Merry Christmas 2024!

[Kraken]

Every year I knock off my family obligation by sending them a complete lobster dinner for 7 people plus an indeterminate number of children that are still too young to matter. Cost me $350 this year but I covered them all with one purchase.

That leaves only Wife. Whatever strikes Wife's fancy, Wife buys. Often two or three times. Online shopping season is pretty nearly over and I still have no idea what to buy her. I tried to negotiate a truce but she revealed that she's already bought me a couple of things so now I must buy her a couple of things, too, because that's how xmas works. I just can't find any random things to buy. In years past Facebook ads showed me the way, but this year the algorithm has let me down...I haven't seen a single advert there. Firefox + DuckDuckGo + Facebook Fences make me nearly invisible.

My Miata is snowed in and whenever I take the Santa Cruz (a.k.a. Penelope) anywhere Wife finds a reason to ride along, plus I'm a stranger in town, so going to random stores in search of random things won't work.

I'm going to fail xmas this year.

[Jeff V]

Ugh. Finally setup the fake Xmas shrub the other day...kittens love their new climbing apparatus, and are passing down ornaments for the puppy to eat.

Still haven't put outside lights on front bushes. Not doing the eaves this year because of my arm, but I can't seem to find my timer, and every time I get the urge to put the lights on the bushes the weather is windy and nasty. But it at least helps make space in the garage, getting floors done starting at the end of the month, and need room for them to stage materials.

Wife texted me a link for a camera she wants to resurrect her blogging (at it's height, she was bringing in $1000/mo). The base package is $380, with the water package at $450. Meanwhile, the high end GoPro she bought several years ago continues to go unused.

The kids haven't talked a lot about what they want. Roblox gift cards will probably suffice, although I always get them a STEM-related gift and my daughter has been more into art so will probably get her something along those lines. I'll have to ask if there is anything Meta VR-related they would like -- my son actually bought his sister a VR with his allowance/birthday money just so they could play that together. He also is designing games on Roblox now (and assembled his own project team which he directs), maybe I can find something that will aid him with this.

Wife needs to compile a list of friends and their kids that we need to buy for. It was bad enough back in the day when my family was only concerned with itself, aside from work-related gift exchanges and the like. We'd never have friends over for Xmas, but with Filipinos, Xmas is a community affair, and last few years we've had 3 families spend the night on Xmas Eve. Wife said again she wants to host Xmas this year. She also mentioned fleeing town, but she has to work the day before and the day after, and simply being gone for a day or two won't stem the tide of gifts we're obliged to reciprocate.

Oddly enough, the one Xmas I spent in the Philippines there was no concept of gift exchange -- we bought bags of candy and a bunch of coins distributed pinata style (throwing handfuls in the air while the kids scramble to get their share). When the time comes that we move there, it's a source of several $1000 in savings.

[naednek]

slithers back into darkness

EDIT: Happy New Year everyone!

I make my family wait till the day after thanksgiving to listen to any xmas songs, or watch xmas movies. We don't decorrate until the day after. I was tempted to hang the outside lights the day before thanksgiving due to a busy weekend, but I would catch a lot of grief if I broke my rule.

[Jeff V]

slithers back into darkness

EDIT: Happy New Year everyone!

I make my family wait till the day after thanksgiving to listen to any xmas songs, or watch xmas movies. We don't decorrate until the day after. I was tempted to hang the outside lights the day before thanksgiving due to a busy weekend, but I would catch a lot of grief if I broke my rule.

Before Football and Turkey Day, we had unreasonably warm temperatures and a lot of neighbors were putting up Xmas stuff prematurely. I got my kids to be as disgusted as I was by this act.

Someday we will have a greater battle to fight -- The Philippines puts up Xmas crap September 1. They don't celebrate Football and Turkey Day (wife never had turkey until she came here), but they do celebrate Halloween.

[Daehawk]

I wish is for all of you to have the Christmas that you wished for. I had wonderful ones in the past. I keep them close to my heart. I can see the smiles and hear the silly jokes of those long gone. The food and warm of being surrounded by family and friends. It was really something this time of year..and I had man. I was so blesses. I wish that for you this holiday season all. Make the most of it...and take pictures and videos to keep and remember.

