Christmas Weekend 2021

Friday, December 24: Christmas Eve Morning Back to the Christmas routine from before the pandemic, Shobhit and I exchanged gifts on the morning of December 24. He got me several liquors from Total Wine & More, a couple of them I was quite excited about (dark chocolate banana whiskey? yum!). My only complaint is that he had crammed them all, standing up in bottle gift bags, under the tree, and whatever he did has resulted in one of the strands of lights on the tee no longer lighting up. This includes the lights I had around the star on top of the tree, and it's driving me crazy that I can't figure out how to fix it. Shobhit has this longstanding problem, though, where he's not careful with stuff, no matter what it is, which makes everything around him either break or break down sooner than it should. But, whatever, I'll live. I still loved the gifts! The Shobhit-specific calendar I usually make every year just features photos of the two of us together from the previous year, as each of the month's large photos. I went for a bit of a departure this time, after he made a crack about my making a calendar out of the several photos I got in Las Vegas out of the hot guys at Thunder From Down Under. I actually thought, hey, that's not half a bad idea! The only trouble is, only five of the shots I got at that show were workable with what I decided to call "Stars and Moons"; I'd want some level of nakedness for all the photos I used. So, I rounded out the other seven months with another five shots from nude cyclists at the Fremont Solstice Parade over the years (trying to focus on either blonds or nice shots with full frontal nudity, both of which interest Shobhit); one shot of a nude cyclist at Pride for the month of June; and, for April, a nude shot of myself! That one was taken at a nude beach in Sydney last year, is a relatively wide shot of me in the distance on the rocks of a beach, and I am seen from behind largely silhouetted. I mean, you look twice and you clearly see my naked butt, but hey, it's tasteful! Shobhit was pretty amused to see that shot in there, anyway. I always have two copies of calendars printed for myself: one copy of the "Shobhit and Matthew" calendar, which I hang out in the living room; and one copy of the version made for Dad and Sherri's side of the family, but with the grid featuring birthday and anniversary photos for all sides of the family (Dad's side, Mom's side, and also Shobhit's family). I typically hang that one in the bedroom. I'm not going to hang the one with nudity in the living room, for guests or especially Ivan to have to look at—and god knows I sure as shit wouldn't do that with a nude photo of myself. The "Dad's side" them of the calendars was "A Bunch of Fruitcakes"—photos or, more likely, screenshots from videos of people opening the family fruitcake over the years. I kind of expected a tepid reaction to this one from everyone, although it was thematically connected to the history of the fruitcake video I posted on Christmas Eve morning. Instead, reactions were somewhat more mixed, ranging from muted amusement to outright excitement: Britni, kind of bizarrely, declared this one her favorite yet. I certainly didn't see that coming. It's true that printed calendars are increasingly obsolete, and a few discussions this year made me wonder if I should finally stop making them—I began it 15 years ago, skipping only one year in between, and when that happened I got many complaints of disappointment that they didn't get one. When Brandi and Nick opened theirs on Saturday, they both commented on how they look forward to it every year. So, for now, I'll just plan on continuing them for the indefinite future.

Friday, December 24: Wilson St. Winter Wonderland

The famed "Oly Lightstravaganza," the house not far from Dad and Sherri's in Olympia with the hugely elaborate holiday light decorations and which Shobhit and I went to look at in both 2019 and even 2020 (after visiting for a few hours with only Dad and Sherri on their covered back patio, no family gathering otherwise), turned out to be closed for 2021. Strange how many things went on last year when the pandemic was actually worse, but are being skipped this year (I'm looking at you, USPS mail to Australia! Side note, seriously fuck Louis DeJoy). But, Sherri had heard of this other place, itself only half a mile from their house, which she remembered the address and I finally figured out was this Wilson St Winter Wonderland. Just like the other place, it's designed so you can walk a path right through its decorations and ornaments so packed they might as well be featured on the A&E docuseries Hoarders. Unlike Oly Lightstravaganza, though, although Wilson St does employ a fair amount of strings of lights, it's far more focused on character figures of all kinds, from multiple nativity scenes to Santa Claus to Disney characters. It's all corny as hell, but I still ate it up, and of course had to have Dad take a picture of me on this bench next to a car full of a couple of . . . what the hell are those things, anyway?

