I am not looking forward to Christmas this year.

As a bachelor, it wasn’t something I celebrated. I would just go to my hometown and spend a week with my mother and grandmother. Well, mother after my grandmother passed. My mother was a Baha’i, so Christmas wasn’t our thing. If we did something, then it was our being included in other’s stuff. One of her Jewish friends invited us over to their house for Christmas as an example.

My wife does Christmas, so we do it. Her family is huge into it, but they have multiple non-nuclear situations. (Her matriarchal cousin has three children who each have different fathers. Each of the two adult ones are/were married, so their kids have to go to both.) Her brother last year was dealing with navigating this around his girlfriend. (And whether or not they’d be together by Christmas. They were not.)

It’s very materialistic. I feel broke, so I worry about spending any money on anything. Which makes me feel guilty because I haven’t done any shopping. And, I don’t know when I will. (I need to watch Christmas Vacation.)

I like being around them as people one-on-one or small groups, but it’s too many people. No real conversation, just small talk.

The kid is out of school for the whole week prior while my wife has to work, so I am going to regret being a parent by the time it gets here. It’s not her fault. She’s high energy. She needs to see other people. Probably my wife is scheming to have some of them with us some amount of it.