Am I setting myself to try to post every day here? That seems quite ambitious, since I’ve mostly been averaging once a month so far. Also, “festivities” seems like poor word choice, since most of my happy holiday times involve things like reading in the comfy chair in my childhood bedroom and any festivities that we usually do partake in (usually Christmas day at our house with my aunts and uncles, cousin, and cousin’s children; and New Year’s day at my aunt and uncle’s house with the same group) are currently being cast into serious doubt by the threat of Omicron. But… why not? Worth a try, right?

So, I’ve apparently arbitrarily decided that Day 1 of my Christmas break at home was yesterday (not even technically true, since I actually arrived on Thursday, but whatever). Let’s just go with it, because on the off chance anyone ever does read this, me nattering on about calendar choices is probably not what they were hoping for.

Day 1 successes: my father and I baked cookies, as is our time-honored and much-beloved Christmas tradition. We bake both spritz cookies (I recently saw an article calling these retro; did not know I was making retro cookies but whatever – they have been my favorite since childhood!) and cookie-cutter sugar cookies and it is great fun and a good way to spend time with my dad. Yesterday we did the spritz cookies and produced 468. (Do we count them? Yes. Yes, we do. He’s an engineer and I’m… however you’d describe me… so we count each tray as we put them in, keeping track of both cooking time and quantity.)

Day 1 failures: my mother and I were scheduled to see a local production of The Nutcracker in the afternoon, but she was feeling a bit head cold-y and so decided the prudent thing was not to go. It was disappointing (we’d been looking forward to it for a while, and I specifically organized my time with my college best friend around this), but honestly, there will be future Nutcrackers (I hope) and in the context of 2021 overall, I barely even noticed this.

Day 1 successes: my mom and I were just considering how to get Netflix going on her TV again (I never manage to keep this in my head for the 6ish months I’m away from here from one visit to the next) when we noticed The Sound of Music was playing on whatever channel we were on. ‘Oh, let’s just watch at least the beginning… until My Favorite Things… well, until the party,’ we said. Obviously we watched the whole thing. I have loved that movie since childhood and it may still be my very favorite one. Potentially tied with The Empire Strikes Back. Guys, I potentially have very lame taste, but I’m used to it now.

Looking ahead: we have plans to put our tree up today (another much-loved tradition) and I also have to do some work (teach a class online, do some translations). I’m hoping that will not suck all my energy away for the rest of the day. I am super over working right now and would like a break, but that is not really the freelance life. I should probably also order my 2022 planner. (I realize I probably won’t have it by 2022 precisely, but I would like for it to arrive comfortably before I return to Italy!).