The :[ expression on the gingerbread person in the upper right matches my own mood more than I’d like to admit.
It’s Christmas! For another…hour-ish, Pacific time.Listen, I didn’t get around to blogging until late today. But now I’m here with hot chocolate with whiskey in it, ready to write a few words.
This Christmas has managed to average out to mediocre, which I’m taking as something of a win. Here’s a rundown of the actual events, such as they are:
Visited Davis
I headed back to Davis, CA, the world’s most scientifically-advanced cow town and also my hometown, to visit my mom for a few days. It turns out I still hate flying from an airports/logistics stress perspective, and I forgot to take Dramamine on my flight to California and kicked off being low-key nauseated for most of the time I was there.
Seeing my hometown was nice and I managed to pop into a few businesses I have fond memories of. Bizarro World, the comics/games shop, had a slimmer used RPG section than I’m used to them having, but there were still a few interesting games. Turns out there was an entire Starship Troopers RPG, including a bunch of splat books! I also headed to the thrift store (nothing too interesting, a copy of Pokemon Shield was available but I didn’t ask the price), and the Avid Reader, a very nice local bookstore. I didn’t pick anything up for myself because the monetary squeeze from unemployment is really starting to hit. My mother was very kind and bought me a signed copy of Patrick Rothfuss’s The Narrow Road Between Desires, which I’m looking forward to reading.
The main event as such while I was there was sorting through my Dad’s old clothes to see what I might like to keep and what we’re going to give away, and also going through a bunch of childhood stuff stored in the closet of my old bedroom. Neither was the most fun thing I’ve ever done, through the childhood stuff sorting was definitely the easier thing. It’s not nearly done, though, so I’ll need to go back and finish some other time. I didn’t end up bringing too much back in my luggage, but I hauled a number of newly-inherited clothing items that I hope will be in rotation soon.
I came back to Seattle on the 21st, greeted by an extra toasty apartment and an iguana who probably didn’t appreciate at all that I left the heat up for her while I was gone. It was wonderful to see her again, though. I missed my angry mini-dinosaur quite a bit even though I was only gone for a few days.
Christmas Eve
None of my friends ended up planning any sort of party, and last year I spent Christmas Eve (and morning) with my ex M’s local family members, so I couldn’t really do a repeat of last year. Which is a shame, because it was really really nice to get to do the whole cozy Christmas Eve thing (decorating a tree, etc.) with a family and feel warm and welcome and all that. Sigh.
What I did end up doing was making Christmas cookies for myself with limited success (see picture above). The base cookie was good but took way longer in the oven than the recipe said, but maybe I overbaked them. They didn’t end up all dry or anything, so I’m not sure. The icing wasn’t great, though. Good enough when on the cookie, but as a standalone it had kind of a…tang, I guess. The corn syrup used as part of it had vanilla in it, which I think might have thrown off the balance of the flavors towards a slight alcoholic/extract-y undertaste. Also it turns out I don’t actually own any Christmas-y cookie cutters besides the gingerbread men, so I ended up using the dinosaur ones I do own. They’re Christmas dinosaurs. Roll with it. >.>;;;
Besides that I watched The Muppet Christmas Carol for the first time, and loved it. A couple friends and I had a discord call in lieu of our usual RPG game because so many people had to tap out, where we talked about potential RPGs for a side podcast project. Perhaps not the ideal evening, but good all things considered. And certainly better than spending it totally isolated, which I worried would be what happened.
Christmas Day
Today! Fewer things happened today. I opened the presents my mom sent home with me and got a cute pair of (knee high, yay!) socks and Legends & Lattes, a sweet, lovely book by Travis Baldree. After eating breakfast and finishing the muppet movie (I’d started nodding off during the last half hour the night before), I spent a chunk of the day reading straight through L&L while sipping coffee and finishing more of the cookies.
Later on I had a call with my mom and sister over Zoom. Getting a chance to talk to my sister is always nice, as we don’t talk very often despite getting along well. Our lives are in very different places, based on a combination of a moderately large age gap (8 years) and our divergent circumstances. She’s been married for quite a while and has three kids. I’ve managed to somehow not find my marriageable person/people despite my best efforts for 15+ years and my angry teen-esque iguana is about as close as I’ll likely get to having kids. So yeah, different! Always good to catch up nonetheless.
I did manage to continue a couple of traditions today despite flying solo. I had Christmas Tacos, a tradition from my dad’s side of the family that came about from my grandmother being sick of all of the effort it took to make Christmas dinner and all of us going “y’know, we all like tacos and would be happy to just do that instead.” I also made myself a more traditional Christmas dinner (the tacos were lunch) with ham and cranberry sauce and roasted vegetables and potatoes, but that was for fun. And I engaged in the most important tradition of all, watching A Charlie Brown Christmas, something I started doing in 2020 as a way to make lockdown feel Christmas-y and have made a point of keeping up ever since.
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That was a way longer recap than I intended, sorry y’all…
In the end, Christmas was rough emotionally this year in a lot of ways. It drove home a lot of the things I lost due to the breakup, from events/people I enjoyed to having someone special who could support me (and I support them) during the holiday stressors. I’m not fully over the breakup yet, but the last couple weeks re-opened that wound somewhat in a way I wasn’t expecting. I also ended up feeling more isolated than usual, due in art to not having much holiday stuff to get caught up in. I like being social, and I actually really like holidays, but it didn’t gel together this year. Next year I might need to be the change I want to see in the world, so to speak. Even though I personally find the idea of planning and running a Christmas party as a person who lives on their own to be very daunting.
Still, I survived and had some good moments mixed in. I’m not sure I’ll take that as a win, but I didn’t fully lose either, and that’s something.
Merry Christmas! Here’s hoping yours went better than mine, and that we both have even better ones next year. <3
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