Sunday, December 24, 2006

Done, done, city of done

Thank the gods the holiday season is done, today marks the close of the 4th Twisted Monk Christmas season. Its not that I dislike the idea of Christmas. Heck a day were you give presents to folks and generally be nice to strangers, the whole time enjoying a nice glass of eggnog seems like a right good idea. However after spending the better part of my college years chucking boxes for UPS and now running a retail company, Christmas is something I mildly dread. When you have several hundred customers counting on you to deliver their Christmas dreams on time, it does not give one much bandwidth to worry about what they want. My pat answer, when asked what I wanted for the holiday was to quote the Bard, “I’d trade all my fame for a pot of ale and safety”

Melodramatic I know, but then again I tend to have a flair for such things.

On the plus side, this has been an amazing Christmas. Grated, a long, hard uphill battle of one against giant robots with flamethrowers, but amazing none the less. Seems like the 4 weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas were some of the toughest I have ever experienced. Between snow storms, a first showing at a huge east coast event, flooding, me injuring my hand, windstorms ripping my little house up and the subsequent 4 day blackout (is it just me our you would not have been surprised if it started raining frogs next?) and though it all we soldered on and prevailed. In spite of all the things that should have crippled us, things that should have sent us packing our bags and calling it a day, we had a great Christmas season.

If the old adage is true, that which does not kill you only makes you stronger, then this year we are titans. Scared, soot stained in places, and sometimes sporting a “thousand yard stare” yet undaunted and unstoppable.

So it was an odd moment on Friday night, when we gathered for our little leather family Christmas. An evening together as a “family”, as odd as it is, before being scattered to the four winds. Alex, Nerdy, Tambo and I gathered around the table and feasted together, enjoying the spread laid out before us (and a few too many spiked glasses of eggnog) before decorating the little, Nerdy sized tree and exchanging gifts it had yet to gel in my brain. See I was too busy at the time enjoying my glass of whiskey and making “Christmas is all about butt sex, just look at the angel on the tree” jokes, for it to become crystal clear my brain. No it was not until later, when everyone, dressed in their pajamas, piled onto Tambo and I’s huge bed and listened as I indulged my readers theater fetish and read aloud to them.

I think Alex was just beginning to fall asleep, head on my thigh, when it finally hit me.

Everything, from the meal we enjoyed, the tree we just decorated, the gifts under it, even the bed we were all now snuggling up in were all bought and paid for by a little rope company that I started at the very kitchen table where we just ate. Thousands of happy perverts the world over had given us this, our Christmas. While I much prefer my whiskey to a “pot of ale”, this was, just what I had asked for.

A pot of ale and safety.

Dancer, Alex and Nerdy have all now returned to their bio families to enjoy the rest of the holiday, leaving Tambo and I to enjoy several glorious days of peace and “just us” time.

There is still much to do at the Abbey, more orders to fill and fun projects in the works, but I shant return for a few days. Choosing instead to bask in a few, well-earned, days off. I’m not sure what the New Year holds for us, save more orders that I will undoubtedly complain about here and lots of rope.

Lots and lots of rope.