A few thoughts on Christmas Eve

At four o'clock in the morning on the day I came to this rig I entered a 24-hour CVS to grab some snacks for the four-hour ride to the heliport. While there I made an impulse buy in purchasing a strand of plastic tinsel-ated garland with foil snowflakes to decorate my offshore workspace with, for I knew with a gloomy sort of certainty that I would be working on Christmas, so goshdarnitall if I wasn't going to celebrate.

That strand of silver tinsel snowflakes now sits hangs off the bottom edge of our supply cabinets, just at the top of my range of vision when I stare at my laptop screen to type this. It has been added to by a pair of red and green tinsel garlands we gleaned from the shipment of Christmas decorations sent to the rig along with the regular grocery delivery.

So we are beset on all sides by lengths of mercilessly garish plastic. The most heinous of all petroleum products, these tinsel garlands are a fitting celebration for a Christmas on an oil rig. The silver one I purchased is small and dainty, barely offensive if given no more than a cursory glance, but the red and green garlands absconded from the rig supplies are wrist-thick swags of fake pine needles; a raccoon's tail drapery of hideousness.

And yet these glaring shades give me a sense of joy, a pure feeling resonating from whatever sense memories recall my happiest holiday moments -- which are alas too few and far between the times when I spent Christmas a whining and moping brat-- giving me a giddiness one might not expect for someone which such a dreary holiday prospect.

This is a good thing to offset the difficulties of the past week. I finally got enough sleep last night, but woke up just in time to spend the next four hours outside in the rain (and wind so hard it was blowing the rain straight down my ear canals) preparing for our next bit run. After all the equipment failures we had (two computers, one peripheral device, and a danged tape measure!) I'm working with the bare minimum to run my job and the weather is too rough (again, the wind) for the helicopter carrying the replacements to make it out here.

But writing this is putting Christmas carols in my head. So God rest ye, merry gentlemen, for I have some oil to drill for and some tunes to sing.