Hide, it's the Holly Jolly Trolley again.

Saturday morning of this past weekend, Patrick and I checked out of the hotel we stayed in after the wedding and into a B&B. We're becoming rather snobby about our accommodations, and I don't mind saying so. The hotel offered nothing but a plastic carousal of cereals (reminding me of a hamster feeder), bad coffee, and a "variety of toasts" for breakfast.

Unimpressive.

 

The B&B is one we stayed in back in July, and if you've ever had a good B&B breakfast (hellurrr--it's the second B in "B&B", the breakfast is supposed to be good!) then you'll understand why we prefer them over hotels. Our B&B knocks it out of the park.

After check-in, we high-tailed it over to the St. Augustine outlet mall for a little retail therapy. Just kidding. Spending money just for kicks this time of year is more like Holidayus Walletitius Nervosa for us. We'd been spending enough money on rooms and food and gas to get to St. Auggie, so we wandered around window shopping, but spent nothing. Debilitating holiday retail psychoses aside, even at outlet store prices, I just can't justify spending $348 on a purse--even if it is Coach. My $29.99 Nine West from Marshall's is still holding up nicely, thankyouverymuch.

Realizing it was around 2:00 in the afternoon and we'd not had anything to eat since breakfast, we made our way back to historic downtown St. Augustine for lunch. When last we were there,, back in the summer, I inhaled vacuumed up delicately and politely consumed a reasonable amount of an immensely pleasurable cheeseboard sampler for dinner at a great local farm-to-table restaurant called The Floridian. For months, in anticipation of coming back to St. Augustine for the wedding did I daydream about going back and ordering the cheeseboard again. I was dead set on having it.

We were too hungry and lazy to park at the B&B and walk to the restaurant, so we tried to find closer parking. No where could you park for less than $10. Even for varieties of local cheeses, served with crunchy baguette slices, seasonal fruit, candied pecans, and Florida honey, could I make myself spend $10 to park somewhere to spend 45 minutes to an hour, tops, inside eating a late lunch.

No sir. Not gonna do it.

At last, I relinquished my dream, and we drove back to the B&B to park, ate a bite at lunch place right around the corner, walked back to our room, and took ourselves a nice little 2-3 hour nap. (I can neither confirm nor deny that my quality of sleep the night before had been compromised by alcohol and its sleep-disrupting effects. Suffice it to say, that nap was absolutely rejuvenating.)

Waking up around 5:30 (yyaaawwwnnnn, streeeeeetch, Can we do this every day?!) we got ourselves together to meet Patrick's mom, dad, and brother to have a little early birthday dinner for Patrick, as a treat to us from my loverly parents-in-law.

Most folks who live in the area are familiar with the trolleys that cruise around downtown St. Augustine giving tours. Well, folks, it's Christmas Time, which means they break out the Holly Jolly Trolley (oh, aren't they so clever?) to give folks a tour of the beautifully decorated downtown. Walking to dinner, several passed us. As they passed, loaded with riders, the passengers would call out and cheer, "Merry Christmas!" "Wooo!" "Meeeerrrrrryyyy Christmas!"

These people sure are pumped up about Christmas! Each time it was the same thing. "Yeow! Merry Christmas!" "Woooooo, Merry Christmas, y'all!" We'd call back, "Merry Christmas," and wave.

After dinner, we all decided to stroll around, looking in shop windows, and perhaps find somewhere for a after-dinner glass of wine or cup of coffee. It was getting dark (this time of year, it may only be 6:30, but still--it's dark) and the lights downtown were beautiful. There was a hazy, heavy mist in the air, adding to the magical glow of the lights--or to the creepy "Old City gots itself some Ghosts" vibe, either way. The Holly Jolly Trolley was still trolley-ing all over town. The Holly Jolly tour-takers were still just as excited to call out to all pedestrians on the street.

Our returning good wishes for holiday cheer were starting to become a little less enthusiastic. But we tried, you know? None of us wanted to be that person--the one who refuses to call out "Merry Christmas!" to a trolley-full of holiday revelers. But as our enthusiasm for this little bit of cheer waned, it seems the trolley-riders' was on a disproportionate uptick.

A blessedly empty trolley

Turns out, those trolleys run late into the evening. And they don't become more endearing as the hours go on. The later it got, the more it began to feel like we were at a tailgate being screamed at by obnoxious boozy frat boys. Less and less could you hear, "Merry Christmas," and more and more did you hear "YYYYYEEEEAAAAAHHHHHH!" "YEOW!" WWWWOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Sorry I did all caps. As irritating as that is to read, it was vastly more irritating to hear.

Patrick's parents and brother left us to go back to their hotel room, and we continued to stroll. It started to become a thing.

"Oh, crap. Another Holly Jolly Trolley."

"Don't make eye contact! Maybe they won't yell."

"Hang on, it's about to turn the corner and pass us. Let's dip back here for a minute."

"Okay, here it is again. Don't. Make. Eye. Contact.... Phew."

We finally made it back to the B&B, but not before being stuck with one last trolley cruising down the little road our house was on. We turned away and pretended to study the back of a parking meter. Thankfully, we went unnoticed and it passed without a single drunk-boy frat party yell being directed at us.

As I've said before, I do love the holidays, and Christmas in particular. As with anything, though, it turns out that you can have too much of a good thing--holiday cheer, in this case. If you wish me a Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, I'll certainly return the good wishes. But do it roughly 30 times in the evening? My heart my shrink to 3 sizes too small and I'll be forced to take your last can of Who Hash. Don't do that to me. Please.