This would have been a good Christmas gift:
Christmas Eve is always an emotionally charged day for me. When I was a child, the tradition was to spend it at my maternal grandparents. Then they moved out of their home and the family tradition moved among their children's homes before settling at one of my aunt-and-uncle's. It also moved to the weekend before Christmas. This year, no celebration. No announcement of a cancellation. The invitation just never arrived. A lot of my family on that side has moved to Colorado, driven by housing inflation, I suspect.
Christmas Eve seems to me the loneliest, most melancholy day of the year. Especially Christmas Eve night. Even when you're not alone. Just driving the streets. Stores that never seem closed are closed. (I was kicked out of my local 24-Hour Fitness at 4pm this afternoon.) Streets are deserted. I've even heard reports that there's no traffic on the 405 in LA. I always feel like I'm missing something on Halloween. I feel like I've missed something on Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve seems like the real end of the year.
The weather was a pensive gray today. It didn't rain, but high clouds canopied the sky. The office was distracted and three-quarters-empty and at the end of the day put in my mind the scene in the empty boarding school to which the Ghost of Christmas Past leads Scrooge. The freeway was also half-empty and the mountains looked beautiful in the early twilight. The sun shone on the eastern most peak, but the others were a soft blue, covered in snow and trimmed with clouds at their lower elevations.
My plans this Christmas Eve. Eat some smoked oysters. Catch up on a little coding while listening to Christmas carol on the internet. Pour a glass of wine. Try to find A Christmas Story on cable. And look forward to seeing the family tomorrow.
