post-holiday crashing

i took my christmas tree down today. it took thirty seconds, spraying thirty thousand needles in the process.

okay, okay, so maybe this wasn't my tree. but all the same, that makes it pretty official over here. the holidays are over. (yes, my dad is still coming to visit and yes, i still have presents from my lil sis on the way, but just to make a more final sounding blog statement...)

the holidays are over.

and what's left in its place is a giant space where my tree and my pre-holiday life used to be. what did i do with all my time before i was shopping and planning and getting groceries and cleaning? if you know, please remind me, because at the moment it feels like a whole lot of nothing.

i'm pretty sure i can't be the only one feeling this way. so i've come up with a small list of ways to integrate more cheer into your non-holiday, post-holiday life.

1. find creative uses for the gifts you can't use, don't want, didn't ask for

pre-holiday's i decided to paint my living room. when the initial yellow wasn't the color i expected it to be, i returned to the local paint store and asked the uber-friendly and helpful *she says with dripping sarcasm* salesman if he could make my color a little closer to the next one up on the paint chip.

apparently, to his eye, this meant dark grey.

now i have exactly the color i want in my living room - thank you Lowes - and a beautiful grey wall in my bedroom. perhaps this doesn't seem totally related to my topic heading, but hey, i had a picture.

2. have an adventure in dining

when red-haired sis and i asked for an order of what the staff were eating at a chinese food restaurant recently, our waiter said "just a minute," ran over to the staff meal table and scooped a portion of greens from their dish onto a plate for us. it was the sweetest, luke-warm gesture ever. we giggled while we ate it.

3. travel somewhere unusual and bring back a memento

i'd been ottoman browsing on craigslist for a few weeks when i came upon this cute grey/green/blue guy (which matches nothing in my house). he was being sold out of a rehabbed furniture store on the fifth floor of a high rise in nyc. when i wasn't sure if this ottoman was the right color (it isn't), the man who owned the store asked if i'd like to see his other rooms. apparently, he kept expanding his business until it took up every other available office on the fifth floor. every door he opened was like looking into a secret bedroom. in one of them, a couple was practicing their wedding dance. strange. fun. and only $42.

toting my new purchase home on the subway was a little less thrilling.

4. rely on your friends

best thing to remember about the post-holiday blues? you can still see all the same family, friends and loved ones, it just doesn't have to be such a production. post-holiday recaps over tea and a gummy japanese pastry are the best thing ever for lifting the spirits.

and if none of that works?

5. leave out one holiday decoration and pretend it's art

remember, life pre-holidays was filled with cheer, too. only, it didn't come with gift anxieties and you had to be a little more creative making it.

past/future

ach. it's no use. my brain is fried. my writing is flat. my inspiration is nil. i almost blew off this blog post, but it's the last one i'll do before the new year. and i can't end the year talking about slacking.

new years -- the equivalent of living simultaneously in the past and future.

does everyone feel the same way right now? a little sad to see the old year passing mixed with a little excited about everything new and fresh that's in store? the weather is even participating. the sky's that exact shade of wintry, crisp nostalgic blue that makes me crave a warm drink and a good hug. (too far, corrie. you've taken the sentimentality too far).

anyway, the other night, fresh off my families visit, i had the urge to clean house. this primarily consisted of dusting and deciding that the box of papers under my bed absolutely needed to be meshed with the box of papers in my closet.

other than proving that sometimes two boxes of papers (especially when you're a writer) are needed, it was an appropriate pre-new years exercise in reflection.

talk about nostalgia? try sorting through a bunch of papers that chronicle the biggest transitional period of your life.

i made this my first year in nyc.
pasted on the inside pages are ticket stubs, letters, photos.
all of them were meant as reminders of the new experiences
i wouldn't have otherwise had if i hadn't chosen to move to nyc. 

among the old cards, ticket stubs, folder of rejection letters, i found two separate new years resolution lists. both of them were made when i lived in Buffalo. one from five years back, another about three years ago.