[Jeff V]

I wish is for all of you to have the Christmas that you wished for. I had wonderful ones in the past. I keep them close to my heart. I can see the smiles and hear the silly jokes of those long gone. The food and warm of being surrounded by family and friends. It was really something this time of year..and I had man. I was so blesses. I wish that for you this holiday season all. Make the most of it...and take pictures and videos to keep and remember.

Like every year, my wish is for it to be done already. Today I found out my wife's friend is hosting...meaning we arrive Xmas Eve and come home sometime late Xmas Day. Since Filipinos don't bake things, they've never found it necessary to fix a long ago broken oven, so there goes anything traditional I might make for Xmas. Two years ago I made the mistake of bringing a turkey there for Football and Turkey Day, expecting to finish it in the oven. Since they had none, they simply ate it as-is. I knew I didn't cook it to temperature so I had nothing.

I guess maybe I'll make use of their portable pizza oven to make some frozen pizzas.

We won't be hosting New Years either since the floor contractor deemed our start date to be Dec 30. Maybe I'll just work that night.

[Daehawk]

[Lassr]

This year's tree:



Merry Christmas from the LASSR family...pew, pew.

[YellowKing]

Very nice, Lassr!

This year we did an unprecedented two trees. Since the kids were babies, we've gotten a real tree. They grew up with the tradition of going to pick one out every Black Friday, so it's become one of those mandatory things (even though after 15 years I'm quite frankly tired of the expense and hassle and waste).

So we went and got the requisite real tree, set it up and decorated it, and as I was pulling stuff out of the attic I saw our fake tree from back before the kids were born. I had plenty of leftover ornaments so I thought, "What the heck, we're going to REALLY Xmas up this MFer." So I put the fake tree up as well.

One tree is Blue Christmas themed and we did all silver, blue, and blue lights. The other one is all Hallmark ornaments, kid ornaments, multi-colored - more of a kids tree. And you know what? The fake tree looks REALLY damn good for a 20 year old tree. I was kind of surprised how well it has stood the test of time and changing artificial tree technology.

So I'm determined next year to convince the kids that we're just going to do the fake one. Maybe with some bribery thrown in.

[MHS]

We do small (4.5') fake trees, but we do them on every level. One on the main floor in the living room, one upstairs in our loft family room, and one in the finished basement, which is our poker room. That tree is all poker-themed, the others are just a hodge-podge of ornaments from over the years.

[Jeff V]

We do small (4.5') fake trees, but we do them on every level. One on the main floor in the living room, one upstairs in our loft family room, and one in the finished basement, which is our poker room. That tree is all poker-themed, the others are just a hodge-podge of ornaments from over the years.

When I was a kid, we festooned our Xmas shrub with beer cans.. Sure, people laughed, but when they saw the result, they were impressed. It was tastefully done, and then there was the evening when everyone came over to "make the ornaments." Ah, good times.

[Zenn7]

Merry Christmas all!

Our first gift was from going to a family christmas party and coming home with COVID for me and the kid. Not severe (just nasty colds), but we haven't completely gotten over it, so not going to my brother's for xmas with my immediate family.

Hope y'all got better gifts than that!

Kid's primary gift was replacing his laptop a month or two ago (as always, thanks to those who provide feedback in General Computing forum!). Wife got him stuff from Temu and few other little things.

My aunt that we take care of tells me to use some money however, so usually just put some in savings towards future home improvement. This year we got a new kitten (rescue adoption event - she was spayed (sp?) and had vaccines, think it was like $145, good price for all they alreadyh did) and wife wanted a new toaster over that was also an air fryer. Nothing wrong w/ the old toaster over, just wasn't an air fryer. She picked out some fancy Emeril Lagasse thing that has air fryer, toaster oven, and every other mode of cooking a device like this could have.

Got wife money for shopping online (birthday, both ours are in December), Amazon gift card and small Google Play gift card (for games on her phone/tablet).

And we all got advent calendars:
Kid got a gemstone calendar - collecting these is a passion for them.

They got me a D&D advent calendar - unfortunately, it's the crappy one you may have heard about online, $24-30 and has misformed figures that are often missing pieces (arms/hands) and/or unidentifiable things) and odd dice with missing numbers, 1 side always sunk in and sometimes odd number and almost all of them were odd shapes. On the plus side, it was rather quite amusing to see what bizarre thing I'd get every day.

