This scarf I’m wearing? It works. Functionally and aesthetically. It’s like having the warm hands of a model wrapped around my neck, only this time they’re not strangling me but instead caressing. And I’m getting compliments on it from all angles, be they acute or obtuse, right or… wrong. The public has spoken and they are absolutely crazy pants about loving this scarf! People seem to be genuinely excited to be giving these compliments too, which at first I thought was nice if a bit odd, but now I’m thinking it’s because this is the first decisively fashionable item of clothing I’ve ever worn and everyone’s seizing the opportunity to say something nice about the way I dress before this window closes and I’m back to Welcome Back Kotter t-shirts and zip-off pants.

I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of this whole “wearing a scarf” concept lately because I’m back in my hometown for the holidays and have taken to spending much of my time strolling about the neighbourhood. It’s been nice, just allowing the cheerful memories and warm nostalgia to flow, evoked simply by walking past locations that once defined my life, now casually aging. We go way back, me and my hometown. And because each one of these walks is preceded by a twenty-five minute cram-session of me furiously clicking around the Facebook pages of people I could conceivably run into, when I do see someone I know I look like a total pro who just goes around remembering people’s names like it’s no big thing.

Christmas Eve is the best time for these walks because if you decide to make an unsolicited visit to someone’s house under the most tenuous of reasons (“I brought you this pinecone I found as a gift”) they’ll willingly allow you in and you can just — whoa, hang on. I think I realize why I like this season so much. I like it because it’s the only time of the year when the lack of social rules in a sitcom overlaps with reality. I, as the (let’s face it) wacky neighbour, can just waltz into people’s houses and start tossing off jokes I’ve written beforehand and no one seems to find this strange at all. Dare I say they’re even charmed by it? It’s the one time of year I’m able to perform the function I’ve inadvertently been preparing for all my life, and it’s never getting cancelled.