It must be Christmas. I am not the person who finds Christmas treasures in hot weather and puts them away for months. If I buy early, I give early. Life's too short, man.
It takes me a while to get into the spirit but I think I'm there. We decorated Thanksgiving weekend, and we've been playing X Marks the Spot ever since. Last week, we had snow, we each had work parties, and we went to the annual Champagne & Shopping event at Kahn's Fine Wines with our great friend Cheryl -- a visit so good that even the tapping of her car by our neighbor's girlfriend didn't dampen the spirit.
I also had my first gift-giving smack-down of the season.
The first of those events may seem normal. The last was from my friend Amy who was chastising me before I even thought about what Alison would give her BFF Jenna for Christmas. She was reminding me that Jenna had already been given her gift -- a trip to Wicked and a small shopping trip.
This lecture came after Jeff gave me the lowdown of a conversation he'd had with Amy and I was giving her grief for violating the Girl Code and siding with the captain.
They both have ice in their veins when it comes to child rearing. If the opportunity to say "no" comes their way, they don't just embrace it will full hearts, they're loud about it.
Alison is 12.5 Her current winter coat is a gift from a neighbor whose daughter never wore it. It's purple with black fur and makes her look like a grape-flavored Michelin Man. Sure, she's warm, but it's at least two years old, and is starting to get short in the sleeves. It's made of some indestructible plastic that cockroaches will call home after the Apocolypse.
So Ali asks me if she could possible get a new coat this winter. Maybe one from North Face, which can be expensive but is very well made and will keep her both warm and within sight of her normal size. We found one at a reasonable price that she just loved. It's that really thin, but warm quilted material and it's trim to her body. She loves it.
"You did what?!" Jeff said, listing things like: it's Christmas; it can wait; she already has a coat; it's white.She doesn't NEED a coat and if she NEEDS a coat, did you even shop around?"
I did, actually. Well, I went to an outlet instead of the actual North Face store, and I had looked around a bit. It's my opinion that a girl occasionally needs to have something that she wants. Not all the time. Not always what's on trend. It's a winter coat for God's sake. It's fricking winter!!! Parents buy shoes and coats and mittens and food and stuff for their children. It's kind of what we're supposed to do.
Ugh. He's such a boy. But when he ran into Amer, he spills the details of our, uh, discussion, of the coat and she AGREED with him! She was MY friend first. We are Bunconians. We are girls. But she sided with HIM. Worse, he comes home to tell me that after their chat, "I got mad all over again."
Worse than THAT, she's not even apologetic. Blah, blah. "you're too lenient." Blah, blah. "You're a pushover."
Whatever, Amer. Jeff's the one who bought her Uggs already....Bet he didn't tell you THAT.
In other news, Ali, Jeff and I went to see Thor and dropped into 5 Guys after for our first taste of the trendy hamburgers. It was awesome. (Thanks, Lisa Tabor) 
On the way out into the bitter cold, Ali and I left as a man with a wife and kids was coming in. He held the door. Jeff held the door for the family and then urged the man in, too.
"You know, he's really a nice guy," Alison said as we walked to the car and she observed her father. "When he's not being annoying, that is."
My laughter might have cracked a few windows.
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