Author: Ellie

December 11

Ellie was packing, more like, hunting what little remained of her clean clothing. Another fall term over, another round of finals finished, yet another agonizing Christmas with the family. She still needed to find presents for everyone (here, mom, have this lovely 'New Hampshire College' sweatshirt.....dad, I know you've always wanted a complete set of Fianna brewery pint glasses....), she still needed to come up with a few snappy, sullen one liners to shut her sisters up at dinner, she still needed to come up with an excuse to get back to Manchester as fast as possible.

She knew it would come up- probably about 10 minutes after Marguerite and Roseanna packed their puling little sweethearts off to bed (Now now now, Santa Claus won't come if little angels are still awake!). Dating anyone, Ellie? Still working that shitty internship at the paper Ellie? Even been asked out yet, Ellie? How does one tell one's respectable family that yeeees, one's accepted a date to a movie with a man whose last name you don't know, who's not now nor ever has been in college, and you're not entirely sure what they do for a living (much less, if they're the right flavor of Christian, what club their parents belonged to, or if their parents started the trust fund portfolio in a mid-range diversified strategy or an aggresive growth one).

Fuck it. Two clean pairs of socks and one clean skirt equals the 24th at home and drive back the evening of the 25th. The shitty little internship needs a copygirl over the holidays, everyone else takes time off. Maybe, she thought, Teddy'll be around and want to go for a beer. Merry Christmas.