Dec 27, 2022 3 min read

Welcome to the limbo between the holidays. The No-Longer-Christmas-But-Not-Quite-New-Year’s-Week is a strange cluster of days.

If you’re home, it’s not really a vacation. You’re picking up stray pieces of wrapping paper, standing in the return line at Target and desperately trying not to eat the 8,000 cookies you’ve received from family and friends. Many of you are anticipating a frightening credit card bill wending its way toward your home. Luckily, the USPS will slow its arrival.

Some of you are trying to figure out what to do with the leftovers. There’s a lot of ham sandwiches and turkey pot pies in your new future. I’ll be over here on my third day of green bean casserole. By Dec. 29, something unusual happens. I get sick of lasagna. I know! It’s shocking.

If you’re at work, this week is weirder. You’re the guy or gal who didn’t have any vacation time left and suddenly you’re a Kevin McAllister/Michael Scott hybrid for “Home Alone: The Office Edition.” The only noise in the building is the persistent hum of the copier.

I have been lucky. When I lived out in California, I came home to Pittsburgh every year for Christmas, except one. While working at the Walt Disney Co. in Burbank one year, I was the lowest-ranking person and had to report to the office on Dec. 26, making it impossible to fly home for the family festivities.

In my head, I knew Christmas was “just another day,” but, in my heart, I felt like Bob Cratchit scrawling on his ledger, trying to stay warm with a single lump of coal.

On Dec. 26, it was just me and the department VP. He came into the office to avoid his children. I kept thinking of the line from “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” where Bing sings, “And mom and dad can hardly wait for school to start again.”

Side note: Don’t let Santa bring a karaoke machine to your house on Christmas morning, or the kids will be rocking around the Christmas tree, having a happy holiday and dancing merrily in a new old-fashioned way.

But I digress, like I do. At the office, the VP would issue orders, such as “Get Bill (Redacted) on the phone,” and I would call and get, “You’ve reached Bill (Redacted). I’m out of the office until Jan. 2. Happy Holidays!”

Then, he’d say, “Get Tony (Redacted) on the phone,” and the same thing would happen, over and over again.

He lamented, “Am I the only one working?” I wanted to say, “Yes,” but he’d realize I was playing Scrabble on my phone.

I blew my cover when I asked, “Is ‘xu’ a word?”

P.S.: It is. One hundred xu make a dong. Before you write angry letters littered with bible quotes, a dong used to be a form of Vietnamese currency. Ironically, inflation killed the dong.

P.P.S.: It’s Scrabble-safe.

Before switching over to “Happy New Year,” I’m gonna say this one last time, “Happy Holidays!”