Xmas Tasks – The Climb #665

Friday 18^th December 2020

I forget how much time Xmas takes up.

I could be forgiven for considering that as this is a simpler Xmas, it really wouldn’t eat much of my time.  My parents are high risk and as such we made the decision back in early summer to cancel Xmas – It helps having friends who are virologists to help educate you on what will inevitably happen.  Therefore, my xmas is with my support bubble.  No gifts or cards to extended family.  Just a few gifts for my host, and food for the day.

Simple?  Well, I thought it would be.

I’ve not been in much of an xmas spirit, and over the last few days have been in a major funk.  As I said, we’ve had plans in place since early summer, and as such, even if they locked down the entire country, the current plan wouldn’t be impacted.  But, after a year of not seeing family, and a bit of a shitty year all round, there’s a large part of me that finds it hard to enter a season of joy.

But I intend to try.

This week has been a parade of deliveries as what seemed like a simple Amazon shopping basket turned into a million different deliveries, each with their own time slot vague enough to take up huge parts of the day.

In the winter months, I tend to keep interior doors shut.  There’s a small draft from the front door that seems to wind its way around the house if doors are open.  It’s not enough to chill the house, but it is enough for my feet to notice it.  So I keep the doors shut when it gets cold, and happily roast in my office as a result.

But it means it’s more difficult to hear the front door.  Doubly so if I’m wearing headphones.  That means no streaming, no playing games, no listening to music as a I write.  Instead, I’m half doing jobs I don’t want to do as I listen for hours for the door, worried that I might miss that split second a delivery turns up.

Of course, these presents need to be wrapped – that can wait for next week – and the food needs to be sourced.  Thankfully, we have the turkey already.  We’ve compiled a list and the fresh items have to wait for Monday.

But all this eats time, at a time I’m not feeling very productive.  Heck, I haven’t even been very productive in Warcraft, opting to level alts as it both needs to be done, and can be done without much concentration (aka can be done without my headphones on).

I have a week to find some Xmas cheer, but to be honest at the moment all those tasks I normally love leading up to Xmas, feel a bit empty this year.