Late night Christmas Eve treasure for you all. I really dislike this movie, but viewing it through this lens may be the Christmas spirit I didn’t know I needed.
There are exactly two things to soothe my typical December funk-
1) the Charlie Brown Christmas special (hack your cry ™)
2) remembering the line “a thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices” helps to remind me I’m not the only one who ever felt weary and in need of a little hope
Merry Christmas, fellow Swipes! Strange as it may be, it's a balmy 25 degrees in Boise, Idaho today, but I'm sending all the warm thoughts to everyone dealing with the bitter cold. My kids are all home and I may break down and bake cookies today. I've normally baked my fingers to the bone by this time, but the "Christmas blah" is real this year. I recommend these to anyone looking for a good one: https://smittenkitchen.com/2007/12/espresso-chocolate-shortbread-cookies/ I've also purchased supplies for Cranberry Moscow Mules, so that may get my spirits up. Today we break out the puzzles. I hope you all have the best holiday available to you. xo
I am not having the Christmas that I planned. I flew out to visit my father last week and was booked to fly home today to have Christmas with my teens and husband. The winter storms across the country have decided otherwise. My flight was canceled and I can’t get another flight for a week. After getting out all the feels of missing Christmas with my own family ( a Christmas I planned and shopped for! 😂), I have decided to treat it as an adventure. I walked through the blowing snow to Walmart and bought myself some puzzles, colouring supplies, magazines and chocolate. I bought a Rubik’s cube for my Christmas present - apparently I’m the teenager now. And I get to spend Christmas with my dad. I have even been invited to Christmas lunch by one of my dad’s friends. Wish me luck!
“Me, too” on the subdued Christmas vibes- didn’t put up half my decorations, delegated minimal baking to my adult daughters. Yesterday was my birthday which always just feels like “one more thing”😑 All of my kids are home tho and we will have my parents & my sister for both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It’s stupid cold here as well but all the gifts are wrapped and I got puzzles for my birthday so that’s the plan for today! May you find light in the darkness 🎄❤️
Any Friday that I can get here before 5 p.m. is a personal victory, so it's already a good day.
I live in Texas, so I am now pretty practiced in dealing with winter with minimal infrastructure. This time around I live in an actual house as opposed to the RV I was in last winter, and dealing with the weather is easy breezy when you don't have to worry about the heat quitting in the middle of the night because you forgot to get propane.
I haven't really Christmased at all this year, and I'm not really sad about it? I'm mainly just looking forward to the long weekend because we had a WEEK at work.
Queen Amy recently got her flowers in the form of a Kennedy Center Honor and no less than The Highwomen performed for her segment. It airs on the 28th on CBS and is always a slightly weird and very fun time. Please join me in watching so I'm not the only one asking "how are THOSE people friends?"
Re: Amy - I saw a sort of casual, throwaway line about the wedding in a "secular" article I read about Amy being honored by the Kennedy Center, and thought, "Oh man. Here we go again. This woman is getting clobbered in 3-2-1..."
Re: Christmas - I am always so depressed this time of year, starting in November, and this year has been particularly bad, so I expected Christmas to not be good. My survival plan was to lean in - not to Christmas; but to winter. I planned to full-on hibernate - stocked up on treats and warm beverages, got some smartwool socks and cozy base layer and new flannel jammies. Get a stack of books. Figure out some gentle, cozy TV/movies. I bought a heater that looks like a woodstove. Then I'd just curl up with candles and twinkle lights until groundhogs day. That way if Christmas sucked or didn't happen, it was OK. I'm in my little cozy nest with my snacks. Basically this: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmfIDfoP8ZW/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
So anything actually Christmassy has been a bonus. And surprisingly it has turned out to be delightful. My husband is really into Christmas movies this year. And driving around to look at lights. We had a wonderful time dropping off gifts to friends and neighbors. We get to host my husband's parents for Christmas dinner, so we aren't alone. And we've had some baby steps toward reconciliation with his sisters. We've been visiting a church during advent and it's been only a little weird and mostly ok and it has felt good to sing Advent carols with people. We are decorating the tree tonight.
