Our Christmas Letter, 2015

TODAY AT LOGOS

25 December 2015

While most people were doing "Christmas Eve stuff" today, maybe having a fancy dinner with relatives or friends, relaxing in front of the tree, maybe a nice fire going and planning a fancy breakfast for tomorrow, around here it was a normal day.  I worked at Logos, cooked a delicious Blue Apron dinner and then watched a Chopped marathon.

As I write this it is officially Christmas day and there is not much planned today either.  We'll go to Atria around 4.  My mother will be surprised, though I will call her in the morning to let her know.  We will have dinner in the restaurant, listen to how old my mother is, and then come home.  Maybe we'll drive around town and look at house lights.  Maybe not.

Sometime this weekend, Saturday or Sunday, Tom and the family will come to Atria, possibly with Walt's brother and his wife, and we'll do a quiet "Christmas" with my mother, but not stay too long because she gets anxious.  Then...I don't know what.  Maybe come here for dinner, or maybe go out to a restaurant for dinner.

I have to admit I've been kind of morose all day.  This is so different from the memories of Christmas past.

I expected to have a very quiet day at Logos, but Sandy had the busiest day since she'd worked there.  At several times people were lined up to buy books.  Last minute Christmas shoppers.  Apparently on 'Bargain Monday' earlier this week Logos had made more than twice the normal daily income, which was very nice.

The radio was on in the background today, and when I started working it was playing Handel's Messiah.

My first customer was trying to decide between Cokie Roberts' book on the letters of Mrs. Henry Adams and another book.  She asked my opinion.  I had not heard of either book, but do enjoy Cokie Roberts on talking head shows and I guess that made up her mind.  She bought that book and then wished me a Merry Christmas (not a Happy Holiday)

The next customers bought Steinbeck's "A Life in Letters," one of my favorite books, and I was so enthused about telling her what a wonderful book it is that I forgot to note what her other purchase was.  As they left, she thanked me for being open today.

A middle aged couple arrived.  He was a tall professorial type and his companion was considerably shorter and was dressed all in black, with a faux fur coat.  As she turned around I could see that her stockings had a rather strange pattern running up the back of her leg. I snapped a quick picture as she was leaving the shop (they didn't buy anything)

An Asian woman bought a copy of Strunk and White's "Elements of Style," a thesaurus, "The Tao of Physics" and another science book and a copy of the bible.  Her total was $29.84.  It was one of the two big sales I had all afternoon.  The other one was roughly the same amount and it was to myself for books that I bought to give the girls for Christmas.

The next woman wore a purple jacket, a purple backpack with zebra stripes, and matching shoes.  She also didn't buy anything.

A mother and young daughter were looking for a book called,  think, "Baby Wise" about raising babies, but they didn't find it and I sent them off to the Avid Reader in the next block.

A tall woman with a very bad cough bought 3 bargain books, 2 contemporary fictions and one of the Ladies #1 Detective Agency series.

A couple came in looking for Len Deighton books, but a specific one.  We didn't have it and I suggested they, too, try the Avid Reader.

A middle aged man carrying a violin case bought two contemporary fiction books.

A guy popped in to ask if I knew where he could buy classical CDs in town.  Since Tower records left, I didn't have a clue where to suggest to him.

A tall, Jane Lynch type came in, dressed all in black with a black backpack and carrying a Trader Joe's bag.  Her perfumed wafted along behind her as she walked around the store.  I decided she must have dogs because she had what looked like paw prints on her upper thigh and on her lower calf, where Polly jumps on me all the time.  She wanted to buy a book on the conflict between Israel and Palestine, but didn't have enough money and said she would be back, but she didn't return.

A foreign guy with very, very limited English kept asking me something and it sounded like he wanted me to give him fifty cents.  It turned out he wanted to know where he could find the fiction books.  He ultimately bought one.

My last customer was an older man wearing a yellow slicker and leaning on a walking stick.  He bought a book called "Manchu" and talked about how terrible the highways were now and that he had friends who were taking the train to Oregon because they didn't want to drive and wouldn't fly because of terrorist threats.

Downtown was very dead when Walt and I left the store.  Most shops were closed and there were lots of parking places, so he had parked right across the street, which was nice.  And that was how I spent the day of Christmas Eve.