Wife used the resusable one and tasked me with filling it. Last couple years, we just used that for the family and filled it with candy. Wife said can't do that, go buy stuff. It's dinky like 1-2in squares. What can you buy that isn't going to go over $30ish dollars to fill up 24 boxes like that and is not edible junk? She said it could be some candy (so all the odd numbered days are candy). Got lotto scratch-offs for all the even days except 2 - one was "out to eat any place of your choice", the other was some earrings kid helped me pick out. Just some decorative, cute (cheap).
- PS - open to suggestions for things that are in the $1-2 range for the future. A couple bigger items (aside from dinner and earrings, one of the scratch-offs was a $10 ticket, on the day of her birthday), are doable, but nothing really significant. Don't want the calendar to make her other gifts seem small.

If you made it this far, Merry Christmas again, hope Santa brings you and your family good health, happiness and a nice toy or two.

[Daehawk]

I still just use our Bear tree we got in the late 90s or so. Its a Christmas tree about 4' or 4.5' tall with a brown bear standing on its right in a christmas hat holding the tree and a baby bear on the bottom left with a hat too. I took some pics to show ya but both my tablet and phone of usb c and I dotn have a usb C on my old computer. So cant transfer it. Dang it.

Merry Christmas all. Thanks to you all for being my friend and family. We've known each other since 1999 I think. Hope everyone is blessed and loved this holiday and always.

[Zarathud]

The older child gets an assortment of tiny bath ducks. The younger gets socks because she steals them from everyone. One year they got tiny wooden cats.

[Jeff V]

Got my Grinch hat and Grinch shirt. Making cookies and ribs this afternoon for a party at a friend, along with a 12 of Celebration Ale - the store had two left and that was the first sighting all year. What's up with that? Hop harvest failure? BWW usually has it on the $6/22 oz tap this time of year, but this year they have Hazy Little Thing.

I need to wrap gifts. Can't put them under the tree though, the puppy will think they are all hers and destroy them while we're out at the party tonight.

[Skinypupy]

Beverly D’Angelo is SO underappreciated as a key cog in the hilarity of “Christmas Vacation”.

She’s gorram hilarious throughout.

[Madmarcus]

Merry Christmas everybody! Or Happy Holidays if you aren't a Christmas person.

I've started the Christmas Eve fish soup and some mulled wine. Tomorrow we host my dad and brother so I'll smoke a ham and make some sides in the morning while we have gifts with the kids and my MIL. Sometime after 4pm tomorrow I'll stop cooking and wallow in leftovers for a while.

[Kraken]

a 12 of Celebration Ale - the store had two left and that was the first sighting all year. What's up with that? Hop harvest failure?

I never found any Celebration this year, but I'm living in a new (smaller) city and still haven't found a favorite packie. Selections are smaller and prices are higher at the far end of the supply chains. It snows enough here to mothball my Miata all winter, so the foray into Vermont that I wanted to make for Alchemist beers didn't happen, either.

After buying a new house, car, and furniture in recent months I have acquisition fatigue. Wife said she bought three things for me, and I have two for her, and that's going to be the end of that, I hope.

[Holman]

We are doing a minimal (expense-wise) Christmas this year, and we've been in touch with relations who've agreed to do the same.

In buying for my wife, my MIL, two sons, my mom, my sister, and two nieces, I think I spent under $300. Mostly a single book for a single person, or something similar (earrings, etc), plus a few shared treats like luxury sweets or cooking oils.

It feels good. We have a nice tree and an excellent day of cooking planned. I think the real Christmas celebration will actually be the dinner. We'll have Hanukkah latkes at breakfast, and my foodie son wants to try his hand at cooking beef tenderloin. I'm in charge of the mashed potatoes.

We had snow this morning. Some of it will still be on the ground tomorrow, so I'm going to call it a white Christmas.

[Madmarcus]

We had snow this morning. Some of it will still be on the ground tomorrow, so I'm going to call it a white Christmas.

We were trying to decide if a white Christmas meant snow falling or snow already on the ground. In the end the warmer, sunny afternoon might have solved to matter but it was still a nice attempt by Mother Nature.

[Kraken]

Oh yeah, I almost forgot about cooking. Xmas is my annual meat loaf and scalloped potatoes, the only time of year Wife shelves her vegetarianism because my loaf is so good. And because 5 lbs of potatoes and 3 lbs of meat yield enough to last all week. This year, she's on Wegovy, so her appetite is diminished...all the more loaf 'n' spuds for me!

