random truths – Day 1,014 (Monday) – monday holiday

Christmas was on Sunday, and that made Monday a holiday in the banking world. The day off plan was to sleep late, drink coffee, and do not much else. “Late” turned out to be 6:45 instead of 6:15, so the sleeping didn't run very late at all. But after that, it was pure blanket-wrapped leisure of The BungaLowell kind.

Santa from Elf.

Unlike all-inclusive vacation leisure with wait staff, massages, and beach time, BungaLowell leisure involves coffee in the extra-large Luke’s Diner mug, reserved for the larger pot of coffee made on weekends and days off. Coffee consumption occurs on the couch in the living room with email, news, horoscope, Wordle, and Facebook before the magical moving picture box is turned on and the visual binging commences. 

Today’s viewing was dedicated to the Christmas movies that had been neglected all season long. The on-demand day started with the star-studded romantic comedy classic Love Actually (2003), and marched forward to Four Christmases (2008) with Reece Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn.

Chevy Chase as Clark Griswold.

The lineup included the classic National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989). Clark Griswold reminds me of my brother, who loved that movie and could quote most of the script. He even had Clark’s rant about his boss as his phone’s answering machine message. You know, the impassioned “… I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is! Hallelujah! Holy shit! Where’s the Tylenol?” 

There was also the delightful Elf (2003), which has one of my favorite movie music soundtracks. Unaccompanied Minors (2006) felt like a Christmas airport version of The Breakfast Club. A Christmas Story 2 (2012), set five years after the original story, felt overacted as if they were all just trying too hard, but I still watched the whole thing. Bailing would have required the effort of finding something else to watch. And I'm not usually a quitter.

In between all the movies, there were attempts to conduct the glamorous, everyday life maintenance tasks. The trash barrel was brought in from the curb and the mail from the mailbox. Laundry was washed, dried, and folded. There was a quick trip to Market Basket for the Winston’s weekly roasted chicken. But mostly, the day was a mind-numbing stretch of varying levels of visual entertainment and eating the too-many leftovers from Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner. And it was good. Worth every second.