Hugs, supportive fist-bumps, and protective bubble-wrap for everybody, as appropriate and desired.

Shir, lovely to see your posts; seeing your "I love you" always makes me mist up, but in an incredibly good way. My usual greeting specifically for Christmas is usually, "Peace on Earth, goodwill to folks," but that sticks in my throat this year even more than it did last year. So much love to you and Nilly and your family and friends.

I am going across to the East Bay tomorrow to have Xmas dinner with some old friends. This is my first real social outing since BayCon in July, and I'm having some anxiety about it. I've always been an introvert, but ... yeah, the past four years have definitely taken a toll.

Susan, yikes! It’s good to hear your friend will get good medical care, though.

Something at brunch today gave me food poisoning, but not bad enough that I had to skip Christmas Eve dinner at my mom’s. (I did not eat anything at Mom’s; just drank sparkling water for 6 hours.) My tummy had better be back to normal tomorrow.

Man, the one thing I can always count on at my mom’s is amazing fucking wine and lots of great cheese. I had my gluttony planned for the day! And then my plans were foiled. Boo hoo.

KITT the new car drives like a dream. It’s delightful.

Happy Holidays, Buffistas.

GG plan should include Golden Guys. I'm hear for the "sometimes I want to be alone" and "sometimes I crave company".

Shir and Nilly, always thinking about you! thank you for checking in.

Healing~ma for that need it.

Well the perils of a golden girls situation is you might have a night like tonight where we all suggested Christmas movies, voted on them, turned the first one off an hour in for being depressing, turned the second one off ten minutes in for being awful, and then everyone either wandered off or fell asleep when we picked a third one…

I'm absolutely down for golden girls and guys.

I need to get more social with my condo neighbors. This year I hope to have a regular time I go to the gym and pool to connect with the same people regularly. Also, I want to start a book club. There is a condo bulletin board for organizing such things. When we do have social gatherings here I always enjoy the neighbors, and when we share the public areas everyone is always nice. It is a wide variety of ages and nationalities. 2024 goals - be more social and embrace my inner extrovert.

Merry Christmas and/or magnificent Monday to all!

Well the perils of a golden girls situation is you might have a night like tonight where we all suggested Christmas movies, voted on them, turned the first one off an hour in for being depressing, turned the second one off ten minutes in for being awful, and then everyone either wandered off or fell asleep when we picked a third one…

This was us last night! We picked Netflix movies that were supposedly most liked and so forth. The first one was just bleak and awful and bad. The second one was considerably better, because song and dance, but is never going to be a classic. I thought we would try something new, but I think we may have to go back to Miracle on 34th Street and A Christmas Carol next year! Maybe White Christmas too. Something to be said for the classics.

My dip into the MonsterVerse was the right call yesterday. Didn't demand anything from my brain and enjoyable enough. Slight throat thing is staying slight so far.

Merry Christmas to those who are Christmassing today!

This is my first non-Chtistmas Christmas, and I'm pretty much not trying to make it otherwise, because that way lies the blerghs.

Listen, having spent Christmas 2019 in the hospital, I can cope with this! Funnily enough, that Christmas was actually more Christmassy, because my friends had decorated a tree in my room, and there were other decorations, and people visited Christmas Eve and Day, and family came in the 27th for an in-room Christmas, and the nursing staff had given me this super huge "VIP" room when they consolidated wards a couple days before because it was so empty and I had been with them since, basically March, so we were pals.

I remember noting at the time that it was a weird privilege -- I got to see more of my loved people than I usually did on around Christmas. And there was a light at the end of the tunnel with a much hoped for "fix it" surgery coming up. Wouldn't want a repeat, but there was much good there.

Being surrounded with love is absolutely the best way to spend the holiday, even if in the hospital. Nice that it is a good memory now.

My son and GF are visiting for his birthday in January so I booked an Airbnb on a houseboat in Marathon the 20th, and got tickets for the Florida Symphony in Key West that evening. I had wanted to go to that performance here on the 17th, but DH had a basketball game that day and when I looked for other dates I saw the one in Key West. So the Tennessee Williams theater it is! Excursion time. Son's birthday is the 19th, but DH has a game against Marjory Stoneman Douglas that night so we'll be going to that game.

Skipping and skimming to wish y'all who celebrate happy holidays, my weird internet fam. Thank you for sticking with Nilly and myself in the parallel war universe we found ourselves in in the past months.

I think about the two of you constantly. (Having an office near Tel Aviv means I have coworkers there, as I've mentioned. It wouldn't be far from my mind anyhow, what with you and Nilly and other friends, but somehow, having both friends and teammates adds an extra layer of feeling the need for awareness. And worry.)

Susan, OMG! That's horrible. I'm glad you all could wrangle things, but oh no!

Santa Emmett. What a great surprise!

Karl, babe... no need to be anxious; think about how lucky they are to see you!(of course, I'm biased in that, as always) Tep, tough break. Shir, we think of you a lot.