I tried to get in the spirit in advance, even took last week off for that. Had a nice family crafts day making decorations. But I accidentally missed my meds a couple days (maybe 3) and was on a mental/emotional rollercoaster that did not play well with the timing when it came to Christmas Eve and Christmas day.
Having spent the last year trying to declutter and get rid of ‘stuff’, we had agreed to do a minimal Christmas and go light on the presents. I didn’t do cards or stocking stuffers, and just one book and one other gift for each. They did not have quite the same idea of minimal. Anyway, we did the whole present opening thing, the Zoom visits, and then spent most of the rest of the weekend in separate rooms decompressing.
Had only one live visit - the one Covid-safe couple we know. (She’s immune-compromised and hasn’t been out since March and he works with Covid patients everyday and is very serious about precautions and testing.)
We did watch some Christmas movies (including Die Hard, of course), but I still haven’t gotten around to the two I wanted to watch.
Next year I think I’ll take the two weeks leading up to it. One’s not enough.
Honestly, I haven’t taken extended time around Christmas in years. Prior to this job, I was an IT contractor and this was the busiest time of year, with everyone wanting upgrades or large changes done while people were away. The habit carried over into my current job, except that now, since everyone’s away, I’m just doing work at my own pace, no pressure, incidents or meetings. I feel like this is the most productive time of the year work wise for me. No holiday spirit, but that’s never been a thing for me so, “can’t miss where you’ve never been.”
Taking vacation in February or March this coming year definitely seems to be in order though. I’ve definitely enjoyed my fall vacations the past couple of years too.
We (plus about 10 other people) have been going to a friend’s house for Christmas dinner for a decade or two. This time it was by Zoom. Not the same, but still nice to talk to everyone.
I had what felt like a pretty decent Christmas despite meeting with family on Skype instead of in person.
One silver lining has been that not going out anywhere meant we minimized our exposure to constant terrible Christmas music. In fact my spouse surprised me by playing some Christmas songs on her mountain dulcimer – normally she complains as much as I do about the deluge of sappy songs every winter.