Snow everywhere...
...and still I feel absolutely no holiday spirit this year. Christmas has been losing ground with me for years and there seems to be nothing that even remotely makes it feel like a holiday this year. I've made some efforts (though I have no Christian associations with the holiday at this point) that have fallen flat. Got some almond crescent cookies and they suck. They're more like animal crackers with a dusting of powdered sugar with no real almond flavor and they seem overbaked since the texture is just plain wrong for them.
I've skipped out on every holiday party or event I've been invited to. I got terribly grouchy last weekend when the next door neighbors had an obnoxious holiday party that raged until after 4am. I've been out shopping, not for the holidays or gifts but other things that are just needed and the stores are already fairly ransacked and it looks like the holiday merchandise was very scaled back this year.
This bah humbug spirit seems to get worse every year for the past few years. On the plus side, winter solstice is tomorrow and I think I may use that as the official holiday to celebrate this year. I picked up a limoncello pandora cake yesterday evening in the mad dash through the grocery store as the white shit kept falling outside. Thought about saving it for Christmas but I think tomorrow is a more appropriate time for it. If Ryan wasn't so allergic, I'd pick up some Yule incense and burn that in order to see if that evens me out. I got him a pair of boots as a gift and he seems happy with them. I couldn't push him out the door the day they were arriving so I just handed them to him when they came in the door. Probably better that way anyway since there's nowhere to hide them and no real reason to hold them back until a specific day.
This year is especially weird since I didn't have that much cheer to add to Thanksgiving and in some ways, that was a bit strained this year. Nothing bad about the people, food or anything in particular going on around. It was a little more like just going through the motions. That just made it really weird.
Anyway, perhaps I'll snap out of it and into some sort of cheer since I'm off work for the next week. Who knows, maybe I can even convince Ryan to head over to Jersey tomorrow to Paramus where there's supposed to be a See's Candy holiday shop. That may be the missing ingredient the past few years. I'm so accustomed to associating that stuff with the holiday season and the absence of it might be what's missing from my usual childhood associations. I tried a couple Terry's chocolate oranges as a substitute and that didn't really do much but probably add a pound or two of fat to my body.
Or, it could just be that aside from a few good things in life, this year has just been crappier than most. That seems the most logical, yet simplistic explanation for my sour mood.
I've skipped out on every holiday party or event I've been invited to. I got terribly grouchy last weekend when the next door neighbors had an obnoxious holiday party that raged until after 4am. I've been out shopping, not for the holidays or gifts but other things that are just needed and the stores are already fairly ransacked and it looks like the holiday merchandise was very scaled back this year.
This bah humbug spirit seems to get worse every year for the past few years. On the plus side, winter solstice is tomorrow and I think I may use that as the official holiday to celebrate this year. I picked up a limoncello pandora cake yesterday evening in the mad dash through the grocery store as the white shit kept falling outside. Thought about saving it for Christmas but I think tomorrow is a more appropriate time for it. If Ryan wasn't so allergic, I'd pick up some Yule incense and burn that in order to see if that evens me out. I got him a pair of boots as a gift and he seems happy with them. I couldn't push him out the door the day they were arriving so I just handed them to him when they came in the door. Probably better that way anyway since there's nowhere to hide them and no real reason to hold them back until a specific day.
This year is especially weird since I didn't have that much cheer to add to Thanksgiving and in some ways, that was a bit strained this year. Nothing bad about the people, food or anything in particular going on around. It was a little more like just going through the motions. That just made it really weird.
Anyway, perhaps I'll snap out of it and into some sort of cheer since I'm off work for the next week. Who knows, maybe I can even convince Ryan to head over to Jersey tomorrow to Paramus where there's supposed to be a See's Candy holiday shop. That may be the missing ingredient the past few years. I'm so accustomed to associating that stuff with the holiday season and the absence of it might be what's missing from my usual childhood associations. I tried a couple Terry's chocolate oranges as a substitute and that didn't really do much but probably add a pound or two of fat to my body.
Or, it could just be that aside from a few good things in life, this year has just been crappier than most. That seems the most logical, yet simplistic explanation for my sour mood.