Fake Christmas

We had fake Christmas this morning as we’ll (hopefully) be on Maui for Christmas. I have to say, it was such a relief to just have a few presents rather than the usual bacchanalian excesses. First, it was far, far less wrapping for me than usual (it would sometimes take entire days to wrap everything, which I found exhausting and frustrating), made a lot less mess, and meant the unwrapping time was only a few minutes. And, not surprisingly, the boys were perfectly delighted with all of their few presents - new robes, some board games I recommended my sister get them, Among Us plushies I had them get each other, a book about puberty, and of course the two new (used) iPads. The BF got me my requested Selecter t shirt, an apple peeler and new pyjamas, and I got him a new robe and pyjamas and wrapped a piece of paper in a large box in which I explain my failed quest to buy him a new iPhone and my plan to instead split one for him in the future when he feels like picking one out. 

I don’t think I’ve ever in my life opened Christmas presents not on Christmas so it feels a little weird. There’s something nice about just taking the day to do that stuff and knowing that nearly everyone else is doing it, too. But, this is a different kind of Christmas, and I’m all about upending traditions right now. 

The kids closed out this calendar year at school. As far as covid stuff, it went far better than I would have imagined. No closures, no infections. However, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that our luck may soon run out. The news the past couple of days regarding omicron has been absolutely horrid. Worst case, by mid-January we’ll be in a spike even worse than last winter’s. Best case, we will see a lot more cases but hospitalizations will not directly follow, and the disease will become endemic. Up until this week I thought scenario B was more likely…but now I’m trying to make peace with the fact that yes, it’s going to be very, very bad, worse than any of us could imagine, and that more than likely all of us will have caught covid in the next couple of months. It’s so hideous and enraging I just want to scream and cry. All the doom predictors were right; the woman who told us in the event organizing business to “get another career”, she was right. This thing is never going to fucking end. Even after three shots, I can still catch it, spread it, *probably* not die but possibly half life-long repercussions. I fucking give up.

I’m glad I don’t have an event to plan in the next few months. But trying to calculate if Labor Day will fall between or on the next massive surge is doing my head in. It’s hard to imagine now, with life so normal, that things could go back to where we were - events banned, travel banned, schools closed - but I have to accept if numbers get as bad as we think, that these things are inevitable. 

At least our wedding is outdoors.

I feel going in to this Hawaii trip much like my trip to Cancun in Feb 2020 - although I never could have known it at the time - like the last hurrah, once again, the night before the tanks rolled into Poland. Odds are we will go on our trip, and have a mediocre to good time (depending on weather and cancellations of activities), and will make it home safe. But what, exactly, are we returning to…?

I just hope if indoor events are closed again that I get more money. I have not heard one word from the California grant I applied for in October that was supposed to start notifying people a week ago. My fear is they’ll notify me Monday morning that I have to upload documentation to be considered within days, when I’m already isolated from my computer. I mean I could bring my computer with me - but it’s huge and heavy and a pain in the ass, and the odds of something like this happening right at Christmas seems very unlikely. 

The contractor has not worked on our place for two weeks, each week saying he’s going to need another week to work on some other project to make money to finish mine (since of course all of the money I gave him was spent on other things months ago). I highly doubt anything at all will get accomplished by the end of the year. Welp, we have four walls and a partial roof. Sigh. 

So if all the stars align, we’ll do our Christmas lights walk tonight, I’ll do my final amusement park gig tomorrow, do laundry and pack, and we’ll be on our way Monday morning. The weather on Maui looks not great - rainy and low 70s most of the time; hardly the nice burst of summer I’d been hoping. I think that might be really disappointing after we’ve been freezing our asses off here for the last couple of weeks. Let’s keep our fingers crossed we make it and everything turns out ok.