When does her winter break start? Ours doesn't start until Friday, which feels late to me.

She's off to take a test right now, as they're doing finals this week. So we've got the same break schedule.

New car and warm butts! Perhaps a big red bow!

Now I want a big red bow on Teppy's butt!

the first without my mom, which was full of love and joy and still absolutely gutting and weird and wrong without her. Both can coexist.

They can. And I guess this year they will.

At the beginning of many of the Jewish holidays, there's a blessing that thanks G*d for getting us to this time and event. The first holiday without my father, I couldn't say it. I just couldn't. Expressing out loud the joy over being there, when he wasn't - I just couldn't. The mix of joy and longing is sometimes even harder than the absence and longing in and of itself.

Yeah, I could use some more joyeaux.

I don't want to say that it helps me out that my own mother is, well, kind of on the Scrooge spectrum. Because, believe it or not, sometimes I kind of hate it(How scary is it that I'm as close as our fam gets to an elf.) Out of the zillion things that will be on my mind when she passes(and, given our current arrangement and the administrative attitude of "Don't know what to tell ya," I get from the lesser powers, some of that might be frightening) living up to our Christmas traditions will never make the list. You probably know this from being divorced, as well as other tough times, Hec, but don't try *too hard* to Make A Moment....in my experience this makes pressure and resentment instead of the memories people want to relive.(My family spent a lot of time Being Okay after my parents broke up. Nobody was.)

For the first couple of Christmases without my dad (starting when he was in the nursing home and not especially responsive), my mother really overscheduled our Christmas Day, and I get it, but wow, was I relieved when she got through that phase. Like, we went to church, and visited multiple friends, and went to the nursing home. All good things to do! But I was fine spending a good chunk of the day at home, and she really was not for a while there.

New car and warm butts! Perhaps a big red bow!

OH MY GOD THE CAR IS SO AWESOME!!! It is so shiny and black, and therefore 100% KITT from Knight Rider. (Or, I guess, Mr. Feeny from Boy Meets World.)

Now I want a big red bow on Teppy's butt!

I do have a picture somewhere of me with a big gold bow on my butt*, like you do.

*(Over my jeans! Fully clothed! Just to be clear.)

Yeah, there's definitely something strange about the passage of time (though, seeing as this same PiBoy is going to be Bar-Mitzva in only a few months, this strangeness encompasses others, too).

WHAAAAA????? Unpossible. Nuh-uh.

Separate note, but for various reasons (like, 90% my sister, let us be honest), this is going to be a less-than-optimal holiday season for me, though far less less-than-optimal for many, so yeah. Gentle hugs to all.

OH MY GOD THE CAR IS SO AWESOME!!! It is so shiny and black, and therefore 100% KITT from Knight Rider. (Or, I guess, Mr. Feeny from Boy Meets World.)

Nice!!

Yeah, there's definitely something strange about the passage of time (though, seeing as this same PiBoy is going to be Bar-Mitzva in only a few months, this strangeness encompasses others, too).

I also meant to express amazement and consternation at this fact!!

WOO KITT!

I always liked Christmas and all that went with it, but it was a huge relief to me when I decided not to celebrate it at all. Just lightened the load. Not that everyone should do that, obviously, but it is a burden even if it's generally good.

I always liked Christmas and all that went with it, but it was a huge relief to me when I decided not to celebrate it at all. Just lightened the load.

It occurred to me recently that the burden I feel around Christmas is because it's treated as a whole dang season -- not "season" as in spring, summer, fall -- but it feels to me like it's at least a month of ChristmasChristmasChristmas. And that just wears me out. It's helping me to think of it more like Thanksgiving. Or Thanksgiving Premium, since Thanksgiving is one day, and Christmas for me encompasses 2 days (Eve and Day) because of the various family members.

Anyway, thinking of it as just a 2-day slot has helped me be less overwhelmed by it. (The conflict is that I married someone who is full-on, let's-start-celebrating-Christmas-after-dessert-Thanksgiving-night. But we're finding ways to meet in the middle without me feeling too overwhelmed* and him feeling like all the Griswold Family joy has been sucked away.)

*(Now that Tim has a 6-million-dollar back, he can't bring up the tree from the basement, or the big ol' wooden base that the train tracks sit on, or the big giant wreath for the front porch. So that leaves puny me to do it, and that is an adjustment. Now that I've got my post-Long Covid cardio pretty much back where it needs to be, I really have to add in weights, because I am the only member of this household that can lift anything over 15 pounds.) (And that's because the cat is a lazy slacking freeloader.)