commencing 24th december 2024
coming to you from the land of smug christmas success
christmas was……….actually really peaceful. the day before, we did our groceries, went to the gym, went to the muppets christmas carol at the prince charles cinema, and watched red one at home.
coat - monki / top - monki (secondhand) / trousers - custom / boots - puma
i set some boundaries for this period and it paid off big time. on the big day, will and i called some friends and family, ate cheese and crackers and exchanged gifts and went for no less than four walks, including the fleet street quarter penguin parade, where he developed some hot takes about which penguins he liked and why.
i wore an, if i’m honest, not very well-fitted velvet suit, which had me feeling like a very good little boy indeed. i received a fleecy electric blanket, which is now my best friend. i also got some teas and some little-known biscuit treats you can’t find easily in the uk anymore. very spoilt! in return, i got will the entire dark souls comic series and an electric coffee grinder.
suit - topshop / shirt - m&s autograph / loafers - guess (all secondhand)
i scored free tickets to the cinema by being the first person to see a reddit thread and promptly booked to go see sonic the hedgehog 3 on boxing day (reader, it was not very good, and i actually really wanted it to be). we bought zelda: echoes of wisdom and played some of it. we had the day mostly to ourselves with the exception of an hour where my brother came over. i’m not really used to christmas feeling this way, and it almost felt kind of lonely to not have a chaotic family affair with a bunch of spinning plates on my roster, but i think that’s my chaos brain talking. it was VERY peaceful. it was a little sleepy, and full of love.
we ended up going to see will’s family on boxing day for grilled turkey and brie sandwiches. it was very nice and we watched the new wallace & gromit special and will’s dad threw some chocolates my mom got him across the room because he feels very strongly about cadbury losing its royal warrant.
it took us four days to do my laundry after we got back because the racks were all full of will’s drying laundry, so my outfits have still been a little sideways, but i did get to pull out my sonic the hedgehog fit for sonic the hedgehog (i need to replace these moon boots, sadly; i tried to cobble them, but whatever road cement they use to coat the foam sole is irreplaceable).
dress - urban outfitters / boots - moon boots (all secondhand)
my parents and cousins came over for a cajun christmas dinner on the 27th (literally any excuse to make a chili) - so we got to see everyone, and no matter how bad i felt for my parents having their ‘quiet christmas’, i think it was worth it to at least try something outside of the paradigm. ‘tis the season, not the day, after all. and because i dressed video game-y one day, i dressed video game-y again! i think i will aim to keep the tradition of keeping christmas over several days. it seems to be like birthdays: putting all the pressure on one day is a bad idea, but spreading cheer over several lower pressure events seems to vent the steam and also mean that no one is stuck in crazy traffic or stranded without a train somewhere that isn’t working for them.
dungarees - tommy hilfiger / turtleneck - uniqlo / shoes - vans (all secondhand)
here is a cosy weekend fit from when i couldn’t tell you what day it was. it felt very slick and athleisure, so i put this silly mountain jacket over it.
jacket - gifted from an albanian vintage seller / joggers - zara (secondhand) / boots - puma / turtleneck - unbranded
i blocked instagram on my computer, and reddit on my phone, on christmas day. this has slashed my device multitasking quite severely, as that was a lot of my tab flipping. i have also made a decision to try and only pull my computer out when i have something i want to do on it - look something specific up, do a task, watch something, etc, but to just spend some time staring into space and thinking outside of that. i have really been feeling the urge to spend some time out of cosy digital space and actually living my life and try and untangle.
i find it really hard to exist on the internet without the sense of an audience and i would like to get away from that and just use the internet as a tool for my own development and communication. i know that this is technically a place with an audience, but the way i am experiencing writing this is that i am on a page with no feed, typing away, and that is at least a singular task with the exception of looking something up once every few paragraphs. there is no audience as i write this - only as i edit it. and i think to an extent feeling like i have to be authentic and palatable at the same time is chronic, but impossible. i can’t monetise myself - some people seem to be able to, and i’m not one - and i’m not interested in doing so. and i don’t just mean monetise for money, but spiritually monetise - for approval, care, general confirmation of worth. it’s not been long, but i really hope i can keep these boundaries up for myself. i want to stop doing things that are easy but feel crappy. only easy things that feel good from here on out!
of course, routine goes out of the window when we’re doing badly. but hopefully a strong foundation is the way forwards.
here’s a list of things that are easy (at least sometimes) and feel good:
actually watching an episode of the gilmore girls without flipping tabs
reading ten pages of a book on my phone, usually leading to me reading a hundred
going for a walk around the dog park with will
eating a scone with jam and cream without doing anything else
counting down the seconds until i’m done brushing my teeth
doing a deep dive on the best retro game emulators
taking a deep breath
lighting a candle or three
wearing something cute and then changing into something comfortable 4 hours later
lying down on the couch while the robovac cleans the house
the days after christmas have been very fluffy. i look forward to a new sense of routine with space and time in it. but for now, i’m napping.
happy new year, folks. my next post will be the one where i think about everything i’ve done this year and everything i want to do next year. no pressure or nothin’!
xxx