The Spirit is Alive

*We interrupt the Holiday Giveaway for a regular old blog post. Hope you enjoy! You can find giveaway information below. Just scroll on down!*

The holiday season hasn’t been a particularly joyful one for me yet so far. First off, the whole single mom thing really puts a dent in ye ole holiday budget. But hey, I can deal. I’ll get the O-man what I can afford and that’s it. No big.

However, O has been sick, so I’ve been making lunchtime treks to his daycare to give him eye and eardrops (his daycare isn’t allowed by law to dispense prescriptions), and missing work shuttling him to and from doctor’s appointments. I often depend on my lunch hour to get shopping done, make personal phone calls, or simply organize my life, so it’s been hectic. And missing work for doctor’s appointments during the day means working evenings to catch up.

But the real kick in the pants? My purse was stolen last week. While I was shopping. For charity. All my credit cards, my license, most my makeup, my social security card (Yes, I know I shouldn’t have been carrying it!), and my precious iPod—gone.

(I’d like to take this time to say I don’t wish a purse or wallet snatching on anyone. If yours has ever been stolen, I feel for you. More than anything else, the hassle to get everything cancelled, re-opened, and set straight is the real PITA. A week later, I’m still having bank account issues.)

Over the weekend, when I tried to get a new license, I had to do battle with the oh-so-friendly BMV employees. It took me quite awhile to explain that I didn’t have my social security card because it was STOLEN, along with my LICENSE. When I finally got them to accept a college transcript as a form of ID, they discovered a “hold” was put on my license so I couldn’t get a replacement. At first I had no clue what a “hold” even was—or why I had one. And the BMV girls were no help whatsoever. After a quick call to the Columbus bureau, I figured it out—an unpaid parking ticket I got right before I went into the hospital. I had completely forgotten about that damn ticket. I never got any reminders, but they might have been sent to an old address (I have lots of old addresses on file—something I found out while canceling all my credit cards.)

Then O’s dad came down with this horrible cold sickness over the weekend, so I pulled double duty with O. No complaints there, I love more O time. But I wasn’t able to accomplish much of anything. (Unless you count lots of picture-book reading, block building, and other toddler-centric activities. )

So, I was in less-than-stellar mood when I dragged my sorry ass to work on Monday. In fact, I apologized ahead of time to my super-awesome co-worker Stephanie for any bitchiness I might display during the day. I explained I was just at my wit’s end.

But then something happened to flip my whole world upside-down. Remember how I’ve said before that my co-workers were pretty awesome people? Well, what I’m about to say proves it even more: My “team” and a few other super-cool people, led by my boss, chipped in to replace the aforementioned stolen iPod with a new iPod nano. They presented it to me at our weekly Monday morning meeting.

How freakin’ cool is that? It blew me away. I almost cried! Well, I kinda did. My eyes filled with tears, but they didn’t spill over. After all, there’s no crying at Monday morning meetings.

And remember super-awesome co-worker Stephanie? She bought me a replacement purse! It’s so cute that I’ve gotten a compliment on it almost every day I’ve had it.

So, my holiday spirit stays intact. And it’s not because I got replacement material items. It’s because people care–they want to help. They aren’t all purse stealers, bitchy-BMV employees, or uncooperative bank employees.

And that helps keep me going–gets me in the holiday mood. Even though this morning, I woke up to discover half the lights and outlets in my house aren’t working. Sweet. (And no, it’s not because I have some crazy-giant Christmas lights display, as many people have asked. I have no Christmas lights up. At all. I also don’t have a tree that could be drawing electricity, either. My holiday decorations consist of some holiday-theme potholders, a few matching kitchen towels, and some holiday-scented candles. That’s all I’ve had time to do. But the spirit is here. Believe me. It is.)