High hopes for 2012

Well, the holidays are over and it's official: I'm old.

For instance, when I was a kid I couldn't wait to get up on Christmas morning, but this year I refused to get up.

“It's a day off,” I told my wife. “That means sleeping in.”

So she put Junior in the bed with us and he proceeded to drool all over me and bite me on the face. At that point I had to get up to avoid becoming a human teething ring and getting gnawed to death.

We opened presents and mine were all awesome. Some were fun and some were practical, but later in the day I saw my younger siblings running around with lightsabers and darts guns and Legos and I got sad. I love all my adult presents, but sometimes I just want a good lightsaber.

How I really knew I was old was when I was talking to my younger brother who is in middle school. I asked him what he was doing for his two week break and he said, “Oh, just taking it easy.” And before I knew what was happening I heard myself whining, “Well enjoy 'taking it easy' now while you still can! When you're old like me you have to work for a living. You don't get any vacations and even if you wanted to take time off you can't 'cause all your co-workers with more seniority already got Christmas off so you have to stay and work and it's just you and you have to run everything by yourself and...”

Merry Christmas, little bro. Cynicism and bitterness are the Christmas gifts that keep on giving.

All in all, the holidays were tons of fun. Tons of family, and, more importantly, tons of food. Also, my son got a huge pile of stuff, which is easy to do when you have grandparents, uncles and aunts on both sides who love to spoil you.

But now all the fun times are over, which brings us to January, possibly the bleakest month ever. The holidays are over, it's cold, it's boring and you have to try and lose all the weight you gained from eating nothing but fattycakes since Thanksgiving (or maybe that's just me). The only bright spot is Martin Luther King Day, but I don't get Presidents Day off so there are no more holidays until Memorial Day.

Even though January is a drag, I think 2012 is going to be my year.