I couldn't tell you why, but the holidays felt completely anticlimactic this year. I had a hard time getting into my usual blindly happy Christmas state... the tree went up late... I was uninterested in shopping for presents... I kind of just couldn't wait for the whole thing to be over, to tell the truth, so that I could get on with life. Although I've preferred a quiet New Year's Eve for a few years now, that usually included at least a few people coming by for drinks and food, and maybe a Buffy marathon. This year I had no interest in any of it. We stayed in, hunkered down with a pricy bottle of bubbly, and watched West Wing. I went to bed around 11:30pm.

Yesterday I took my annual solitary New Year's Day walk... avoiding the drunk yahoos drinking off last night's hangover... and completely failed to find the zen, meditative state that I usually achieve.

I know the enforced time at home due to the snow is part of this, and hopefully it will lift as soon as I have some freedom to get out again. I'm sure part of this as well is adjusting to my life: a new baby and the lack of freedom that goes along with that, a new town where I don't know anyone... I've gone from having a full, productive life to not having much of a life at all.

Huh. Reading this, I just clued in that I'm kinda depressed, and have been for a while now.

I just realized that one of the reasons I've been impatiently waiting for the holidays to be over is that now that I'm not pregnant, I really need to start establishing my life here, and that's kind of hard to do in December. I've made contact with a friend of a friend who lives here, who I've been assured I will love, but we couldn't get together in December due to holiday craziness -- we've arranged to meet in January sometime. I was walking through my neighborhood a while back and saw a young mom who looked super cool, and basically pounced on her, and she invited me to her mother's group... but that's not happening until January. B and I have some things we want to do together, none of which start till January. December was basically me just cooling my heels, trying to keep my sanity in between changing diapers and watching the snow fall.

I also just realized that since the snow started, going for walks got a thousand times more difficult, so I haven't been getting any exercise.

Hello, Universe. Just hit me with a depression stick, why doncha?

My goal for today: figure out what my schedule's gonna look like in the New Year, so that I can start booking in the things that will keep me sane. I need to get back to doing some kind of work in a big way.

'Cuz everyone else is doing it... Snow day pics.


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My Christmas in LOTS OF photos, behind the cut. Naturally, you will be shocked to discover that it is a baby-heavy entry.


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In Bellingham, and have been for a few days now. Waiting for my brother and sis-in-law to show, still have to wrap up one last present, and Iz is sleeping in her car seat next to me on the floor. Brian is smoking an entire turkey! Am feeling mellow and sorta happy/sorta morose. Kind of want to dive face first into a bottle of wine, but that sort of thing should probably be saved until bro and sis-in-law leave.

Holidays are different when you have kids. Kinda better, kinda not. Like, it is way more exciting because it's my baby and it's her first Christmas and all that is super incredibly awesome. On the other hand, it's sort of less fun, because I'm still at work at my full time job, except without a lot of the systems and tools that I have at home to help me cope.

It would be sort of like if your job were digging ditches, but someone gave you a much smaller shovel to use for the day. On the other hand, there are more people to help you dig!

Or something. Yeah.

Anyway, happy Christmas and all that!

For some reason, people are asking for pictures of my Christmas tree. So, without further ado, I present Thee Tree, with a guided tour of my favourite ornaments.

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We have a holiday tradition of adding two new ornaments to the tree every year.

This year's are my favourite so far.

So the husband has been engrossed in his XBox for the past three days, as expected, and as seen in this pic that I posted earlier.



I poked my head in earlier today, and am taking what I saw there as proof that if you show enough dedication and fanaticism about anything at all, you will achieve followers.



Any minute now, I expect the small one will be called "Grasshopper" and start being schooled in the ways of the video game ninja.