A Very Goblin Christmas

I’m typing most of this two days after Christmas and I’ve lost all sense of time. Part of that is because I caught whatever that virus is going around and ended up sick and isolated for three or four days and then almost immediately transitioning into winter break. But I’m feeling better now, so let’s get some comforting drinks and chat about what’s been going on.

So . . . Trying to think back to the 15th or so is proving challenging, and why shouldn’t it, given all that’s gone on? Thank goodness for timestamps on photos and social media posts!

On Sunday the 14th we attended a Christmas party and there was a cat named Hank. I was told Hank was getting old and had tumors in his ears and was sociable but didn’t like crowds and so would likely stay in his room. And they were right: Hank stood in the doorway and watched people but did not come out. And that made me feel bad so I went and sat in the doorway and in about 2 minutes I’d made a new friend!

He let other people come and pet him, too, and it felt good to help him feel included. The next day one of Hank’s people told me

Thank you for being so sweet to our Hanky Panky 😊

On Tuesday the 16th I made hot honey chicken with homemade Mexican street-style corn.

I also took off the second skin from my tattoos and thought

Is this what appliances feel like when we bring them home?

The tattoos are two weeks healed as of today, and while I thought that was a great metaphor (and my friends agreed!) that was one of the last coherent thoughts I had before sickness struck on the 17th.

It was the day of the college-wide Christmas party and I made it to 1:00 before thinking that if I didn’t get home soon things would be worse than if I tried to stick it out. I picked up some over the counter medicine on the way home and then collapsed into bed, relatively certain that I’d feel fine in the morning.

I was wrong. From 2:00 pm on Wednesday to about 4:30 am on Friday, I could not tell you what happened with any certainty. I know that I was up taking another dose every four-to-six hours, along with eating two pieces of toast and drinking a glass of water. I know that I called out of work Thursday, and since it was clear whatever I had was contagious, I called out Friday as well. Sometime in there I made mashed potatoes, and Krystal ordered us soup and sandwiches. I accidentally threw away the remote to my DVD player and had to get a new one. A friend dropped off a pack of orange Gatorade in our package delivery box. Cards and packages arrived, but we were too sick to open them until Friday evening.

I felt well enough to do a little grocery shopping on Saturday, then conserved my strength for a Yule party on Sunday I’d been looking forward to for months. I stayed mainly outdoors, though I did go inside to refill my cup and plate and to make a candle with bergamot, peppermint, and whole star anise. Outside I talked and chatted and made a Yuletide crown and when the sun went down the host handed out candles. I lit mine from the fire and others lit theirs from mine and so on and then made ten or fifteen minutes later I realized that every candle lit came back to the one I lit on the fire and that made me feel a special kind of way.

Monday I was well enough to be back at work. My mom called at exactly 7:15, as she has every December 22 since I moved away for my Birthday Phone Call. We couldn’t talk long since I did have to go to work, but when I got there I found one of my coworkers had bought me a donut and hot chocolate!

I had a morning meeting and when I got out they and others had collaborated to decorate my cubicle with a sign and streamers and balloons – there were cards and candy and a book and a Pusheen face mask and one colleague said today was all for me; and yes, it all made me cry.

After work Krystal and I went to Famous – I had a gyro and got Stollen for several days’ snacking and WE SAW SANTA and Santa sang a special North Pole birthday song to me.

When we got home Krystal gave me a card and a gift and then I had to go to my in-laws’ where I’m still currently watching some furry friends. We found MST3K on Tubi and I put a birthday candle in a slice of Stollen and all through the day I got birthday notifications across all types of social media, making it a glorious birthday indeed.

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Then Tuesday was the last work day before winter break and the time just seemed to go very very very slow but eventually the workday ended and then we got McDonalds for supper. I tried going through the drive-through but they said I had to come in to order since their screens were broken. So I went in and got my order to-go and when I walked back out there was a line of cars at the drive through placing and picking up orders, so what was up with that?

Wednesday was the day before Christmas and usually Krystal would go out with her dad and her sister for lunch and to pick up one final gift for her mom while I’d go out with my mother in law and brother in law for lunch and last minute grocery shopping. But since the rest of her family was out of town, that wasn’t going to happen. And so we went to a shop downtown to pick up some final gifts for friends, then out to lunch, then to the grocery store.

Krystal had biscuits and gravy and I had wanted a cinnamon roll with bacon and eggs but they were out of cinnamon rolls and so I had a hamburger steak with fries and cucumbers in vinegar instead and it was all very good.

This is the first Christmas where we haven’t had any family plans, and we decided we were going to have a Lazy Christmas, what we’ve seen called a Goblin Christmas online.

