before Christmas, but that didn’t happen this year. While the neurotic nature of our traditional Christmas Eve was maintained, it wasn’t spurred by housework. We stayed up to 4 AM working on gift projects and wrapping presents.

Also true to tradition, we didn’t start opening our presents to each other until almost midnight on Christmas evening. Even our stockings didn’t get perused until late in the day. This was mostly due to the demands of those same gift projects. Somehow, we did fit in a little time for some fancy cooking though, a favorite holiday pastime of mine, but not as much as my stomach would have liked.

This year, Christmas arrived like a sneaky ninja, a sneaky ninja with a bullwhip. Once it crept in, it kept us too overworked to unwind. Yes, it is possible that I am incapable of relaxing, holiday whip-bearing ninjas or not, but there’s no point pondering that enigma as it will never be resolved.