some might as well have been written by a different corrie. present corrie has no strong urge to study at a prestigious school or learn to ski. but a lot more were surprisingly right on.

dance twice a week? check. become a good, confident writer? the fact that i don't even think this is a to-do means, check. it gets deeper. learn to differentiate a well-earned relaxation from procrastination or laziness. check check. (erm, did i mention that it's a tradition on my dad's side to make some pretty hard core resolutions?)

there's one main thing i haven't tackled. but maybe this is my year to get published and go on a book tour for my novel. then i'll be all caught up. which leaves me wondering, who do i want to be five years from now? since it appears i'm pretty good with follow through, and since i've already travelled to someplace i've never been (tho there's always more), currently eat vegetables (nearly) every day, and volunteer at a charitable organization, what's next?

but i guess that's the fun of new years and life in general? you can kinda do whatever you want. i'm happy i found these old resolutions. i often feel like nothing changes in my life, meanwhile the corrie of the past has been progressing into someone she's wanted to be this whole time. the possibilities that await are exciting, yet it still makes me sad to see all the things that were and aren't anymore.

which leads me full blog circle to ask, does everyone feel this way this time of year? and can it please just get to January 1 already so all this damn reflection can end? in the meantime....

Happy New Years everyone! wishing you a fulfilling, awe-inspiring, healthy, successful, and super-frickin' happy 2012.

what better way to kick it off than with a little Zooey (are you watching New Girl yet? it's awesome) and an insanely cute Gordon (guy)...

oh tannenbaum, indeed

you might have noticed i took two days off from blogging last week. i didn't even do my usual short "busy writing. see you friday." instead, i threw blogging to the wind, drank so much coffee i actually smelled a little funny (or was it funky? only i'll ever know) and FINISHED MY EDITS.

whoop whoop!

completing drafts reminds me why i love writing. the high is ridonkulous. for 48 hours i floated through brooklyn beaming at everyone. oh you woman, taking up the entire sidewalk with a stroller the size of a Hummer not even acknowledging that other people need to pass, isn't life grand?!

yes it is.

now i have a little time before my first reader's reactions, responses and -- der, you forgot all the comma's in this sentence -- edits roll in. time i will use to prep for the holidays.

now if you know me, as um 98% of you do (hi mom!), you know that christmas is not my most favoritist of holidays. HOWEVER, it's starting to grow on me. (it could be some of that left over, draft-completed beaming). this past week, i even bought a christmas tree.

christmas tree shopping in NYC is a little like renting an apartment in NYC. you pay an exorbitant amount for a size that anywhere else in the country would be laughable. for instance, below is pictured the biggest Park Slope tree seller. a Charlie Brown style Christmas tree costs $60 or $70.

this year, they began bundling branches for sale. i didn't ask how much, but i'm thinking they're between $10 and $20. (i hope i'm not offending anyone by naming actual prices. in nyc it's not gauche to ask "how much do you pay..." for just about anything. um, right guys? sez the girl who loves asking how much do you pay for...)

that being said....when my red haired sis and i wandered past a local hardware store and the guy said trees were $25 we jumped on it.

it so happened that the previous day my bro-in-law in Buffalo posted pictures of the tree that he and my sister had picked out. the comparisons made me laugh. ready? here goes....


$25 brooklyn tree:

$45 buffalo tree:

so cute!

brooklyn:

buffalo:

now granted, my lil' sis cuts down her tree, which greatly reduces price, and she has those mega-vaulted ceilings in her great room to play with. but what i love best about these comparisons between buffalo and brooklyn, is the one similarity in them.

notice the smiles that finding the tree resulted in. (granted, we are sisters, thus have similar smiles. and i'm not quite sure mine is the tree as it's kinda just the one that the guy at the hardware store grabbed from the pile)*clears throat and presses on with her point*

conclusion? size does not, in fact, matter when it comes to enjoyment of the, erm, holidays.

and that, my friends, is how you end a post about christmas with some penis humor.