So it is a mix of the usual sadness and some unexpected light. And if that ain't Christmas, I don't know what is.
It is currently -1 feels like -22 today in Kansas. Yesterday the “feels like” got to -28, so, you know, we’re climbing out of it. Also, next week the high is supposed to be 56?!
To combat the cold and keep my boys from killing each other, we’ve been doing lots of easy crafts, nerf gun wars, Minecraft, videos about Christmas Around the World, hot tea and hot cocoa, and reading by the fire.
Tonight is my church’s Christmas service (always on Christmas Eve Eve) and my oldest is in the Christmas Pageant. He jumped in at the last minute because he heard there were only two wise men and that didn’t sit well with him 😆 The service is always a tight hour with singing and cookies afterwards and it helps me so much to feel like Christmas is here.
I hope everyone has the best holiday weekend available to them. ❤️💚
It is currently -5 with approximately 3 inches of snow on the ground and I want a do over. Erin I’m also not feeling very Christmasy. For you I think some of it is what I call PTD Post Trip Depression. For me, this time last year I was fighting for my life. So ready to see Jesus. All that reflecting is enough, but then friends I’m close to are dealing with tragic loss and my heart hurts for them so much. The clockmaker story you shared resounded loudly in my ticking heart! This too shall pass as I’ve learned. And God is always good. Always faithful. And always right.
I won’t say that I’m “glad” to see so many melancholy feelings this year, but it is comforting to know that I’m not the only one having a blue Christmas. Being in bad health for the entirety of the season and into the new year has definitely changed my perspective about what’s important. Although, I have missed having decorations up, especially a lighted tree, and playing Christmas music just hasn’t felt the same without all the other trappings. I haven’t had wrapped gifts to open for years because of mom‘s inability to shop — her cognitive struggles make online shopping impossible and she won’t ask for help from my sisters because they judge how much money she spends, especially if my gifts cost more than she spends on them 🤨. But this year especially I would’ve really liked something to open on Christmas Day. A little surprise or two would’ve been nice. 😞
We did get to see my grandniece and grandnephew open our gifts to them, and it was a half hour of chaotic joy. They are 4 years old and almost 3 years old, so they’ve reached the stage of really understanding gifts and being truly excited at fun things. I gave Liam a Bluey watch toy, and you would’ve thought it was the greatest thing he’s ever seen in his life. And then Daphne got a toy cleaning set with broom, vacuum, spray bottle, squeegee, and feather duster, and she actually walked up to me after the fact and whispered, “I LOVE my cleaning tools.” 🥰 Then immediately put water in her “Windex” bottle. 😂 For just an hour it felt like normal Christmas. And that truly did make my heart happy.
I do have a gift arriving in the mail next week from my best friend in Pennsylvania, so that’ll be fun. And I also have given my mom some excellent gifts this year (her money, my shopping) so it’ll be the joy that most parents get from watching others open their gifts. That’s something to look forward to.
Above all, the gift of support from so many of you through the go fund me account has truly made me feel so loved. It will allow me to start therapy after the new year and try to get my right side functioning again. That will be the best gift ever, just delayed a few months.
Unfortunately, the county healthcare I applied for on Monday was denied. Apparently you have to be completely desolate and almost homeless to be able to get any help at all. I am more aware of the failures of our country’s healthcare system than I’ve ever been. It’s very very discouraging. But I’ll be able to start rehab with the donations I have received, and I’ll just have to let all the medical bills go unpaid. I worried about that at first, but I’ve
realized that all I have to give is my name, and I’m OK with that. I’ve had my credit ruined before, and I’ve rebuilt. So we’ll do that again. It’s a very strange thing to need support in a wealthy country that doesn’t want to help. 🥴
Despite the sadness of this season, I really have had so much joy from this community. Wishing you all a happy Christmas!
It’s unseasonably cold as heck where I live, and I plan to cope with it by not leaving the house ever again. This may not be possible but I’ll try.
