Adam Oster, Novelist

I’ll start off by noting that since I write these out early, I’m actually sitting here just a few days before Christmas, picturing what my coming week is going to look like.

And what it looks like is exhaustion.

Because, as noted before, we’ve got a lot going on this week. We’re throwing both a Christmas Eve and Christmas Day party here at the Havok Outpost. Put on top of that the whole, you know, making sure we have Christmas all together for our three offspring, and you’ll find an Adam who is already anxious for all the effort in the coming days, but also, there’s the whole cleanup afterwards that comes with it, which means that the aftermath of Christmas means, to me, slowly cleaning over the period of the following week, generally just a location at a time as I find need to use that location for other things.

And often, LEGOs, all over my floor…everywhere.

But luckily for me, and not as luckily for my kids, the dog loves picking up the LEGOs and hiding them under things. I’m guessing he does that because he wants to keep my feet safe.

There’s one more piece of the Christmas Aftermath puzzle that is my actual favorite. It’s that my kids have enough things to keep them amused, and I generally have a few extra days off from work, which means I get to spend some time laying back and reading books/playing video games. While there are a ton of things that have to get done immediately before and after Christmas, there’s also this spectacular period where I find myself, somehow, relaxing.

And I’m really looking forward to that right now.

And maybe a nap.

I could always use a nap.