Traditional family Christmas Eve dinner at Emperor's Palace Normally this dinner is done with my cousin Jennifer, her husband (or, as of 2019, her subsequent boyfriend Matthew), along with Dad and Sherri, a tradition that also stretches (this seems to be happening a lot) back to 2012. As you no doubt guessed, there was no such Christmas Eve dinner; as noted earlier, Shobhit and I didn't even go to Olympia last year until Christmas Day. Well, I was intent on reviving at least the tradition of staying in Olympia Christmas Eve—Shobhit and I repeated the compromise we previously made in 2019. He had to work and I did not, so I took city buses down to Olympia and he drove down to meet me on Christmas Day. And so, with Jennifer and her family unavailable this year due to other plans, Dad made reservations for just the three of us. That still works! The tradition is alive again. Side note on the bus rides down there: I should have known better to think I could rely on a layover time of merely six minutes in the bus schedules at the State Route 512 Park and Ride. I had caught the #594 Sound Transit Express at 9th and Stewart at 12:45, and I should have jut gotten on the next one half an hour later—I would have wound up on the very same connecting bus. Because the connecting bus, Intercity Transit 620 to Olympia, that I thought I would be catching, I barely missed, because traffic in Tacoma delayed the 594 I was on. As a result, I had to wait in the cold weather—at least it wasn't raining or snowing that day—on Friday afternoon for a good hour and ten minutes before I was leaving for the rest of the trip on the 620. Having nothing better to do, I killed time by walking over to the nearby Taco Time and having the first crisp bean burrito I've had there in about maybe years. I didn't eat it inside though, so I only stayed warm long enough for the food to take less than five minutes to be prepared, and also use the bathroom, which alone was kind of a lifesaver for that transit trip. Shobhit thought Dad should come and pick me up at Lakewood ("he's retired, after all") but I knew Dad would have no interest in that. Besides, my mistake in planning is not his responsibility, and it was hardly the end of the world that I was arriving at the Olympia Transit Center at 4:30 instead of 3:06. And to Dad's credit, he did come and pick me up in downtown Olympia at the Transit Center so I would not have to walk the mile from there to his house. I was immensely grateful for that, as although it still wasn't really raining, it had gotten far more damp in the air and even at 40° it was fucking cold, the kind of wet cold that seems to cut right through your clothes.

Saturday, December 25: Christmas

Has anyone mentioned snow yet? Had I stayed in Seattle overnight on Christmas Eve, I would not have seen snow on Christmas morning—but, I did in Olympia. I had actually gotten up to use the bathroom about an hour before this photo was taken, which would make it around 6:30 a.m., but at that time it was still just raining. I slept another hour, but then got this photo at 7:26: big fluffy flakes coming down beautifully. When I was a kid, when I obsessed over the daily weather forecasts through every winter in Spokane hoping for snow, this would have delighted me to no end. Shobhit was worried about driving down in it, though, so that made me less excited for it. The roads, on Saturday at least, proved to be just fine and he got down to Olympia in hardly more than an hour, arriving at about noon. Here he is by the car outside Dad and Sherri's house, just as we were leaving there for Gina and Beth's—Dad and Sherri had already gone ahead maybe 20 minutes earlier, as I waited there for Shobhit to arrive from Seattle and use the bathroom before we moved on to the other house:

