I Can't Christmas

     I can't even Christmas this year. Don't know why. Just....hasn't felt holiday-like at all. Not even Thanksgiving really did, even. The closest I came to feeling Christmassy was while the congregation was singing carols at church during the annual Christmas special Sunday night, but even then it wasn't much. It's just too weird an atmosphere to be around. I don't have a place to serve or a role to play. And given the mass exodus of basically everyone over the past couple years, I'm the only one of the core part of the youth group(of our generation) who's still around. Dylan's transferring to Stillwater in January, Sam and Marie fell off the planet, Josh is going to some Presbyterian church with his girlfriend, I think, and Suzanna's at JBU.

     Trying to process that this will likely be Grandpa's last Christmas, which isn't really computing all that well.

     Sometimes it just feels like I'm trapped in a no-man's-land, no longer a kid and part of life around the house, really, but not anywhere near having a family of my own. So it's weird seeing Facebook say that once a week someone is getting engaged or married or is pregnant or whatever. And all the jewelry commercials this year are terribly stupid, which is disappointing, since they're the second-best ads generally, after the beer commercials.

     Songs of the Day  from this morning are Love Handel's "You Snuck Your Way Right Into My Heart", Mouse Rat's "5000 Candles in the Wind" and Taylor Swift's "Mine". Which are all good songs, but it's unusual to wake up with them playing on the mental radio station.

     While Courtney, Caleb and Trevor were skating with the youth group last night, Mom and Amy went shopping, so I had the house to myself, which made for some nice quietness. The dogs kept barking at random things and wanting outside, only to decide they were cold three minutes later. Anyway, I spent some of that time sitting quietly and staring at the Christmas tree, which is very calming. (I wrote more about them a couple years ago.) That was nice. And then I watched some episodes of Phineas and Ferb and Parks and Rec. That was good, too.