Hello and welcome to the land of Christmastime craziness. It is snowing, days of silently drifting snowflakes interrupted by days of howling wind, miserably cold. We survived the wall of bookings coming in for Christmas, we survived the dreaded 26th of December, when crazy just gets crazier because as so many Christmas guests are leaving the county, so very many more are arriving. We have to get through New Years yet, then we will have eight weeks of semi-crazy before spring break starts and everything gets out of control again. Some seasonal jobs start out busy, then let off until they die out, but this job starts slow in November, gets busy in december, crazy busy during the holidays, busy in January and February, and then, in March, just as we are beginning to get really burned out, everything gets so crazy we do not do anything, we just exist in the middle of a whirlwind of phone calls, rediculous requests, early arrivals, late check outs, and everything that goes along with keeping vacationers happy. We have had clogged toilets, non-functioning fireplaces, heat down, doors jammed, keys stop working, elevators stop working, lost cell phones, lost sweaters, lost guests, and, most recently, an obvious scam designed to fool us into giving a free upgrade- a completely fake confirmation letter claiming that was what they were promised.

I feel like my brain is fried. I finally came home and cleaned the house tonight. I even did a load of laundry, which now needs to be folded. Almost every night this week has involved falling asleep on the couch.

We did get a bit of time on Christmas day, although not as much as we had hoped for. Just enought to sleep in, then ride snowmobiles for an hour, get one of them stuck in the hip-deep snow, dig it out, come home and rake the eaves, then go to work for the rest of the day... at least B did. I, on the other hand, had most of the day off. I took my cross country skis up to Montezuma for a couple hours, then took my alpine skis to Keystone for one, and only one run. It woulda been more, but it got really cold and miserable and I spent so much time getting there and getting all my gear around I ran out of time and well, ok so I admit it, I wussed out. I returned to Marci's early for dinner, played Guitar Hero until everyone elso showed up, ate, went hot tubbing, and finally drove home.

Anyway, this child's tired. We get to get up and do it all over again in the morning. Oh, well, all that means is we are alive, healthy, and have a job. And we are in the countdown. Only a slightly drippy nose, no sign of the annual debilitating New Years Eve cold yet, and only four days to go.