This became the first in a long line of lonely holiday streaks, the Nineties mostly sucked in this department. It was also my first in the adult world…no more four-week breaks, everybody still goes to work between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. What a bummer.
Fortunately, I did all the “celebrating” with my family earlier through graduation. They even received gifts from me too; I somehow scraped up the money to cover them and didn’t put any on my credit card.
Carrie always spent Christmas with her mother and sister in Illinois. This wasn’t any big loss, I had to work at the newspaper because sports never take a day off. So we went out for a nice dinner and exchanged gifts at my place. Carrie gave me the Star Wars trilogy on videotape which was awesome. My present to her was a microwave oven. It sounds lame initially yet it was 1990 and there was a rational explanation behind it. For some time she had been talking about buying one to keep in her room and the long-term plan was to use any cash she received for Christmas to cover it. Weeks earlier, I stumbled upon an electronics/appliances sale in downtown Milwaukee. Knowing what Carrie wanted, I withdrew money from the ATM to buy this great microwave oven with a carousel for 50 smackers. I was stoked for several weeks on how this was going to rock as I hid in my apartment. When she received it that evening, I could only hear the disappointment in her voice. I suppose Carrie had a model lined up and I ruined her plans. She apologized profusely sensing I was pretty hurt so we stopped talking about it for a while. Weeks later I was vindicated over my purchase as Carrie grew to like it. We ate many insta-meals and snacks the device cooked at her place, watching TV.
Christmas Day came and went. I don’t recall if I worked or not. I know I spent part of the time watching my new videotapes on Carrie’s VCR (she lent me her key, the other four roommates were accustomed to my presence) and breaking in the microwave with some frozen dish to stuff my face. Needless to say, I was glad to see Carrie return before New Year’s Eve.
The holiday I liked more had a small wrinkle, everybody at the paper was required to work. Before the BCS nonsense, many bowl games were lumped together. It made things hectic into the early evening. Matters wound down by 11 PM so I was allowed to cut out to meet Carrie in time to celebrate the countdown: a private little party at her apartment. She wanted to avoid the disappointment I caused last year with my aversion to wearing a more upscale outfit. Underemployment was going to become my official excuse for the next five months though.
Due to the year ending on such a bleak, gray and depressing note, I vowed to figure out a better plan for 1991. Once I had consistent work, I would spend Christmas Day at the movies to get away from the dreck. A rather shallow solution compared to spending it with friends or family but it made sense then. I figured my girlfriend Carrie and my new home of Milwaukee were going to remain the constants in my life. They were both eliminated by the Fall of 1991 so I at least followed through on the movie tradition promise by the following Christmas.