[Grifman]

Merry Christmas everyone!

[Blackhawk]

I'm honestly not feeling it this year. It's been a stressful year leading up to an even more stressful fall/winter. Still, everything is done. The budget, as always, wasn't affected, as I put back a set amount every month to pay for the holidays and birthdays (September, November, and December have them), and everything comes out of that.

Unreasonable jerky rant incoming, lack of cheer involved:
Spoilered to avoid parade-pooping.

Spoiler:

I'm the one in the family who always 'does' Christmas for everyone else (whether that's decorating, planning get-togethers, or buying most of the gifts.) That usually means that I'm running like crazy and wiped out, but I do it for the kids, their mother, and their grandmother. This year it honestly bothers me that, while I make sure that everyone around me has as good of a Christmas as I can manage, none of them ever think to return the favor. End result? I get the work and expense, but none of the excitement and fun. Feeling unhappy about that makes me feel selfish as hell, given that it's supposed to be the season of giving. But at the same time, as they say, "It's the thought that counts", and sometimes I'd appreciate if someone was thinking back.

I think it's just a reflection of how much I've realized this year about how people have used me to avoid having to take care of their own problems. Christmas is voluntary on my part, but this year it feels like an echo of the same problem.

[Kraken]

Sometimes it irks me a little that I spend up to $500 on gifts for my family every xmas and they very rarely send me anything. I got a nice jar of nuts and candies a few years ago. But the irritation quickly passes. I can buy my own nuts, and I genuinely don't care about receiving gifts.

[Daehawk]

Sorry to hear that BH. It can be a downer and hard to deal with at times. I wish you test during this time.

I completely forgot to buy ANY Christmas food. I forgot the ham, the stuff to make a casserole..usually green bean or cauliflower. I ordered the eggnog but they were out and i forgot to reorder. So for the first time in maybe forever Im having either canned soup or something from the freezer.

I Do plan to order some of this In Jan when i get my check. Mostly the eggnog and ham.

Scratch that...I forgot StateFarm refunded me $75 when I put my car ins on hold..which i should have done a year ago.

[Zarathud]

Christmas presents are wrapped before midnight for the first time in 15+ years. Visiting my mom's house for Christmas Eve this year created less clean-up, but 3 hours of travel where I was a passenger in the car. I'm the most rested for Christmas in years.

My teenagers were more than happy to hide in the basement on their computers while I wrapped gifts. I'm the only one who can wrap gifts or manage spatial relationships. My oldest was stressed out about going to college next year, so she crashed in her room early. My youngest stays up late and came down to the kitchen as I was packing the "secret bag" of Santa wrapping paper I've used (and hid) for years. The trick to Christmas has been buying the kids things after convincing them we wouldn't approve, then hiding the evidence, and denying everything. My youngest admitted a few years ago to playing along for gifts because why jeopardize stuff for the truth.

This year, my youngest saw stuff under the tree, turned off the light, and declared while crossing the room for her water that she didn't want to know whose body was in the bag because she didn't want to be Santa's next victim. Fits her, because this year she also dropped a Scary Ernie pushie from "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared" into my Target cart while shopping "in case Santa was paying attention." The younger kid is the one hepcat really needs to fear -- she won't just humiliate him, she'll bury his body for profit.

We're heading to my wife's 70 year old aunt's house for Christmas Day to meet another 80 year old aunt, one of my wife's cousins and her daughter. The wife's family usually travels for Christmas, so they don't do more for gifts than a book, music or movie.

I've always been a net gift-giver to the family since graduating college. I received only a set of D&D Condition Tokens and a box of Critical Role miniatures this year. I spent twice that on every other member of my family. But, then again, they know I treat myself well for Christmas and my mom is downsizing Christmas after retiring.

[AWS260]

Merry Christmas, ya mooks.

[Blackhawk]

Good morning, and merry Christmas, everyone.

As to my overly-tired, semi-depressed complaint last night, just to be clear, it has nothing to do with stuff. It has to do with having people willing to make the effort on my behalf.

[Holman]

Merry Christmas, all!

This is my second Christmas since leaving teaching, and I'm realizing that this makes a real difference.

