Holiday time makes everything especially festive
The most interesting thing happened to me this morning. I have a reverse commute from just outside of Boston to Reading, MA up Route 93 North. On any given workday, 93 South is a veritable parking lot starting very early in the day and running until about 9:30a or so, and I always feel so bad for the travelers stuck in that mess everyday.
I need to be at the library by 9a on Fridays, and it takes about 20 minutes to drive to work sans traffic, so onto the highway I hopped this morning. What to my wondering eyes should appear all sorts of empty space on 93 South. The traffic was just as sparse and flowing as it was on my side of the highway. While I realize that the lack of cars is likely due to people starting their holiday off time early today (yesterday was the normal traffic yuck), I choose to see it as the holiday spirit somehow.
My library is all sorts of festive. We’ve got Holiday Goof-off time (click on the little pic for details), more sugary gifts than anyone can possibly imagine, all sorts of decorations, and holiday music playing on all of the computers at the service points. Not just your boring classics, but streaming audio from all sorts of holiday music channels with hip remixes of classics. My computer is playing The Christmas Lounge, with music from the likes of Sutro Heights, Rauder & Hobbs, and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. And it was playing this when I *got* here to the Information Desk for my shift, so it’s not just me.
Not to mention that our director, Ruth, was kinda enough to treat everyone in the library to lunch take-away from a local Thai place for lunch. Many, many thanks to a director who gives 150% to the library.
In the meantime, the Friends of the Library annual book sale display is almost empty, which is awesome. Every year, we order a selection of books, and sell them with proceeds going to the Friends. The Friends are the wonderful people who do all sorts of work for the library, and raise funds to provide us with financial resources for programs. Many a snack at many a program is thanks to the Friends!
Everything is decorated. We’ve got menorahs, trees, garlands, snowmen, wreaths, bows, and a lovely-yet-anachronistic bouquet of pink and white roses on the Information Desk. Where they came from, I don’t know. But they are lovely.
The library will be closed over the weekend, but we’ll be right back in the swing of things next week, offering movie nights for teens (3 nights of Lord of the Rings movies), DDR, and all sorts of other fun for the younger vacationers.
I myself will be trying to write up some of my recent adventures in librarianship, including my 3-week course in volunteer management, a really interesting 1/2 course on technology planning and management sponsored by NMRLS and WebJunction, and maybe those classes I did in CT at the beginning of the month. I’m guessing that won’t count towards my Holiday Goof-off time quota, even if it’s on my own blog on work time. I need to find more creative ways…
You would think that the Friday before Christmas would be dead in here. While I’m not getting as many hits on the desk as I would during a normal Friday from 2-5p, this joint is hoppin’. All 6 computers in the lab are taken, all 4 kiosk machines in front of the Information Desk are busy, students are working on National History Day projects, other patrons are picking out movies and books for the weekend, although I have no idea when they’ll have time to read them. How anyone will have time to read *this*, I don’t know. 
In any case, a Happy Solstice to everyone (started last night at 7:22p, so it’s technically still Solstice, thank you :D), and if I don’t post again before then, a Merry Christmas to everyone, too.
Tags: work
