I took the boys to SLC for Thanksgiving this year so Lonny could have the boys for Christmas, but as it turned out, he didn’t have much of a Christmas plan. I thought I was bad at holidays, not ever having been raised with much to-do around them. It’s neither good nor bad, it just is, and getting festive is a concerted effort for me. I’m not sure why Lonny isn’t into the holidays, it seems his family is about them, but perhaps they didn’t stick. Either way, I wasn’t about to leave my kids to have a sad Christmas where nothing special happened.

The only real tradition we ever had was having Christmas Eve lunch with Jason and Emily and their extended family. I think we’ve been crashing their party for coming on 20 years now.

I invited my sweetheart to go and his response was ambiguous enough that I took it as a no, and asked Lonny if he would like to come. Then the day before he decided he did want to go (he knows Jason and Emily) and I was confronted with a situation that makes me really uncomfortable … but sometimes it is good to push through discomfort.

Lonny has told me over and over that he is fine being around David and I need to take him at his word. It’s just that in my reality, there was nothing worse than being in the same room with my mom and dad after their divorce and I seem to have a hard time differentiating between that past and the present. So this was a really good thing, I didn’t have much time to stress about it, and Lonny’s good nature shone through. I mean, there isn’t any reason for animosity, there was no overlap in our relationships, no one did anything to the other. It was interesting to see how dysfunctional my brain was when it came to this.

It was a lovely afternoon and likely the first of many events that both Lonny and my sweetheart will attend. We might as well get used to it.

From there we took the boys to Fort Collins for the weekend. We had dinner with my sweetheart’s mother. She wasn’t feeling well so I didn’t bust out the camera and unfortunately she didn’t join us for dinner the next day, she’s been feeling so crappy lately, it’s a real shame.

We watched Matrix Resurrection (it was meh) and turned in. We didn’t rush to get up the next morning for presents but eventually got around to it after I made breakfast for everyone.

Andrew, our housemate, joined us for the day. He doesn’t have family locally and is a really friendly and helpful person. He was a perfect addition because there weren’t nearly enough men in the room.

It wasn’t our plan to have tons of presents but that’s kind of how it turned out. It felt like such an abundant days.

Jason and Emily gave us lovely handmade gifts of honey from their own bees and eggs from their chickens.

It was a light and and joyful morning. It didn’t feel forced and I was relaxed.

Christmas day typically is boring so my sweetheart to Micah fly fishing with his new gear …

Casey has been really into working out (I heard a new term … Swole Patrol) so Andrew took him to the park for a difficult calisthenic routine. Casey said he wanted to go hard so Andrew delivered. I left the park when Casey puked, this isn’t my area.

I walked Chief instead and he found the perfect Christmas stick.

Everyone came home for lunch and then we walked to a bowling alley just five minutes away. I’ve always been terrible at bowling but for some reason I was great this time around. We had so much fun.

I can’t tell you how happy this made me.

We made Christmas dinner, although I kept it very simple. I marinated rack of lamb for my guys and had swordfish with Andrew.

We all watched Don’t Look Up which kind of gave me a panic attack but everyone really liked it. It was a scorching satire of our current social/political situation.

The next morning we slept in and then I got my Covid booster and flu shot on our way out of town.

I was planning on going home with the boys but my sweetheart wanted me to stay for the day after Christmas so we drove them back to Boulder and returned to FOCO. I didn’t know whether the combination of shots would lay me out so I welcomed having someone to take care of me. As it turned out, I didn’t have any side effects other than sore arms so we had Margarita Sunday and played cards.

He bested me in two games, delivering crushing blows. I’ve never seen him so happy. Then we had a tiny party, just the two of us because Andrew left town.

I busted out all the candles, rearranged furniture, put on music, and we did what we are really good at doing, creating a mood that is all our own.

Now I’m back in Boulder, chilling at the Tiny House and burning scented candles.

In other news, I came across something that caught my eye and decided to send it to Dan Savage, not really expecting him to reply.

OMG OMG OMG!

And then this happened!

He started sending me accounts of hot dudes on the internet and I responded in kind.

The only person who can truly understand how exciting this is for me is Caitlin, of course.

So that’s fun. I hope I can keep the conversation with him going because honestly, he is just the best and I’ve been hanging on his every word for 30 years. Geez, I hope he doesn’t see this and think I’m a scary stalker. I just love a little hyperbole.

Anywhooo, life is really great right now. I’m enjoying it when it’s great, being philosophical when it isn’t, and learning how to talk to the people involved in my problems (not just my imaginary blog friends) in the moment.

In closing, here is a cute picture from the internet.