Santa Claus came. Mostly. He still has a couple of things to finish before the kids wake up, but it’s 6:30am and there are presents under the tree for the kids.
The kids are both home. Bellana got here a smidge before midnight last night. We’re all here now and all is right with the world.
HoHoHo! Merry Christmas!
There is a photo of me wearing this year’s matching xmas themed pajamas.
No, you are not going to see said photo.
Sorry, not sorry.
Just prepping myself for tomorrow by looking at some film photos from last year.
Are we all ready? Tomorrow is xmas. It is xmas eve. It’s time to get the last minute details wrapped up. Dot those holiday i’s and cross those holiday t’s.
I need to hit a couple of stores. One being a gas station and another being a grocery store. Good times. I don’t expect humongous, insane crowds or anything*.
My step son has been here for days. My step daughter will be here tonight, but not until super late. Maybe even after midnight. She has a gig in Vermont and can’t come home until after. Both kids will be here for xmas morning though and that’s what counts.
Now that the holiday is actually here, can I start feeling a little xmas spirit? I mean before it’s too late? I don’t know… tomorrow will suffice if that’s all I get. HoHoHo and shit.
*Yeah, that’s sarcasm. You could tell that by the context, right?
My step son, Harry, is home! He was here when I got home from work last night and it was wonderful having him around. Having kids here makes me happy.
Him being home today means that I am working from the office desk in the cellar instead of the desk in his room. I am a cellar dweller again while he’s home. Today is Friday and I am working from home. Next week I will be in the office on Monday and then I am off for xmas eve, xmas day, and I took a vacation day for the day after xmas. So one day working in the cellar is all I need. I can handle it. Not that there’s any difficulty working in the cellar, I just like being upstairs more. That’s all.
I do have one thing planned for my lunch break down here in the cellar where no one can see me…
I setup a gift wrapping station. Let’s see how much of the remaining pile of presents I can get through while I eat my chicken patty and fries. Bring on the work day so I can get to it. Two working days left before Santa comes. Still much to do in that little amount of time. Let’s do this thing!
Word on the street (pun intended) is that traffic is really crappy tonight. I still have almost two hours to go before I finish work and go out to brave the roads, but I am not looking forward to it.
What I am looking forward to is seeing my step son tonight. He’ll probably be getting to the house while I’m stuck in traffic. All the more reason to be happy about the commute situation (yes, that was meant to be very sarcastic).
I really want to go home now. One hour and 47 minutes to go.
While we wait, here are two pictures I took while putting gas into the car this morning… because that’s related to the overall topic, right?
I feel this almost overwhelming need to write something today, but I don’t have anything to write about. Usually I when the drive gets annoyingly persistent I can come up with something to prattle on about, but today I am drawing a blank.
The Bruins won. That’s two wins in a row on a road trip that started out awful. I think the last game of the trip is in Edmonton tomorrow night. Can they beat the Oilers? I would say probably not, but I didn’t expect them to beat Calgary last night either so what do I know.
I keep seeing the Boston Red Sox mentioned as potential destinations for big name free agent players. Unfortunately I heard the same thing over and over again during last year’s off season and we landed exactly zero big name free agents. We’ve made a big trade to get a potential ace starting pitcher. Will that be a sign of better things to come this winter? Who knows.
Harry is coming to stay with us this weekend. He was supposed to be coming over on Friday at some point but now he’s coming on Thursday! For those of you reading this at some future date allow me to clarify by stating that Thursday is tomorrow! Nice! I am working in the office tomorrow so I have to move some of my stuff out of his room before he comes over. When he’s home his room is… ya know… his room. When he’s not home, his room is my office. The only thing I need to move is a backpack and some camera stuff that is sitting on the day bed, and a table I have been using as a gift wrapping station. All of that needs to move down cellar to the space I use as an office when he’s home.
What else… what else… anything else? I don’t know. My lunch break is over. I have a meeting in about half an hour. I think I need to wrap this one up. Will it scratch today’s weird “write something, you dope” itch?
Probably not.
I don’t like what the calendar does to me at this time of year. We’re so close to the holidays that I just stop being able to deal with the days that still lay between me and the big dates.
We are currently seven days away from xmas and 14 days away from New Years. That means 13 days until New Years Eve, but NYE is a work day for me so that’s pretty screwy in general.
As an added bonus, we are 38 days away from the next vacation too. I sure hope it’s nice and warm in Florida in January. Last time we visited in January it was cold-ish in the morning and warm in the afternoons. I can live with that.
With the possible exception of anything that might be added to any one of the many piles of xmas gifts in the next few days, everything that isn’t for my wife or for a Secret Santa has been wrapped. I’ll have it all done by the weekend, with oodles of time to spare before the big day arrives.
I just want it to get here. I want Santa to arrive and unlawfully break into the house do his dirty work. I want the kids home with us, even if it is just for a short time, and I want to see the niece and nephews and the siblings and the in-laws on both sides of the family. I just want it to get here already. Is that too much to ask?
I just read a news article talking about where the biggest free agents in Major League Baseball could be signing during this off season. The article predicted a couple of big names signing in Boston. I don’t know if that’s going to happen or not, but my first thought upon finishing the article was to send it to my father.
Shit.
I still have moments like this with my mother. Moments where I think to mention something to her only to then remember that she’s gone. Now I have to deal with things like that for my father too. He’s only been gone for about four months. It seems like yesterday, but also it seems like it never happened. I guess for both of my parents the reason it seems like it never happened is because I want it to have never happened.
I hate moments like this. I expect I’ll be hating them for the rest of my life. I miss my parents. This xmas is going to be tough.
I have had three people recently tell me that they might qualify for citizenship to a country in Europe. Given the direction the USA is heading, I am seriously jealous. In 2017 there was talk of Ireland offering levels of citizenship to people whose family originated there. My paternal great-grandparents were from Ireland, but that was too far removed for me to qualify for anything.
Today, purely out of jealousy, I looked to a couple of other options. My maternal grandparents were born in Newfoundland. At the time it was still a British Dominion, not a Canadian province. What the hell, I checked on both options. Canada was a no. It said there might be possibilities if my grandparents served in the armed forces or worked for the government. My grandfather was a fisherman. He planned to enlist in the navy during World War I but the war ended just before his 18th birthday so he did not sign up. My grandmother was a house keeper. No government service at all.
I looked at the UK too, though after Brexit why would anyone want to sign up for UK citizenship? Since Newfoundland was British when my grandparents were born, the Google reported to me that there was a 13% chance I would qualify. How it came up with 13% I don’t know, but when I dug even a tiny bit deeper it was clear the answer was no.
Maybe I could hire a lawyer to dig a little and pull some legal strings. You know… just in case the USA continues it’s trend of flushing itself down the crapper. Just to have options, you know? Not that I would ever leave… it would be nice to know I had somewhere to go if I needed to… not that I would.
Inside the Red Head's Head 