Three times

Last night was my office Christmas party. Not a company wide office party, but just our little casting office, sipping champagne, exchanging gifts, and listening to Christmas music before Jim takes us out to a really nice dinner at Cafe Luxemborg. And throughout the course of the evening, I cried three times. In a good way.

The first time was a bit of a surprise to everyone, including myself. My boss, Jim (the world's best, and most generous gift giver) gave us all a few books as our "small gift", and one of mine was a biography of Eli Wallach. I don't know if it's because I love old hollywood biographies or because I love little old men (he's 93), or because he participated in this documentary that I worked on called Showing Up (really cool site by the way, check it out if you have the chance - and his quote on there is amazing), but for whatever reason, it made me cry a little bit.

The second time was when Jim gave me my "big gift", which was a new camera. The one that Geoff and I were saving up for and not getting each other Christmas gifts in order to buy. And so I cried. He and Geoff had been in cahoots about it for a week or so and I was completely thrilled. Thrilled to tears in fact. Especially since I had wanted to have the camera in time for my college girlfriends reunion in January so that I could take pregnancy pictures of my friend Michelle, and get LOTS of baby pictures of the FOUR babies that will be in attendance. Get excited Barn Girls! Now, most professional photographers would have a fancier camera than this (it's a Nikon D90), but this is a great starter camera for our little side photography business. And we used it for our pilates photo shoot and all our pictures from Thanksgiving (we were using it on a 2 week trial basis) and I think those shots were pretty good. Heads and shoulders above any other camera we've ever had. I'm beside myself!

The third time was when my co-worker Carrie gave me these amazing coasters that she MADE. She always does a Christmas Craft project for us as gifts each year (mouse pads with personalized/funny pictures, t-shirts she made etc). Well everyone's coasters were different themes. Stephen's were logos of chain food restuarants, cause he loves them. Jim's theme was classic old film stars (bette davis, judy garland, vivian leigh...) and mine...was our wedding. And they are AMAZING. And made me cry. Because we've not done anything about wedding pictures yet, so we dont' have ANY up in our apartment. And something about seeing our wedding images in a tangible form, not just online, well...it made me cry.

How amazing are they?


I love them. You're crying too, a little bit, aren't you?

So all in all, it was a great office Christmas party. And not because people gave me great presents. But because as much as my job drives me crazy sometimes and I dream of moving to the country, the thing that keeps me there is really the people. I mean, I love the work too, but it's really my co-workers that make the difference. And I think they all feel the same. Even if they don't cry about it as much as I do.