So Kris actually belongs to the Jingle Bros (Part 1 and Part 2) from last year. But I ran out of time to add him to the roster, so, you know what, he can be part of today. And he's just as I made him last year, I didn't bother remaking him.
And of course he's a halfling.
Merry Christmas to the, like, handful of people who still bother reading my blog. Essentially it's just a diary I shout into the void these days. But I'm still grateful for anybody who has stuck around.
So, indulge me for a little bit if you will. I'm feeling a little... garrulous.
The observant amongst you would have noticed that there was no traditional putting up of the Christmas Tree this year. No scantily clad Christmas hunk posted earlier on Christmas Day.
Yeah, I wasn't, and am still not, feeling it.
What I am feeling is more pain than I would like. And the sentence that has been whirling around in my head all day, and was originally going to be the opening line for this post is thus.
Surprising nobody, pain changes your brain chemistry. Regular pain more so. And for at least the last month, my brain has been dealing with intermittent pain from my back. Or, weirdly, pain that SHOULD be in my back, but is often on the sides of my calves, because nervous systems are fucked up little monkeys.
So, the last thing I wanted, or was physically able, to do at the start of the month, was drive down to Ma's place and put the Christmas Tree up. And so, left to her own devices, and under strict instructions that if she attempted to construct and dress the whole Christmas Tree I would be Very Angry With Her, the image above was the result.
It's not great, it also doesn't suck. It's the top third of the regular tree, inserted into the base of the regular tree. And had I been involved I might have attempted something with the Christmas Lights, it's not terrible.
But, going back to... well, my back. I can't sit for long. Not in most places. When I do, the aforementioned pain starts to creep in around the edges. And then all I want to do is go lie down. But after I've been lying down on and off for almost a month, that also fucks with my brain.
So, clearly, given this little story, I'm in a weird place this Christmas. Last Christmas was pre-moving stress. This is... less intense. But, honestly, I didn't much care about Christmas this year. And, yeah, I know, if you go back through the last few years, I've been saying some version of that for the last several years. But it's still true.
I still went through all the motions. But it was mostly for other people. And while I had fun along the way, I wasn't feeling it. Which brings us to today. Let's just say that left to my own devices, I probably wouldn't have bothered much.
I woke up about as early as I have been of late, which is a little too early for my tastes. And I'd already told Ma there wasn't much of a point in me being down at hers super early. So I wasn't in any kind of rush. I faffed around, watched some YouTube stuff, and finally got my ass into gear, before having a shower, loading up the car with what little there was to load it with, closed up the house with the aircon on so I'd come home to a nice cool house and toddling up the road to Ma's place at about 8:45 or so.
We had our usual breakfast of croissants, and I'll be honest, as much as Ma always asks what I want on/with them, generally speaking I just want a little butter and that good, good warm pastry.
We fucked around a bit after, I complained, as I do every year, that none of the TV stations just digs into their stock of shitty (or not shitty) Christmas movies and just runs them end to end all day. There are enough channels these days, they could totally do that. I don't want to WATCH them, you understand, but I like some, as we call it, colour and movement going on in the background, since it's just Ma and I.
I never keep track of time on Christmas Day at the best of times, and it somehow tends to just flow through my brain like water anyway, so who the fuck knows when anything happened...
But between mostly ignoring and quite often going "Hey, it's that person who was in that other thing", we put the original 1947 Miracle on 34th Street (it does kinda fall over a bit when you realise that Santa is also Captain Wiles from my favourite Hitchcock movie, The Trouble With Harry) and at some point in the process it was time for presents, such as it was.
And I say that only because a lot of my presents are what happens when you say "oh, that thing I need, or that thing we just bought, that can go away for Christmas". For... like the last four months. So it's all some combination of kinda from Ma, kinda from me to me.
But it also includes the presents from Mr, Mrs and Fluffy from Board Game Christmas.
So, starting there...
- LEGO Horizon Forbidden West: Tallneck
(from Fluffy... nearly made me cry because reasons) - IKEA BLÅHAJ Baby Shark
(again, Fluffy... because we got slightly obsessed with some stupid IKEA Japan videos and the sharks in general) - Here to Sleigh expansion deck (from Mr and Mrs... they bought me the original game a couple of years back)
- Q Workshop 2022 Advent Dice Calendar (from Mr and Mrs at the end of November)
- IKEA PIPSTÄKRA quilt cover (which also has an associated fitted sheet and a couple of pillowcases for other pillows, but I didn't bother including them)
- IKEA VINTERFINT Apple scented candle in metal tin
- Bonds Essentials Move Pullover Hoodie (plus a couple of Bonds tees, also not included)
- Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes sourcebook
- Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
- Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops by Shaun Bythell
- LEGO Minifigure Series 23 Cardboard Robot (the one problem with blind box things is sometimes you get the one you're wildly ambivalent about instead of one of the 11 you really, really like)
- Chessex Polyhedral Dice Sets in Translucent Orange, Translucent Yellow and Light Blue
Oh, and some Bundaberg Spiced Ginger Beer, which is not so much a present, as something I was definitely taking home.
I took some photos, moved some stuff around, and then we started on lunch prep. Which went about the same as always, albeit slightly smoother than some years.
We put the potatoes in with the turkey and the sausage meat, so they got all good and crispy. But mostly it was switching between half watching The Holiday and doing prep.
And I'm just now remembering that I forgot to steal both the last of the mango salad dressing AND the mince pie ice cream from Ma's place. Oh well.
I have no idea when we sat down to eat. Sometime after 2pm maybe. No clue.
It was pretty good though. And some combination of the pepper I put on the tomatoes, the chili in the salad dressing and the ginger in the ginger beer definitely made it nice and tasty.
The intent was probably to play some Here to Slay, but, I'll be honest, I wasn't in the mood.
We tidied up, we watched a good chunk of Robin Hood: Men in Tights, which it seems like Ma hasn't seen before, and she groaned through all of the groan-worthy parts.
And then I threw together some Eton Mess with mince pie ice cream, lemon meringues and fresh berries. It's a good Christmas dessert. Even if, traditionally, we have it about three hours after dinner.
Then, honestly, by that point, I'd kind of had enough. Mostly of sitting and standing.
So I packed up the car with more stuff than I arrived with and headed back up the road. And other than the heat, it wasn't a bad run. I think it was around 6pm when I got home, and after unpacking all the stuff, threw myself into a quick shower and then had a lie down until I felt able to tackle this post.
Which is done now.
So, for another year, Merry Christmas, and thanks for listening to me unpack my internal monologue as part of the post-Christmas round up. It's becoming a tradition at this point.
Current mood: 
No comments:
Post a Comment