The liquor cabinet is significantly lighter, most of the additional cheeses brought in for the season have been eaten, and now the inevitable return to normalcy slouches out of our Bethlehem holiday mindset and drags us kicking and screaming back to a painfully mundane (but in fariness, far more sustainable) existence.
Well, many of us, anyways. Audrey will be working remotely for the first week of the new school year, and Fenya's classes don't resume until Jan. 11, but it is business as usual for me tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m.
It was weird not seeing family members or friends in person for Christmas, and especially troubling with my sister testing positive for Covid from her job in Texas. But there were net positives as well, if I am being honest.
For instance, in between Roll20 and getting the tabletop set up at home for the first time in over half a year, I got in 23 hours of D&D between Dec. 20 and today. Rolling some dice, having some laughs and sharing some snacks (where safe) felt grand, even if the majority of contact was over a Google Meeting. And playing from noon until 11 pm on the 27th with the family was a real trip down memory lane for me.
Being confined to quarters and having both girls at home gave me a chance to share a bunch of old school Star Trek, and they managed to watch all eight Harry Potter movies over the break, with Glory even making some butterbeer inspired by the stories at one point.
We finally got the whole family to sit down for a game of Wingspan, a wonderful board game that is sometimes tricky to understand, but easy to play once you wrap your head around it, and which also may be the most beautful board game I own. I also finished building all the pieces for the Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps board game I had pre-ordered in the summer but which only arrived the Sunday before Christmas. Still not sure how the game is supposed to work as a solo experience, but hope to rope in the girls for a game next week and can perhaps post a review after that. At least it looks good though!
We ate plates of sausages and cheese, leftover ham, grilled vegetables, pizza, egg nog french toast and today, Soul in a Bowl from OEB, to both commemorate and mourn the end of a wonderful time together.
On New Year's Eve, we ate fondue, then turned down the lights, turned up the volume and enjoyed the Muse: Simulation Theory concert film - what a spectacle! Sadly, it is only 90 minutes long, but that gave us plenty of time to swtich over to Rick Mercer for the countdown at midnight.
Not a lot of projects got done (unless you count the collective Christmas puzzle we worked on) but this was to be expected. This year the Christmas break was precisely that: a respite.
John Lennon has been quoted as saying that "Time you enjoyed wasting was not wasted" which I think is true, and perhaps more applicable to this Christmas than those that have gone before. But I also think of a quote from the Tao of Pooh that has stuck with me for years: "When I do nothing, nothing gets not done."
There is a comforting sort of zen contained there I think, which I hope will comfort me as I head back to a familiar routine tomorrow, already looking forward to the next break, whenever and wherever it might be.
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