This year was the first year I felt the Christmas spirit kick in. We had a special service on the solstice at our church to honour grief and loss over the holidays, and planning that finally felt like something that matched how I’ve always felt about the holidays. It made room for the grief of hard things, instead of bypassing it like society does in this season, and that has allowed me more Christmas joy than I’ve ever felt before. For those who feel similar, you can probably find a similar service online by searching “blue Christmas service” or “the longest night service”. Our stream had technical difficulties, but I do have a link to the audio-only if anyone wants it. 🤍
Erin I’m so sorry you can find the light right now. May I suggest you bake up some of those molasses bacon cookies and add another blanket to the pile?
Happy Friday! I have a hard time getting into Christmas cheer, too. But this week I have watched a frothy, sickly sweet movie every night and it has helped lighten things so much. While You Were Sleeping, Sleepless in Seattle, BOTH Little Women...it has been magical. Next is The Family Stone and the count-down is complete. Merry Christmas!
It sounds like I’m not alone in my funky feelings about Christmas this year. My mom has been sick and the weather has been all over the place all month. It’s just weird. But we went to a candlelight service last night and things are starting to feel like they should.
We are having our Christmas Adam, as Anne calls it 😉, tonight. I’m making a buttermilk brined roast chicken that Amanda shared with us last year, cream style corn, brown sugar and bacon green beans, and pull apart garlic bread.
Everything is bought and wrapped, so I’m going to spend the rest of this frigid day reading and watching the Today Show.
Okay that’s it. Happy Christmas, Swipes! Can’t wait to catch up in the comments
I think God must just smile when he watches Amy Grant go about her life. As a parent of a gay man who loves Jesus, I am so grateful for glimmer of light she shines in a community of faith that often spreads nothing but hate and ill-will. "Jesus, you just narrowed it down to two things: love God and love each other." Amen, Sister. Amen.
Late night Christmas Eve treasure for you all. I really dislike this movie, but viewing it through this lens may be the Christmas spirit I didn’t know I needed.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/its-a-wonderful-life-mary-bailey-george-bailey-donna-reed-jimmy-stewart/2021/12/23/6df0d85e-63ff-11ec-a7e8-3a8455b71fad_story.html?fbclid=PAAaZ5Na8IUgGBk5CxdFpkjPcDKKjaomsF_5vJ5XFZpfRgeoGVVG0i7sk0zSA
Im staying inside and binge watching all the Christmas movies on Netflix and eating and drinking hot chocolate.🎄🎅🏽 Merry Christmas
There are exactly two things to soothe my typical December funk-
1) the Charlie Brown Christmas special (hack your cry ™)
2) remembering the line “a thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices” helps to remind me I’m not the only one who ever felt weary and in need of a little hope
Merry Christmas, fellow Swipes! Strange as it may be, it's a balmy 25 degrees in Boise, Idaho today, but I'm sending all the warm thoughts to everyone dealing with the bitter cold. My kids are all home and I may break down and bake cookies today. I've normally baked my fingers to the bone by this time, but the "Christmas blah" is real this year. I recommend these to anyone looking for a good one: https://smittenkitchen.com/2007/12/espresso-chocolate-shortbread-cookies/ I've also purchased supplies for Cranberry Moscow Mules, so that may get my spirits up. Today we break out the puzzles. I hope you all have the best holiday available to you. xo
I am not having the Christmas that I planned. I flew out to visit my father last week and was booked to fly home today to have Christmas with my teens and husband. The winter storms across the country have decided otherwise. My flight was canceled and I can’t get another flight for a week. After getting out all the feels of missing Christmas with my own family ( a Christmas I planned and shopped for! 😂), I have decided to treat it as an adventure. I walked through the blowing snow to Walmart and bought myself some puzzles, colouring supplies, magazines and chocolate. I bought a Rubik’s cube for my Christmas present - apparently I’m the teenager now. And I get to spend Christmas with my dad. I have even been invited to Christmas lunch by one of my dad’s friends. Wish me luck!
“Me, too” on the subdued Christmas vibes- didn’t put up half my decorations, delegated minimal baking to my adult daughters. Yesterday was my birthday which always just feels like “one more thing”😑 All of my kids are home tho and we will have my parents & my sister for both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It’s stupid cold here as well but all the gifts are wrapped and I got puzzles for my birthday so that’s the plan for today! May you find light in the darkness 🎄❤️
Any Friday that I can get here before 5 p.m. is a personal victory, so it's already a good day.
