(no subject)

This year my extended family decided to stop holding mass holiday parties. We're all getting older, and my generation (except, of course, me) is married or in a long-term relationship, and some now have kids. And my parent's generation is starting to get up there in their years, and holding a huge party for sometimes upward of 15 people really is too much work. So we all kind of decided that from now on we are just going to move holiday parties down one generation, and hold them in our more immediate families. Since my brother is on the west coast, that means that for us, Christmas was just me and my parents.

The upshot of this, of course, is that I don't have to listen to any of my gorramned Trumpanzee relatives drink too much and then sing all the praises of Lord God Trump and regurgitate all of their favorite Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity talking points. We had a peaceful Christmas Eve and a peaceful Christmas. I couldn't have asked for anything more.

The holiday weekend wasn't entirely relative-free, though. I also did go up to the Walpack Inn with my cousin's family and a mutual acquaintance. It was a little counterintuitive to drive south to South Amboy so we could all drive north to Sussex County, but that's just how things worked out. Nonetheless, it's good to stay in touch.

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I'm kind of kicking myself because I forgot that I needed to change the oil, and today was a beautiful day in the mid 50s *F (around 13*C), and I loafed around the house all day. Oh well, I guess I'll do it tomorrow, though the temperature's supposed to be in the low 40s *F (around 6*C). Not terrible, but still. Blah.