Teaching on a semester system always meant that December was a hugely stressful time: giving and grading final exams, collecting and grading dozens of final essays, and calculating semester grades, all with a university deadline of maybe December 21. Finding time to buy and wrap and mail gifts was really difficult. More often than not I would call my sister and tell her to expect her and my nieces' presents on the 27th or so.

This year was smooth sailing in comparison.

[Smoove_B]

Here's a holiday tiP from me to you for those visiting with friends and family today. Do not ask your host for help to delete their Amazon Prime account off the TV so you can watch a movie associated with your own Amazon Prime account.

I will not be taking questions at this time, but suffice to say thankfully you aren't reading about me in your national news media.

Merry Christmas!

[Daehawk]

I can remember me and my wife shopping for Christmas in Oct . We started early and found deals. Half our gifts were wrapped and ready by the end of Nov. I can remember her letting me open my new 28.8 modem in Nov in 1994. I was stuck with a 2400 baud lol. I remember many many MANY mall trips. Standing in long non moving lines to put or get stuff in layaway.or to have stuff wrapped. One year she had the Kids on the Block wrap my SNES and Genesis I recall..i had no idea though.

I recalls shopping in the dept stores Like Belk, Proffitt's and Parisian for family items...perfume or cologne sets for her mom and dad and my dad. Eating at nicer places. All the fun you'd expect. At least some of those lines had free coffee and cookies..and I dont drink coffee usually.

We had a fun life. And thats just Christmas stuff lol.

And its Christmas Day today so again Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

[Jaymann]

Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas to all and to all a good football.

[Jaymann]

Here's a holiday tiP from me to you for those visiting with friends and family today. Do not ask your host for help to delete their Amazon Prime account off the TV so you can watch a movie associated with your own Amazon Prime account.

I will not be taking questions at this time, but suffice to say thankfully you aren't reading about me in your national news media.

Merry Christmas!

Hometown Hero Saves Christmas?

[TheMix]

Merry Christmas all!

Got in the mood by rewatching Violent Night last night while cooking/preparing the cranberry sauce and stuffing. Turkey will go into the oven in a couple of hours. Then mostly chill until a few family arrive around 4pm.

[Daehawk]

I dotn watch Christmas movies really. i did watch a Hallmark movie. We loved them..wife more than me but now i seem to have an affection for them and their type even though they all share the same plot hahaha.

If wife was here i know we'd watch Bad Santa lol. I kinda burnt out on holiday anything for a good while. My meal today actually turned out to be a piece of bread with a slice of kraft cheese with mustard and kraut on it and chili with some french onion dip. Was pretty good. Never tried that before. Was like a stoner's meal

I remember glancing at the clock today between using the pc and saw it was noonish. I smiled recalling being at mom's or dad's and them calling dinner's ready for all us crowded family members there.

Holidays have always been cool. I wish I knew where all the pictures had gotten to. No videos were taken that I remember.

[Pyperkub]

Merry Christmas to OO! Got a ride in this morning before the festivities really get going.

[TheMix]

My meal today actually turned out to be a piece of bread with a slice of kraft cheese with mustard and kraut on it and chili with some french onion dip.

Cue hepcat with the "you all eat some weird foods" quote.

[Sudy]

Merry Christmas guys!

I too watched two thirds of Violent Night this morning (for the first time) when I woke up at 5:00. Then I went back to bed.

I almost killed myself eating meatballs last night. Eating spaghetti on Christmas Eve became our tradition for some reason. Apparently 750 grams of beef/pork/veal makes an excessive quantity of meatballs for just two people. Leftovers made a good sandwich for breakfast though.

Now for Christmas dinner....

[hepcat]

My meal today actually turned out to be a piece of bread with a slice of kraft cheese with mustard and kraut on it and chili with some french onion dip.

Cue hepcat with the "you all eat some weird foods" quote.

Here ya go.

From some of the stuff you folks eat Id think you were pregnant.

[Kraken]

Nice day for the two of us. Exchanged our few gifts, I spent too long cooking too much food, then we built a fire and watched a mediocre movie. Managed to get some work done, too. I'm working on a project where new entries are accumulating faster than I can process them -- I'll log in with 200 items in my in-tray, edit 20, and finish with 202 items in my tray. The next day I'll start with 220 (the other people are on the west coast), do another 20, and end with 216. Today I managed to whittle that down to 175 because literally no one else was working...very satisfying. I hope a lot of them are taking the rest of the week off, too...I'd love to get below 100 before the week is out.