We bought cheeses and charcuterie meats and crackers and ice cream and dinner rolls. I picked up some frozen meatballs and French fries. Krystal found some flavored iced coffee drinks: Snickers for her and Twix for me. We watched the last season of Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous – Chaos Theory and Inside Out 2 and Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery and the second season of Culinary Class Wars and I introduced Krystal to Twin Peaks.

Wake Up Dead Man was certainly a movie that had a lot to say and I . . . I have a lot of feelings that I’ll be working through in that regard, but I also want to say that in one scene there was a Pusheen stuffie, and they placed her in one of the police officer’s offices! Im glad to see I’m not the only professional who keeps Pusheen close by.

Our winter season begins with the first card or package and ends with the last card or package. So for us, Christmas began in October when my brother Leroy and his wife Julia sent us water bottles for Christmas, sending them early because they found Halloween-themed bottles they knew we’d like: frogs for Krystal and witchy cats for me. Since Thanksgiving my nephew Andrew sent me a Pusheen day-by-day calendar and my mom sent me a Pusheen wall calendar that I put up in my cubicle before leaving for winter break. A coworker gave a a small insulated Christmas cup filled with chocolate. My sister Andrea sent me the Twin Peaks TV series dvds and my brother Chris sent me two books: Pearls Seeks Enlightenment and The Dance of the Serpents.

I bought myself a wax cande warmer. Krystal and I did shopping for each other with each other; she got me Umbrella Academy season one, some MCR scrunchies, charms shaped like poisonous things, and we also got a set of Van Gogh-themed necklaces: Starry Night for her and Sunflowers for me.

She also got me a Christmas Story themed scarf, which she made sure to say was for my birthday and not for Christmas. This was important, since I avoided all Christmas gifts of clothing in hopes of being visited by the Yule Cat because what could go wrong? Maybe Yule Cat just wants scritches.

I was not visited by the Yule Cat, but on Christmas Eve as I was driving between the dogs and home I almost hit a BEAR BIG ENOUGH TO STARE AT ME THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD. When I told my mother in law, she told me that they’d seen one at the same spot a few weeks back, likely because “the man across the road has a bear playground in him back yard with balls and such” – and I just want to ask WHAT?!?

Others said things like

You’re so sweet and kind that the bear chose you!

If you’re trying to connect with your inner Druid, that’s not how your supposed to commune with nature.

He was looking for the bear 🐻 necessities 😃😃

I am very happy I did not hit the bear and hope he had a very merry Christmas. Krystal has named him Barnaby.

And then my brother Charlie gave gifts I wasn’t expecting since he already gave me some tattoo money but he decided to do more, and not by looking at my Amazon list but by looking at my social media, sending me a new dvd copy of Gangs of New York and a set of vintage-style glass goblets.

The movie was understandable since I’d posted about the damaged used copy I’d bought, but the goblets were a mystery. Don’t get me wrong: they’re wonderful and beautiful and appreciated but I just couldn’t figure out why or where he got the idea until today, as I was going through my own posts and found this:

So of course I sent him a text and he said

I’m always paying attention!

Other gifts included a D&D notebook from our friend Tasha and this gloriously amazing crow dice tower from Alex – and I know other packages are on the way, making for a wonderful time we’re calling Long Yule.

Some of our own packages haven’t been mailed yet, in part because we got sick and wanted to make sure we weren’t sharing germs with our friends as well as gifts. But I think they’re ready to go out Monday or Tuesday.

Last night I made use of the fire pit, and enjoyed my Twix drink as the fire blazed and burned down.

Okay. So now I’m caught up to right now, which coincidentally is 11:11 am so I’ve made a wish and saved my post and now I’m going to start some soup for another Yule party this evening. I’ll be back a little later on, but for you reading this no time at all will pass (unless you want it to).

Okay so it’s 22 hours later, making it just after 9 am on Sunday. Can you tell? I made the soup and went to the party and then had another small bonfire and this morning I’m watching the Nicolas Cage Ghost Rider movies and I really don’t think they’re that bad overall but rather suffered from really, really bad special effects. Oh, and at the party I ended up coming home with a set of tea lights! I tried taking a photo of the soup but I don’t like how the pictures turned out. The taste though – more than one person said, and I quote:

Oh my god this is delicious

So I’ll take that as a massive win!

So today I’m still hanging out with my furry friends Indy and Griff watching movies and doing some journaling and later on there’ll be gaming with friends and then tomorrow afternoon my furry friends’ humans return and I get to go home to my own place – just in time to get ready for the new year.

Can you believe it’ll be 2026 already??

So how are you doing? Tell me all about it in the comments!