#listen I am but a basic bitch who loves that damn green baby muppet

[obsessivedilettante]

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate! And happy Sunday-hopefully-a-three-day-weekend to those who don’t.

Please forgive the janky photo but it is nearly 3am here and I am Secret Santa Sneaky putting up the stockings, hung by the gas fireplace with some faint suggestion of care.

The amusing thing is that these stockings are mostly filled with things that Mum and I bought together, in person, almost a month ago, while getting the traditional holiday panetón at Cost Plus World Market. (They have the best flavor options!)

We also picked up a few fun trinkets while we were there. Mum has a solar powered waving Queen Elizabeth that she got years ago when living in England. It sits on the windowsill of the kitchen, and because we live in such a sunny place, I’ve grown accustomed to the click-click as her hand swivels back and forth.

Anyway, Mum’s version is basic blue. But we found this one at World Market that is gold! So fancy! So now we can have dueling waving queens.

We also saw a candy dispenser that is shaped like a sloth and poops out the candies. How can anyone resist that, especially since a major highlight of the family trip to Peru last summer was holding a baby sloth. We had a coupon for a free ornament so we also got an alpaca in honor of that trip, too, which is peeking out of Mum’s stocking.

The bulk of the stocking is candy and fuzzy socks (that will genuinely be a surprise, since this was something I bought on my own and Mum has no idea about them!). Oh, and dog butt magnets because we can always use more magnets, right? Plus, dog butts, heh.

Anyway, we’ve been joking around for the last month that we’re not really going to do much for Christmas. Splurge on a fancy-ish meal that will provide plenty of leftovers, and relax with lots of holiday movies. No family. No travel. No gift exchange.

We have a couple of big trips planned next year which is our main gift to each other (and they are Disney-adjacent, hence my crass capitalist choice in sock ware). Although, tbh, the biggest gift we can give to each other is finally feeling like we’re in a place of stability, something we haven’t had for over three years.

ANYWAY. Mum surprised me 3 years ago with a few things when we said “no gifts.” Then 2 years ago I surprised her with some inexpensive but thoughtful items (that had been purchased before we said, “no gifts,” which we eventually did say once I was laid off the Monday after Thanksgiving). Then last year, we agreed that yep, this time we really meant it, “no gifts” — and there was a small stocking with some treats in it on my chair come Christmas morning.

Then this year we said “no gifts” yet bought some fun little dumb things while out on our one true “Christmas outing” we had all year — we’re frugal enough, doggone it, and can enjoy the occasional pointless, frivolous trinket.

So it’s silly, putting things we already know about in a stocking. But I still got some glee at making sure I squirreled away the shopping bag we promised not to touch until Christmas, then stopping at Target on my way home from a work thing and giggling over the ridiculous stocking choices, and buying fuzzy Christmas socks on sale that I know Mum will enjoy, even if she only wears them once.

Oh, yeah, and we never got around to decorating because we just didn’t want to deal with sorting out the holiday boxes (that we’ve been meaning to organize and pare down, once our households merged, yet we still… haven’t…). So this is the only touch of “Christmas” you’ll see at the house.

But I have the whole week off, and we shall indulge our whims with food we don’t normally eat, attempt to assemble an Eiffel Tower gingerbread house (also purchased at World Market, because seriously we don’t get out much at all any more), and watch a random sampling of excellent and terrible holiday movies from various streaming services.

This is the first Christmas in years I haven’t felt vaguely (or majorly) depressed and anxious, focusing all my energy on simply surviving — and I choose to relish it, silly stockings and all.