. . . Trigger warning! Unusual indoor crowd ahead. Christmas 2021 Roll Call! 1. Dad
2. Sherri
3. Gina
4. Beth
5. David [Gina's son, my nephew]
6. Jackie [David's wife]
7. Georgia [David and Jackie's toddler]
8. Angel
9. Brandi [Angel's daughter, my niece]
10. Nick [Brandi's husband]
11. Jaycee [Brandi and Nick's daughter]
12. Gianni [Brandi and Nick's son]
13. Enzo [Brandi and Nick's toddler]
14. Ricky [Angel's son]
15. Raiden [Ricky and Rachel's son]
16. Ruby [Ricky and Rachel's daughter]
17. Britni [Angel's daughter]
18. Matthew
19. Shobhit So, that's 13 adults, and six children, most of the kids quite little except for Jaycee, my grandniece who is now 12. This group of 19 is only one shy of the 20 we had at Dad and Sherri's on Christmas 2019—which indicates that this year we basically all just pretended everything was normal again, even though it wasn't. It's better than 2020, to be sure, and Dad and Sherri actually got proactively tested late last week just as a precaution. I thought about getting tested as well, but decided I was comfortable enough when I realized Ivan gets tested twice a week at his work. Well, as I write this on Monday, I am getting tested this afternoon—thanks to the iPhone notification I got on Christmas morning (of all days) that I "may have had a brief exposure to COVID-19." The notification indicated it was nine days prior, which takes us to Thursday, December 16—the day of the Ugly Sweater Brunch at work. Now, to be fair, the details of the notification also said it was for less than fifteen minutes, which means it really could have been from anywhere, even the ride downtown on the bus that morning. Thankfully everyone on the bus tends to be masked. Most of us are unmasked at work, but anyone without a mask at work is fully vaccinated. I realize that's less "bulletproof" now with Omicron, but it's still a layer of protection. In any case, in all likelihood I am fine; December 16 is now 11 days ago and neither Shobhit nor I are showing any symptoms. The "further guidance" link from the notification has specifics for fully vaccinated people, which is that there's no recommendation for us to self-isolate; we should still get tested, and/or wear masks in any indoor public settings for 14 days after exposure. With the office categorized as "not public," setting that aside, I am always masked in indoor public places, with the exception of the rare occasions I am eating in a restaurant (which, admittedly, as you already saw, I did do on Christmas Eve; I hemmed and hawed about it a little with myself and then chose to take a calculated risk), and at 11 days past "potential" exposure I am nearly at the 14-day mark anyway. That said, there was also the Christmas gathering with family—I was already at Dad and Sherri's house, so that was a bridge crossed already. They acted like they needed to reassure me that I would be fine, but of course I was more concerned about them—at least they are both fully vaccinated and boostered. I did also text Gina and Beth to be up front with them about it, and Beth wrote back, "It's a risk we are willing to take." So, we went ahead with the day, although Gina declined any hugs. Beth still hugged us, so that sort of canceled each other out. They did keep several windows open, on both sides of the house, creating cross ventilation, which they had said they read should help while people were there. As far as I am aware, all the adults there were indeed fully vaccinated—Brandi is the only one who had ever been openly anti-vaccine on Facebook for months, only to share in November that, shocker of shockers, she had just gotten vaccinated too. I'm not sure how much of a difference the open windows really made; we didn't feel a breeze through the house or anything. The best protection for all of us was all the adults being vaccinated, and probably a good half of us, at least, also boostered. It wasn't as freezeing in there as we had feared either, although even having taken off my coat I still had three layers on (two shirts and my hoodie). For the most part I was actually quite comfortable, and it was lovely watching the snow fall outside.



The fruitcake lives! What a long and complicated history this thing has had. The one my sister Angel is holding here is the second one we've passed around, and even this one is now fully five years old. The first one, which was about a third this size and thus far more manageable for storing in someone's freezer for a year, was successfully passed back and forth between 1998 and 2011. That was fourteen Christmases! But, when my niece Britni had it sent to her in 2011 when she lived in Hawaii, and she had her electricity shut off, everything in her freezer defrosted together and the original fruitcake died. Between 2012 and 2015 there was an attempt to replace it with a naked lady whose breasts were salt and pepper shakers, but the family tired of that one quickly—and finally, in 2016, a genius friend of mine suggested I just buy a new fruitcake. Why the hell didn't I think of that? I bought a new one from the same Texas company the original had come from, irritated that this was now the smallest size they sold (and still is; I checked), and taped a photo of the original box on the back, with the complete log of each person who has gotten it and what year. The "new" fruitcake may be five years old now, existing through six Christmases, but it's only been successfully gifted four times. In 2019, my nephew Ricky addressed it to James, my cousin Toni's husband, thereby aiming it outside the direct line of my immediate family for the first time. The thing is, while Aunt Raenae as well as Toni (her daughter) and family came to many Christmases past, they all live in Aberdeen now and don't really come into Olympia for extended family holidays anymore. Ricky clearly hadn't registered that, and so the fruitcake sat in Dad and Sherri's garage freezer . . . for two years. Sherri did tell James shortly after Christmas 2019 that he had a gift at their house, but two and a half months later the pandemic hit and no one was visiting each other's houses. Then, there was no family gathering at all for Christmas 2020. I actually made a couple of attempts at getting my hands on that fruitcake in 2020 and 2021 to figure out what to do with it, either mail it to James or just give it to someone new when next we could. I only managed it on Christmas Eve of this year, when I decided we should give it to Angel this year. My eldest sister had never had it before, largely because we all didn't think she would be responsible enough to keep it intact for a year. But, we're all kind of once again close to being over it, so if it gets lost (or eaten!), we're like, whatever. Still, Angel opened it and said, Does this mean I'm a grownup now?" as seen in the video clip above. (She's 52.) I even re-wrapped it so I could update the log on the box. So, although there have been two of them and there's been a cumulative five years when it didn't get passed, the fruitcake tradition in our family is 23 years old. I did tell Angel we have a new rule: no giving it to someone who has already had it! I've been given it twice (1998 and 2000) and Shobhit got the new one once (2017), which means we've had it in our freezer for a year three times; Gina got it once and her wife Beth got the new fruitcake its first year, so Gina's had one for a year twice. Dad and Sherri have had it worst: Sherri got it twice and Dad got it once, so by 2010 they had it in their freezer for a year three times; but they also stored it in their garage freezer for the past two years when it wasn't even gifted to them, which means they've had it a cumulative five years! They were elated to be finally rid of it.