I live in Texas, so I am now pretty practiced in dealing with winter with minimal infrastructure. This time around I live in an actual house as opposed to the RV I was in last winter, and dealing with the weather is easy breezy when you don't have to worry about the heat quitting in the middle of the night because you forgot to get propane.
I haven't really Christmased at all this year, and I'm not really sad about it? I'm mainly just looking forward to the long weekend because we had a WEEK at work.
Queen Amy recently got her flowers in the form of a Kennedy Center Honor and no less than The Highwomen performed for her segment. It airs on the 28th on CBS and is always a slightly weird and very fun time. Please join me in watching so I'm not the only one asking "how are THOSE people friends?"
Re: Amy - I saw a sort of casual, throwaway line about the wedding in a "secular" article I read about Amy being honored by the Kennedy Center, and thought, "Oh man. Here we go again. This woman is getting clobbered in 3-2-1..."
Re: Weather - (warning swears) wishing you the best of luck from Lol. https://twitter.com/farrahfazal/status/1605783705976377344?s=42&t=R8X_36Vk-zCjEjmlK5Yx2w
Re: Christmas - I am always so depressed this time of year, starting in November, and this year has been particularly bad, so I expected Christmas to not be good. My survival plan was to lean in - not to Christmas; but to winter. I planned to full-on hibernate - stocked up on treats and warm beverages, got some smartwool socks and cozy base layer and new flannel jammies. Get a stack of books. Figure out some gentle, cozy TV/movies. I bought a heater that looks like a woodstove. Then I'd just curl up with candles and twinkle lights until groundhogs day. That way if Christmas sucked or didn't happen, it was OK. I'm in my little cozy nest with my snacks. Basically this: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmfIDfoP8ZW/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
So anything actually Christmassy has been a bonus. And surprisingly it has turned out to be delightful. My husband is really into Christmas movies this year. And driving around to look at lights. We had a wonderful time dropping off gifts to friends and neighbors. We get to host my husband's parents for Christmas dinner, so we aren't alone. And we've had some baby steps toward reconciliation with his sisters. We've been visiting a church during advent and it's been only a little weird and mostly ok and it has felt good to sing Advent carols with people. We are decorating the tree tonight.
So it is a mix of the usual sadness and some unexpected light. And if that ain't Christmas, I don't know what is.
It is currently -1 feels like -22 today in Kansas. Yesterday the “feels like” got to -28, so, you know, we’re climbing out of it. Also, next week the high is supposed to be 56?!
To combat the cold and keep my boys from killing each other, we’ve been doing lots of easy crafts, nerf gun wars, Minecraft, videos about Christmas Around the World, hot tea and hot cocoa, and reading by the fire.
Tonight is my church’s Christmas service (always on Christmas Eve Eve) and my oldest is in the Christmas Pageant. He jumped in at the last minute because he heard there were only two wise men and that didn’t sit well with him 😆 The service is always a tight hour with singing and cookies afterwards and it helps me so much to feel like Christmas is here.
I hope everyone has the best holiday weekend available to them. ❤️💚
It is currently -5 with approximately 3 inches of snow on the ground and I want a do over. Erin I’m also not feeling very Christmasy. For you I think some of it is what I call PTD Post Trip Depression. For me, this time last year I was fighting for my life. So ready to see Jesus. All that reflecting is enough, but then friends I’m close to are dealing with tragic loss and my heart hurts for them so much. The clockmaker story you shared resounded loudly in my ticking heart! This too shall pass as I’ve learned. And God is always good. Always faithful. And always right.
