Cannot seem to get into the Christmas spirit this year. I don’t know if it’s the weather or what. There’s just this sense of…Christmas? Yeah, I suppose it’s coming. I forget about it almost immediately.

Otter, in similar straits, met me at Southpointe mall for lunch. In a last ditch effort to summon Christmas spirit, we put on light-up reindeer antlers and wandered around. Still didn’t seem to help. Did Hot Topic, Banana Republic, and Victoria’s Secret with antlers. Amusing, certainly proof that I have entered a stage in my life where I have absolutely no fear of making a spectacle of myself, but can’t say it got the gingerbread pumping through my veins.

Finally went and mocked Christmas ornaments at the Christmas store. Highlights included the angriest baby seal ever, what appeared to be a squirrel being anally violated by a bloody snowman (actually, there were a LOT of terrifying snowbeings) and if I ever want the world’s furriest Christmas tree, I know where to go. The lion ringmaster with whips and the pig on the Harley wearing classic sixties-into-bondage-leatherwear were…um…something else all right.

I was tempted by the black tree and the black ornaments–a goth Christmas!–but then I saw the price tags. If you think I’m paying 11.99 for a small black flocked box with glittery ribbon, allow me to disabuse you.

By that point we’d forgotten about the antlers, and as we bent our heads over something–My Little Pony Christmas or Baby Seal Hitler* or something–they clashed together. There was a pause. "Are you coming on to me?"

"I think we’re fighting for dominance, actually…"

"Oh, well then."

If that couldn’t get my Christmas spirit flowing, I suppose it won’t happen this year. (Maybe I need snow. Living in Minnesota may have fused that switch permanent.) Perhaps next year.

*Shape and placement of the dark whisker patch were Highly Unfortunate.