Merry Christmas to all who celebrate! We had a lovely day off work and today we are going to do some outdoor activities and visit a museum briefly before holing up inside again.

I didn’t blog earlier because I got into “holiday” mood which meant after I finished teaching I didn’t want to do anything on the computer. The whole month of December felt like just treading water getting to the end of the semester, and while no, things weren’t as busy as normal years, I was so tired of teaching online and really needed a break. I’m glad to be here, and I’m also glad I had a few Christmas gigs to play, either recorded or livestreaming in front of no congregation at the church.

December flew by, didn’t it? I was extra busy with some things at work, an online class and a writing gig I picked up. I also did a lot of baking, as you know, and then put a bunch of goodies into boxes for my parents, my siblings, and my aunt Connie who has been coming to our weekly zoom calls.

The postal service was destroyed by DeJoy though, and this meant that I couldn’t send “de Joy” before Christmas to my aunt or my brother, since they live too near Philadelphia. My parents, in small town South Carolina got their box in 5 days, my sister Carrie in New York in 1 week, and my sister Leslie in Phoenix in 9 days. The other two are “delayed” and sitting in processing centers. Priority mail flat-rate, y’all, and I worry this Christmas will be the final nail in the coffin as an excuse for the GOP to destroy the USPS for good. Just ask yourselves, why didn’t they hire more workers? They still could. They hired 50,000 extra seasonal workers, but why not more? There are millions upon millions out of work who might have loved a seasonal job for the USPS. Obviously that wasn’t enough people to do the work. I only hope my packages arrive in the next week or so, but I don’t know. I was pleased that the ones that were delivered arrived in good shape, however.

We finished celebrating Hanukkah and made latkes from scratch twice. I teach late, usually until 8 or 8:30 each night, and it gets dark here at 4:30-4:45 in December, which meant that we didn’t light the candles until I was done working. It was a nice ending to the night, and I also lit an electric menorah in the front since our candlelighting wasn’t able to be in a good window due to the house setup and the cats.

I kept teaching until the 22nd, mostly because 1) my school job went until then and 2) I have jury duty starting Jan 4 and wanted to start back teaching on the 6th and give two weeks vacation. Nobody was going anywhere really, though more students were traveling and seeing family than I would feel comfortable doing, but what can you do? Also I have my worries about jury duty and it was already canceled before and I feel like it has more reason to be canceled in January than ever, but I also don’t have a good doctor’s excuse to cancel it and I really just want to get it over with.

I played a livestream service on Christmas Eve and then had a late dinner of appetizers with Louie.

Shrimp cocktail and a cheese ball. I enjoyed this cheese ball but wished it were more cheddar-y, so I probably won’t make this exact recipe again. We also had some homemade (with alcohol) eggnog I’d made the night before. I fell into the aged eggnog rabbit hole on the internet and may be trying that next year…anybody do aged eggnog?

Louie and I decided not to exchange Christmas gifts (this is our general tradition) so that meant Christmas Day we had literally nothing to do… and it was glorious! We had a late brunch of bagels, smoked salmon, and french omelets, then watched TV all day while Louie worked on putting together a 3D printer for the house. We watched a few Christmas shows first, Charlie Brown Christmas and It’s a Wonderful Life, then watched a few episodes of the Great British Baking Show. We also talked with some family members and sent a lot of text messages.

I made a nice Christmas dinner for us of a Ground Beef Wellington, except with Impossible Beef, creamed spinach, a roasted vegetable salad, and a cranberry mostada. It all turned out really well except the spinach was super bland, which was disappointing as the recipe had looked really promising to me.

Then back to 3D printer assembling and I started watching Schitt’s Creek, which Louie had seen some of but I had only watched one episode. I think I must have watched 8 more episodes before going to bed! Somewhere in there we had dessert.

I don’t know what led to this, but Louie and I had been talking about fruitcake at some point, and I had been searching the internet and found there was this supposedly delicious fruitcake made by trappist monks in Missouri. So I bought one and it had been waiting until this moment.

You may have an idea of fruitcake being really bad or bricklike…this fruitcake wouldn’t have appealed to me as a kid, but it was delicious! Full of nuts, fruit, moist cake, and the aroma of rum or brandy or some combination. I thoroughly enjoyed my piece, and there will be more eaten in the future. Perhaps this is a new Christmas tradition.

Anyway, the next week stretches ahead. There isn’t much to do, is there, due to the pandemic. I have a few things I want to do around the house, and of course take down the Christmas decorations before school starts up, but I think I’ll leave them up through the New Year now, and continue enjoying the lights and such. I did do a little needlepoint yesterday and will likely do some of that again.

Happy Christmas to you, if you celebrate. Do you have some days off of work? What are you doing over the break? Did you celebrate the holidays in unusual ways this year?