The gift, thought of by Angel but made collaboratively by all the kids and grandkids, which truly delighted Dad and especially Sherri: a group shot of the great-grandkids. These are specifically the eight grandchildren of Sherri's two daughters; my brother has two grandchildren now and thus another two great-grandchildren ideally would have been included in this photo. Angel said she tried to coordinate with Nikki (my brother's eldest, who lives in Spokane) to get her kids over for the picture too, but they just couldn't make it happen. It's still a great picture, and I just especially love this shot of Dad and Sherri themselves.

My sister Gina and her wife Beth just bought a new house this year, and so they offered to host the Christmas family gathering for the first time this year—and, probably, for every year indefinitely to come. Dad and Sherri were delighted to relinquish that responsibility at their house. I still wanted to spend Christms Eve with them and went to stay the night with Dad and Sherri anyway, and likely will continue to for the foreseeable future. So, this shot Beth took of Shobhit and me was in their dining room. I had walked to the window to take a picture of one of my grandnephews playing in the snow, and Shobhit was just standing next to me because he often follows me around like a puppy with abandonment issues. I really like this picture, mostly because of how casual and relaxed I look, with a posture not often seen in photos, especially when I was younger. The crossed arms notwithstanding (that was really because I was chilly in that moment), I look at that photo of me and I see a person fully comfortable and at ease with his true self—something so far from the self doubt that riddled my youth, it warms my heart to see and be reminded of it.

Sunday, December 26: the real snow day Having tracked the forecast the previous week, with Shobhit worried about snow on Christmas Day, I was always like, "Christmas Day will be fine! We won't really see snow until Sunday." And when it came to Seattle, which is an hour drive north of Olympia, that really was true. It snowed off and on throughout Christmas Day in Olympia (technically making it the third White Christmas of my adult life) but never accumulated more than a dusting. But, by the time I woke up Sunday morning and looked out the window, the world was white and it was still falling plenty. Shobhit and I decided to walk down to the waterfront, go out for breakfast, and attempt to ride the Seattle Great Wheel, which I've always wanted to do during snowfall. I should have predicted this, though: it as 11:00 when their hours start, we were at the gate, and no one was there. I finally found the Facebook page for Miners Landing (the pier where the Great Wheel is located) and a post was there announcing they were closed today due to the weather. Well, fine then! Just be be weak ass bitches, see if I care! Anyway we took the elevator back up to Pike Place Market and I got this great picture of Shobhit.

One final note on the Christmas weekend, and by extension the Christmas season. This very post was largely copied and pasted from the photo digest email I sent out to my distribution list last night, which covered photos from all the holiday season events I either went to or participated in—the email alone featured 19 photos, only 7 of which were actually from Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and one more of the snow from yesterday. It was that latter section from just this past weekend that I copied and pasted here, since I had already written blog posts about all the other holiday stuff I did. (In contrast to when I usually transfer from the text of a photo digest email, though, in this case I added a lot of new photos, video clips to embed, and quite a bit more text in captions.) That said, I did make a note of the record number of separate Christmastime photo albums in 2021. Thirteen! The previous record had been ten, which I reached in both 2019 and 2020—the latter year rather surprisingly, given how many traditional things were canceled, but I refilled the number of photo albums with things like holiday light display tours. I was particularly bummed both last year and this year by the consecutive cancellations of the annual Gingerbread Village at the Sheraton Hotel, but the Festival of Trees, which is a similar sort of event that is also a fundraiser, made for a suitable replacement. I still hope that by December 2022 I can go to both events in the same year's holiday season. But, to get more specific to this blog post and the Christmas Weekend of 2021, the full photo album of 87 shots (79 photos, 8 videos) combining Christmas Eve and Christmas Day can be found on Flickr here. The full photo album of 26 shots at the Wilson St Winter Wonderland visited on Christmas Eve can be found here. And finally, the photo album of 42 shots of this weekend's notable snowfall (11 shots from Christmas Day in Olympia,so those are cross-posted in the Christmas album; 31 shots from Shobhit's and my walk down to the waterfront and back yesterday in Seattle) can be found here. [posted 12:25 pm]