A Christmas of Firsts
After work on Thursday I found myself unmotivated to prepare supper. The idea entered my head to try out Uber Eats. You may recall I tried it during my road trip to Texas but my order was not completed due to it being Thanksgiving. I looked at my options and settled on shrimp tacos from Chili’s. It said it would take roughly an hour to get to me which was ok. The final price is high of course as you are paying for convenience. I also submitted a 25% tip for the Uber guy since it was the holidays. My food needed to be reheated in the microwave but it tasted good otherwise. I will definitely lean on Uber Eats once in awhile in the future.
Christmas Eve I went out with Elsa to three different stores to get groceries, Trader Joe’s, Sam’s Club, and Publix. Ironically the amount of frustration scaled with each stop. Publix was a madhouse with no carts available so I just stuffed what I needed in one of the hand baskets. It was loaded to the point of spilling over. I did actually decide to mask up in all three establishments. I figure big crowds indoors with Omicron going nuts, masking was a small sacrifice to make.
My afternoon was spent doing something that most of the country would find bizarre, mowing grass. It is an odd thing to do the day before Christmas in most places, but not here. I mowed the back yard as well as the areas right around the outside of the fence perimeter. Doing it now means I am likely good to go for the next month or two.
I spent my Christmas Eve again doing something unique, live streaming. Never have I streamed on a holiday but I had nothing else going on so I figured why not. I announced the stream only a few hours prior to going on. A decent amount of people showed up, I guess others have similar lack of things to do on Christmas Eve. I streamed incredibly long, over four hours. I technically streamed on Christmas as well since I didn’t run off the camera until close to 12:30 AM. The stream had more non-PEV talk in it than PEV, a rarity. The five White Claw’s I drank during the broadcast kept my lips moving.
So I have been sort of dreading Christmas, the first time in my life I recall ever feeling this way. During the live stream I described how this was the first time in my life I ever felt truly alone at Christmas. I have been in non-stop long term relationships as an adult and the Christmas I was single I still had my mom over so it wasn’t that bad. This year I had no family local and I had uncertainty over Katie, Daniel, DJ, or Cindy coming over. Nothing was rock solid and that made me sad.
I made no effort to get up early. When Elsa and I did get up I headed out to do normal Saturday chicken coop cleaning, trying to give the hens a few extra treats for the holiday. Once I came back inside it was sort of like any other day. I had presents sent to me by my family as well as the couple things I bought myself but I felt no real desire to open them. Around mid-morning I got a message from Katie that her, Daniel and DJ were coming over, Cindy opted to stay and watch baby Emily, which was fine but still made me feel a bit sad.
As we were getting close to them showing up I had weird emotions going through my head. A couple times I found myself with tears in my eyes for no clearly defined reason. I guess I was thinking back to the Christmas’s when my parents were freshly split/divorcing and finding parallels that made me sad. I decided to take a walk in the backyard and do some busy work to try to get my head cleared. The last thing I wanted to do was seem sad when DJ arrived.
When they pulled up I couldn’t help but laugh when DJ walked up to the front door still in his pajamas, it was very cute. He gave me a hug and said “love you pop pop”, something he said many times during the visit. It was the first time I had seen Daniel in a long time, I appreciated him being there. Of course I gave Katie a big hug as well. Before opening presents we just hung and talked for a bit. I sort of felt bad I didn’t have any refreshments to offer them other than the Publix sugar cookies I had on the counter. At one point I was going to make coffee but realized I don’t have the raw materials to do so.
So I had a large pile of presents, probably 75% of them were for DJ. DJ is funny, when you tell him to open presents, he is very delicate while doing so and often prefers if an adult just does it for him. He gets excited though as whatever is underneath is revealed. I got him a lot of toy car/truck items which he wanted to immediately unbox and play with. I did a lot of Etsy shopping this year, buying customized gifts for Katie, Daniel and baby Emmy. The one gift I got Katie made her cry, which almost made me cry, something I really was trying to avoid.
DJ’s final present was a big riding pedal car. He wanted to open that as well but since it had to be assembled we convinced him it should stay in the box. DJ liked opening presents so much I decided it was a good time for me to open my presents. He seemed to still be excited even though they were pop pop gifts. It was fun.
After opening all the stuff the three of them hung around for awhile. We walked the back yard while DJ had an armful of monster trucks in hand. It was just a simple moment of togetherness that I haven’t had much of in the last four months. It was really nice. Eventually they had to load up the truck as they had other stops to make yet during the day. I recalled those days in PA when Christmas meant going to three or four different locations throughout the day. I handed the kids the few gifts I had gotten for Cindy as well, a very weird moment in more ways than one.
DJ gave me a hug and told me he loved me a few more times before they pulled out. I thanked Daniel and Katie for coming, it pulled what was sort of a nosedive Christmas back into something that at least had some smiles and warm memories associated with it. We all agreed to play it by ear from this point forward but I think it’s clear we all would like to stay connected as time marches forward.
Cleaning up from the Christmas visit was easy compared to years past. I had things back to normal in less than 30 minutes. During the afternoon I decided I would make up for the Friday ride I forgot to take on my road bike. I did the 10 miles in the surprisingly warm temps, in the low 80’s. I thought the forecast I saw for Christmas day was a lot cooler a few days prior.
Christmas night I settled in to watch the new Matrix movie on HBO Max. I am a long time Matrix fan but was already sad to hear that others that saw the movie had the same general report, it sort of sucks. Regardless I had to see it myself. I was sleepy going in from the late night of streaming. It caused me to doze off a few times but I really don’t think it would have mattered if I slammed 4 cups of coffee instead. The movie was weird and confusing, much like I remembered Matrix 3 being. I liked seeing everyone back together but not being able to have sound understanding of the plot was really a negative. I have to give it a B-. I am glad it was included in my HBO Max subscription. If I paid movie theater prices to see it I may be slightly more bitter.
My Sunday was very low key for me. After completing my chores I did a lot of whatever I wanted to do whether that be play some WoW, set up my new Nintendo Switch, go for a ride to Dunkin Donuts or watch a movie, I did all four.
The movie I watched was Don’t Look Up, a new release on Netflix. In a nutshell the plot is the world is going to end due to an incoming comet. The movie was satirical but also a painfully true account of just how fcked up we are as a society. It made me laugh and cringe at the same time as I realized that much of the ridiculous behavior portrayed is actually on point with American society in 2021. To me it came off as a modern day Idiocracy. You really should check it out, I’d give it an A.
I am enjoying my last day off today, Monday. I already ran some errands and filmed a short video about the week long print I was attempting, that failed, but in the end was actually a success. It sounds confusing but the video explains.
The rest of my day is likely to follow a similar path as yesterday. I am not looking to fill the hours with chores. I will do whatever I feel like, and try to not feel guilty about it.