Just banging out a “quick” post to provide some updates to the <checks analytics> zero people who visit the site. Cool cool cool. Anyway, I set this up as, I guess, a sort of New Year’s Resolution last year to “make something”. I don’t (at least yet) aspire to be any sort of “content creator” so I’m not getting in to streaming (although I’ve done it) or making YouTube videos (although I’ve done it and will likely do it again when the “my friends will probably want to watch this” feeling strikes me again) or even writing longform essays (although that’s closer, I’m not about to start a newsletter or anything). However, I do still have all these dumb ideas floating inside my dumb head, and I’m still going to vomit them onto this site, and hopefully even more frequently! (Stay tuned for that!)
Anyway, things are fine. Thanksgiving was fun; I went back “home” and saw family (including the small portion of my family inurned in the National Cemetery of the Alleghenies, which is beautiful) and ate and had a nice weekend. And then immediately after Thanksgiving is over (or really, even before it’s over), “Christmas” starts, and that comes with its own big pile of stressors.
For me, it’s not a big deal – the stressors aren’t things like “oh my god I’m so lonely and I can’t handle it” – I get why some people experience that, and if that’s you, I’m sorry. Especially in this day and age, not only are there people out there with nobody close to them, but there are possibly even more people who do have people, but for whatever reason can’t turn to those people. (Parents who have fallen down conspiracy rabbit holes, communities who have decided you’re no longer acceptable company, or friends who, maybe just through the ceaseless march of time, have drifted away and started entirely separate lives.) It can be overwhelming to be surrounded by a world that keeps hammering you with “it’s a time for celebration, and togetherness, and magic” while also providing you with nothing to celebrate, nobody to be with, and nothing at all magical.
If that’s you; I don’t know what to tell you, other than… I get it, I think. I can’t say that I’m really “celebrating” anything right now, and the family I’m visiting this week for Christmas are mostly working all week, so I’ll still be mostly occupying an empty house, just someone else’s house (which might be worse?). I could never understand the magnitude of what you’re feeling, but I think I can at least comprehend why you’re feeling it, and I hope you make it through the season. If it’s because you’re lonely, try to find the other lonely people and help each other hold it together. If it’s because you’re just “over it” – that’s ok. You have no real obligations other than the ones you place on yourself. (You might think other people are placing them on you, but you can tell them to shove it. Hell, maybe you’ve already done that, which might have been what led to the loneliness. If that’s the case, then you still probably did the right thing for yourself because boundaries are important.)
My holiday stressors are much more mundane – as soon as Thanksgiving is over, the “Christmas to-do list” starts. I have to buy all the gifts. I have to buy, write, and mail the cards. (I didn’t do that this year.) I have to get stuff for the work holiday party. I have to get stuff for my friends’ party. I have to have the money to do all of these things. I have to have the time to do all of these things, while still otherwise maintaining a day-to-day life. (As an aside, I feel like everyone else “does” more stuff than I do, but they also still have more free time, too? I don’t know how that works, and it’s probably just either my perception or they’re spending more time and effort on looking like they have it together…)
But the gifts are purchased, and the work party has happened, and the friends’ party is in a couple of hours, and I have just one more work day (at least before Christmas; I don’t take off the week between Christmas and New Year’s), and so the stressful part of the holiday is in the past. On Thursday, the gifts will be exchanged, and then the “oh, I guess that’s it, then” feelings will hit, and then it’s right back to… whatever it is. Back to jobs we don’t like that don’t pay enough. Back to a world that gives you something to be outraged about every single day, but doesn’t give you any time to really feel that outrage, both because of the aforementioned job(s) and because the next day brings something new.
It does feel like this year is possibly the least “Christmassy” it’s felt in a long time. I don’t know if it’s the political atmosphere (which blows) or the economy (which certainly makes spending a bunch of money on other people feel less good than it usually does), or just getting older (and everyone in my family getting older) making us all just want to spend less time on this stuff. Another theory I have is that, with “Christmas season” expanding more and more into the rest of the year, all the cheer and whatnot kind of gets diluted and there isn’t any left when the actual holiday rolls around.
But with all that said… it’s fine? There’s still something “nice” about the holidays, sort of capping off the year and letting us all reflect and reset and prepare for another one. I’ll make another post soon sort of “wrapping up” 2025 and then another laying out 2026. (Spoiler alert: just as setting up this page was a sort of “resolution” for 2025, I’ll have another for 2026 to actually use it more. Maybe as frequently as weekly? Weekly is tough, because I don’t know that I really have that much to talk about. We’ll see.)
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