There were good times over Christmas and New Year's but for me this year I just did not feel the enthusiasm I normally do. It's a time of year I have always really enjoyed.
This year it was marred by the sudden death of a friend of more than forty years the week before Christmas. This is not the first longterm friend I have lost, and not the first I have lost at Christmas, but it doesn't get easier with repetition.
I did put up my Christmas decorations (not that I have many), and I did watch my usual favoured Christmas movies:
The Holly and the Ivy, Scrooge (with Alistair Sim). Christmas in Connecticut, The Bishop's Wife (with Loretta Young, Cary Grant, David Niven), It's a Wonderful Life, The Family Stone, The Family Man, Auntie Mame (Rosalind Russell), some newer gay romance things, the original Black Christmas from 1974, and on Tubi some fun Slasher-Santa flicks.
I did get together with people several times, and had a lovely Christmas dinner with good friends.
But I don't think it's just me. In the buildings around mine I saw far fewer windows lit up with Christmas lights. The same was true when I was out visiting in more residential neighbourhoods.
I sent Christmas cards as usual but got far fewer back than in the past. I know part of that is due to the 2024 postal strike - many people didn't send cards last year because of that and have told me that they decided to just stop sending them at all. At most they send an ecard.
Or maybe it's that people are just worn-down with the things going on in the world at large.
