First off, I hope all of my lovely friends and mutuals had an equally lovely Christmas <3
I am stuck at home for the next 8 hours until the boyfriend comes home and then we can go to a Yankee Swap Christmas party so I feel like blogging and not cleaning up my dump of an apartment. Falalalala~
This is the first year me and my boyfriend were able to spend Christmas together. Which was kind of a shitshow to figure out, because we wanted to be able to see both sides of both of our families on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. I told him it was pretty much essential that we go to Christmas Eve and my paternal grandparentsā house because my Grandmaās been going on and on about howĀ āitāll be the last Christmas Eve Iāll be able to have at my houseā. She basically has given herself a life expectancy (and has been saying things similar to this to me and several members of our family for the last two years). Iām sympathetic of course, because I love her, but just... it gets to be too much sometimes. Josh had to work at Hannaford until 6 and we didnāt end up getting to my grandparentsā until they had just started passing out presents. But my uncle got us food that theyād just put in the fridge and things commenced as normal. My cousins and dad were loud as always, and my mom kept giving everyone espresso martini shots. She became THAT drunk aunt, which Iām used to by this point, though itās no less disappointing. But she doesnāt act stupid or say stupid shit, luckily. Just is sluggish and wobbly. So it could be worse XD But I know she was doing it for a reason... Iāll get to that in a minute.
Oh, and my grandma brought up how it was always kind of sad around the holiday times now because my other uncle passed away two days before Christmas Eve 7 years ago. We all still kind of feel that bit of solemnness on Christmas Eve anyway; my grandmother has a line of photos of all of her children, and under my uncleās she has another picture of his gravestone. But one of my cousins, Brent, was really awesome about his response to that, saying that of course we all miss him, but that it wouldnāt be right to not come together at Christmas Eve, and weāre honoring him by keeping this family tradition going. I almost cried. It was just a good way to end that night. ( @caxford @sam-loves, thought maybe youād like that).
Then yesterday was Christmas day. Luckily for me, even though Josh is from Maine, all of his extended family lives in towns just outside of Boston. And this would literally be the only reason I would drive in the city. Traffic was pretty minimum. Before that, we woke up early and exchanged gifts, which was funny because most of them are ones that I bought myself and told him to give to me XD Iām a good shopper for myself. But he did get me some cute stuff as well. Then we booked it to Lynn so we could see his maternal aunt, uncle and grandmother, and then booked it again an hour later to Swampscott to spend Christmas morning with his paternal side of the family. It made me feel out of place some; most of his family members were ones I was meeting for the first time but they were all really nice and actually reminded me of my family. And they spoiled us with gifts. We ate Christmas lasagna (yeah, I dunno) and took the hour-long drive back to Plymouth to see my maternal side of the family (deterred by a traffic accident because Boston). Again, we missed everyone opening their presents on that side of the family too, which sucked, but opened ours and Josh and I got spoiled again. Families are grand <3 We ate Christmas ham (thatās more like it), watched some of A Christmas Story and played Pokeno and Scrabble (Josh and I were on a team and came in last. Probably my fault because I suck at Scrabble, though I found out Iām decent at Pokeno). Donāt let the boring reputations of the games fool you; we make it intense. Scrabble got particularly intense when our official Scrabble dictionary told us thatĀ āzaā is a word because it is, by definition, short forĀ āpizzaā. And try as I might have with Joshās families, I just couldnāt feel like it was really Christmas until I was with my own families. Maybe itās just because theyāre new to me, as well as this whole aspect of travelling for Christmas (I only ever had to go across town for my last 22 Christmases), but itās trial and error and for our first Christmas together, seeing all 4 sides of families in 24 hours was a job well done for us. We celebrated the dayās end by getting into PJs and cuddling on our couch with our tree lit.
Oh yeah, then Josh made me watch Avatar (weāre marathoning the series so we can watch Korra, which neither of us have seen) and two of the episodes, the one about Appa being separated from Aang and the one that pays tribute to Irohās voice actor who died mid-production of the series, made me cry. What a jerk.
We both decided multiple new and unfamiliar things made it not feel as Christmas-y as Christmases passed, including the lack of snow or cold. Seriously, is this how it is in the hotter states every Christmas? Because I live in Massachusetts, where we had the highest record of snowfall last year until April but the contrast this year honestly kind of sucks. But spending this weird Christmas together for the first time was pretty much what kept us sane and it made me so happy to share this holiday with him.
Today, day after Christmas, was supposed to be a redo of Christmas morning, because my little brother, who is in the Navy, originally couldnāt get out of his base until midnight on Christmas night (fudge), meaning heād miss all these Christmas gatherings anyway. But thatās not happening because something came up and now he canāt leave base until TONIGHT at midnight (double fudge). Hence why my mom drank; she told me this at Christmas Eve and she wants my brother home for the holidays more than anyone and anything and was visibly not happy about these new plans. So HOPEFULLY, weāll have our family Christmas morning at my parentsā house tomorrow, PJs and all. Presents are still currently under the tree for all 4 of us, waiting to be opened, so itās like Christmas never happened yesterday at my parentsā house, which is so sad. Plus, itās the first year where neither me nor my brother woke up in their house and went downstairs Christmas morning. Sheās not taking it all so well, so Iām glad I at least got to spend some time with her yesterday. She clearly needed to be around family.Ā
But yeah, right now, this means Iām in day 3 of a 4-day Christmas extravaganza because of that Christmas party Iām going to. Iām not complaining by any means. Itās just... different. But Iām excited for the Yankee Swap. My boyfriendĀ āgotā (I had a big hand in picking it out for him, whoops) a really nice Pikachu scarf, and I got a toothbrush, a 3D printed T-rex toothbrush holder, and M&Ms, Skittles and Reeseās Pieces (all in one bag because I always wanted to be THAT asshole >:DDDD) for the swap, so Iām excited. Our friend group always puts weird stuff like that in the Yankee Swap pile so it certainly wonāt be uneventful. Plus, I just want to see more people and keep my holiday high going. It just doesnāt feel like Christmas came and went, and I want to hold on to this feeling.
Okay NOW Iāll go clean my apartment up.