I won’t say that I’m “glad” to see so many melancholy feelings this year, but it is comforting to know that I’m not the only one having a blue Christmas. Being in bad health for the entirety of the season and into the new year has definitely changed my perspective about what’s important. Although, I have missed having decorations up, especially a lighted tree, and playing Christmas music just hasn’t felt the same without all the other trappings. I haven’t had wrapped gifts to open for years because of mom‘s inability to shop — her cognitive struggles make online shopping impossible and she won’t ask for help from my sisters because they judge how much money she spends, especially if my gifts cost more than she spends on them 🤨. But this year especially I would’ve really liked something to open on Christmas Day. A little surprise or two would’ve been nice. 😞
We did get to see my grandniece and grandnephew open our gifts to them, and it was a half hour of chaotic joy. They are 4 years old and almost 3 years old, so they’ve reached the stage of really understanding gifts and being truly excited at fun things. I gave Liam a Bluey watch toy, and you would’ve thought it was the greatest thing he’s ever seen in his life. And then Daphne got a toy cleaning set with broom, vacuum, spray bottle, squeegee, and feather duster, and she actually walked up to me after the fact and whispered, “I LOVE my cleaning tools.” 🥰 Then immediately put water in her “Windex” bottle. 😂 For just an hour it felt like normal Christmas. And that truly did make my heart happy.
I do have a gift arriving in the mail next week from my best friend in Pennsylvania, so that’ll be fun. And I also have given my mom some excellent gifts this year (her money, my shopping) so it’ll be the joy that most parents get from watching others open their gifts. That’s something to look forward to.
Above all, the gift of support from so many of you through the go fund me account has truly made me feel so loved. It will allow me to start therapy after the new year and try to get my right side functioning again. That will be the best gift ever, just delayed a few months.
Please share if you can:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/jules-qualls-stroke-rehab
Unfortunately, the county healthcare I applied for on Monday was denied. Apparently you have to be completely desolate and almost homeless to be able to get any help at all. I am more aware of the failures of our country’s healthcare system than I’ve ever been. It’s very very discouraging. But I’ll be able to start rehab with the donations I have received, and I’ll just have to let all the medical bills go unpaid. I worried about that at first, but I’ve
realized that all I have to give is my name, and I’m OK with that. I’ve had my credit ruined before, and I’ve rebuilt. So we’ll do that again. It’s a very strange thing to need support in a wealthy country that doesn’t want to help. 🥴
Despite the sadness of this season, I really have had so much joy from this community. Wishing you all a happy Christmas!
It’s unseasonably cold as heck where I live, and I plan to cope with it by not leaving the house ever again. This may not be possible but I’ll try.
This year was the first year I felt the Christmas spirit kick in. We had a special service on the solstice at our church to honour grief and loss over the holidays, and planning that finally felt like something that matched how I’ve always felt about the holidays. It made room for the grief of hard things, instead of bypassing it like society does in this season, and that has allowed me more Christmas joy than I’ve ever felt before. For those who feel similar, you can probably find a similar service online by searching “blue Christmas service” or “the longest night service”. Our stream had technical difficulties, but I do have a link to the audio-only if anyone wants it. 🤍
Erin I’m so sorry you can find the light right now. May I suggest you bake up some of those molasses bacon cookies and add another blanket to the pile?
Happy Friday! I have a hard time getting into Christmas cheer, too. But this week I have watched a frothy, sickly sweet movie every night and it has helped lighten things so much. While You Were Sleeping, Sleepless in Seattle, BOTH Little Women...it has been magical. Next is The Family Stone and the count-down is complete. Merry Christmas!
Good morning, Swipes!
It sounds like I’m not alone in my funky feelings about Christmas this year. My mom has been sick and the weather has been all over the place all month. It’s just weird. But we went to a candlelight service last night and things are starting to feel like they should.
We are having our Christmas Adam, as Anne calls it 😉, tonight. I’m making a buttermilk brined roast chicken that Amanda shared with us last year, cream style corn, brown sugar and bacon green beans, and pull apart garlic bread.
Everything is bought and wrapped, so I’m going to spend the rest of this frigid day reading and watching the Today Show.
Okay that’s it. Happy Christmas, Swipes! Can’t wait to catch up in the comments
💗🎄
I think God must just smile when he watches Amy Grant go about her life. As a parent of a gay man who loves Jesus, I am so grateful for glimmer of light she shines in a community of faith that often spreads nothing but hate and ill-will. "Jesus, you just narrowed it down to two things: love God and love each other." Amen, Sister. Amen.