A Christmas Article 2023
Today is Christmas Day, a day of celebration and gifts and stuff. It’s a hideously over-commercialized holiday and companies want you to spend tons of money so that their shareholders make even more millions. But at the same time, it’s also supposed to be a time to be with family. Hopefully, you don’t hate your family and spend it together, but the ‘tradition’ (more like a trope) is that Christmas is a massive mess and everyone hates each other and no one gets along, but somehow, at the end of the day, some people are happy.
Personally, this Christmas for me is a strange one. In previous years, I’ve been to much larger Christmas gatherings. When I was a kid, it was almost always us three kids, the parents, nana and sometimes my uncle, aunt and two cousins. And occasionally my other aunt and her kid. We all grew up but us kids would still have Christmas with the parents. When mum died, sister and her boyfriend went to her boyfriend’s parents, but me and brother were welcome at my dad’s new girlfriend’s place, where she invited all her family. Now though? Sister lives in the UK with her now husband, dad and I are both single and brother is the only one in a relationship. So, for the first time, we are having Christmas at his place, with his super nice girlfriend.
But even then, it’s quiet. His girlfriend’s sister, girlfriend’s sister’s husband and their kid were around in the morning for snacks, as was my dad, but they’ve all gone off to other gatherings. So now it’s just me, my brother and my brother’s girlfriend. Still, we’ve cooked enough for about 10 people. As is tradition for us. It’s weird though. I’m not used to this. Nice but weird.
Still, the money situation isn’t great. I’ve not been able to afford expensive gifts at all this year. Or even normal gifts. I’ve been living on less than minimum wage every month and have gone through most of my savings, and it’s not been fun. The only things I have guaranteed are the cost of hosting for my websites, and my rent for January. I don’t want to say I’m bad with money though, it’s just that, well, everything has skyrocketed in prices, things keep on randomly breaking and, well, I’m living on pretty much nothing. Hopefully, next year, I’ll start actually making some money, but things are pretty tight.
Sorry, that’s unfair, I shouldn’t burden you with my problems.
Either way, I suppose I should be celebrating. I’m still alive and have most of my family. Everyone else is doing really well, even if I’m not. So good for them. No, I’m not envious.
On the plus side, at least I can finally have some decent time off. I didn’t have a summer holiday this year, I worked on pretty much every bank holiday this year and I was going to be working on New Year’s Eve but thankfully that was cancelled. I REALLY need some time off and I can finally have it. And hopefully I can play some games that I’ve been putting off, like Saints Row 2, Temtem and Slime Rancher. Maybe I’ll finish Pokemon Violet as well. We’re also coming close to our 4000th article. I still haven’t decided what I’m going to do for that.
Anyway, enough of me. Merry Christmas to you all. Have a good one, and try not to get too drunk.