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All I Want for Christmas - a Note from Holly

By Holly Christy, Publisher December 21, 2020

I'm 19 years old, struggling to stay awake through the most boring International Economics class ever. It's made worse by the fact that it's a night class, and it's pitch black outside the windows. It takes all my willpower not to jump up out of my seat in the lecture hall and run back to my dorm room - or anywhere - as long as I didn't have to stay in that torturous mind-numbing class one minute more. I reach into my bag to find a mint, thinking that might help me wake up a little. But you know what I found instead? A can of yams. And I cracked up!

It was a joke my roommate and I had been playing on each other all year. There was a canned food drive in our dorm, and her mom had sent in a bag of random cans. But my roommate, who is actually a wonderful person, thought that can of yams was "embarrassing," and so she didn't include it in the donation box. From then on, it was the butt of our jokes. We never knew where that can of yams would turn up. It could be in her underwear drawer, in my trunk, under her pillow, in my backpack. We'd find it when we least suspected it, and it always made us laugh. Guess what she got as a wedding present a few years later?

Fast forward 15 years. It's a white elephant gift exchange with some family friends, and I wrap up this hideous picture frame. My best friend's husband ends up with it, but tries to sneak it under the cushion of our couch before they go home. We found it and tossed it in their car in the nick of time. The next time they came over, they not only sneaked it onto my bedside table but had filled it with a hilariously unflattering picture of themselves. Naturally, we waited a few months then hid it somewhere in their house with an equally funny photo of questionable appropriateness. And so on and so on, for years now.

I bring this up because this is the time of year when families and friends normally get together, traditions are rolled out, and memories are savored. And while I couldn't begin to tell you what real gifts I've exchanged with these sweet friends over the many years, I can absolutely remember finding those darn yams in tons of places and dying laughing over the photos in that ugly frame that keeps turning up every few months. I don't care about expensive or elaborate gifts; I just want to spend my holidays laughing and playing and enjoying my people - whether that's in person or virtually. I wish that for you too!

I'll see you out there -
Holly