Throwing Dice

Inspirational song: Luck Be a Lady (Frank Sinatra)

After a few days in a row of not setting foot off the edge of my property, it was good to get out and roam a little today. It was the club's holiday party and ornament exchange, coupled with our monthly "gambling" night. What we do is play bunco, which is more of a drinking and gossip game than real gambling. But technically there are dice rolled, and winners and losers. For the first time since I learned how to play this game, at least a decade ago, I finished the night with the most total wins. That is so rare, I don't know how to process it, especially since I went into the night deciding that I would do just that. I have never done it before, but I knew I would win most wins. It's purely chance, but it was great to succeed in what I set out to do.

Tonight's ornament exchange ran differently than any white elephant or combat exchange I've ever been to. This time, we sat in a large circle, and the vice president of our club read a story. Every time the word "right" was read (it was added liberally to a traditional story), we passed the wrapped ornaments we had selected at random to our neighbor to the right. Same process every time she read the word "left." At the end, we opened each package in order. Once we had opened it all, THEN the stealing began. I started out with a local-themed ornament, a really neat sand dollar painted with a thin sheen of glitter and palm trees. It was stolen from me, so I got to take something else. I settled on a LED color changing ornament. I am not so in to the glass teddy bear in the center of it, but as I told my friends, since I'm not decorating the house, I figure I can sit in the dark with a tall glass of whiskey, watching the colors change. That's about as festive as I expect to be this year.

While I shopped for my ornament, I did wander through Pier 1 a little, and I confess to feeling just a little stirring of holiday spirit. I know, I know, I said that I would not be going overboard on Christmas this year. I said I'm not buying a ton of presents (still not going to), and I won't be buying a tree. I still don't know whether I will hang a string of lights on the porch. But I did enjoy looking at the glitter and ribbons and sparkly decorations in the store. If I hadn't been on a tight schedule, I might have stopped and sniffed the evergreen tree scented reed diffuser. It's hard not knowing whether I'm a grinch or not this year.