Unlucky Christmas

It's that time of the year in which little lights sparkle and Christmas decorations glitter all around and you are finally able to enjoy Christmas carols at the highest volume without getting weird looks from people around you.

Magic is everywhere.

It's when friends and families gather together and enjoy the most delicious meals and cookies treating themselves with sparkling bubbly wine and everyone feels merry and whatnot.

I love Christmas.

That warm feeling that runs through you as you place the last glittery sphere on the tree, while listening to Michael Bubble's jazzy Christmas music on the background. It's my favorite season of the year.

There's only one thing that obscures such fairy-tale time. It's absolutely horrendous. It totally spoils Christmas for me. Especially in the office. God, the office.

Every year, you have to write your name on a small piece of paper and throw it on a shiny glass bowl along with the rest of the crew. Our boss, Mr. Smith, with those chubby hands of his, holds the bowl and churns it as we all try to follow with our eyes the little piece you wrote hoping, praying, that it falls to the ground with each spin so you can free yourself of such torture. His smile is so wide as if he's mocking each and all of us to defy him on this ultimate torture.

Ok. I may have overstated the whole spinning thing for everyone. Or the mocking smile. Mrs. Smith is in fact a nice person, once you get past the cold demeanor. He is indeed, shy.

In my defense, it feels like torture knowing that your name could end up in the hands of pimple Barry, evil Janice or absent Louis. Their nicknames pretty much sum their personality. Or lack of.

Take Barry for example. He is a walking pimple. Literally. It's so hard to talk to him because all I can see are those ugly, yucky pimples of his. Sometimes, I feel bad for him, but then I notice him looking at my chest instead of my face and I feel like smashing my files on his face. But they're usually important and I wouldn't want to touch anything that has been in contact with his face. It's just gross.

Janice...well, the girl is basically an evil bitch. She works right next to me and we totally hate each other but we try to conceal it in the fakest way. She's stubborn, vicious and back-stabbing. She wants my job and has been trying quite hard to achieve that for the last two months since I got my promotion. I hate her guts.

Absent Louis is that. Absent. He's within the law department and has supposedly worked with us for the last three months but I have never seen him. He handles all the lawsuits and such. The only means of communication he uses is email. He's pretty much nonexistent.

While Mr. Smith keeps spinning the bowl, he always names the object we are going to give and be given to make it fair. Supposedly.

I am the queen of crappy gifts, though.

If we don't get along or I pretty much hate you, you'll probably end up with my name in your hands and vice versa. I've gotten the cheapest chocolates, the ugliest pashmina, the boring coffee mug.

Because that's my freaking Christmas karma.

Every. Single. Year.

So, I do not exaggerate when I say that I do try to follow the ripped piece of paper hoping to get my own name. Nobody would notice, since you're not supposed to say anything and I could leave myself a handful of classy, rich Belgian chocolates every day until the last day before the holidays. And I'd totally skip the stupid Christmas party.

Of course that never happens. It would require an actual Christmas miracle.

I'm just unlucky like that.