Daily Check-in, Saturday, 19 December 2020 🦕

Hello my gorgeous sweetie peeties!

Ladies and gentlemen, or just ladies as the case may be, it is late December. Which means Chanukah just finished up. And I hope you all had Happy Chanukahs, regardless of what you do or don't celebrate. I certainly wouldn't want anyone to have unhappy Chanukahs! I celebrated by watching Greg Kurstin and Dave Grohl cover songs by Jewish artists on YouTube. Highly recommend!

Late December also means Christmas is just around the corner. I know Christmas is a massive holiday that most people here celebrate, so I thought about doing one day of Christmas themed check-in and one day of Chanukah-themed, but I find this time of year difficult. And I know I'm not alone here, so I won't impose that on anyone. I really enjoy the winter version, with the lights, and the food, and the trees, and the snow...but I'm in the wrong hemisphere for that! I still find Christmas in the summer weird. It just ain't right! And if you have nice family to do fun stuff with that's great, but if you don't it can get pretty lonely. It's also lonely if you don't celebrate, because you celebrate something else, or nothing at all, but you're watching everyone else (plus the shops, public decor, and music) get festive. Then again, spending Christmas alone has its benefits, like not dealing with bickering relatives, the drunk uncle on a racist tired, and overtired children who are high on sugar. Gift buying gets a lot cheaper, too. Maybe some of us are secretly happy that lockdown and travel restrictions have put a stop to some of these festivities?

So in the spirit of not making this holiday themed, even though that's all I've talked about so far, here's a photo of a rainbow lorikeet from the park where I walk Max. They are pretty common here, but I still think all those bright colours are exciting. They squawk good too, and if you get a big flock of them trying to get settled in a tree for the evening, it really gets kinda loud.

And now to the point. How are you all??? What is/was your Saturday looking like? Are you exercising? Are you napping? Putting decorations up or taking them down? Doing something nice for someone who's having a rough time? Working off all that holiday food or running away from having to think about any of it? Are you gorging yourself on eggnog and candy canes and leftover challah? Or having a salad and wishing it would hurry up and be over already? Let me know! You know the drill. I'm gonna go for a run later this evening and do some work. Festive, I know.

So, Happy Chanukah everybody. And Merry Christmas. And Kwanzaa. And Solstice. And a very late Diwali, and an even later Ramadan. Also Happy Halloween, Thanksgiving, and New Years. And if any of those things aren't going to be happy for you, I hope they are at least peaceful.

Edited