Night of the Living Friendsgiving

 Our neighbor, who has lived next door to us for approximately five years, has invited us to "Friendsgiving" this weekend. For those of you who don't know what "Friendsgiving" is, it's become a trend in the past decade or two to host a Thanksgiving dinner for your friends sometime around (but not usually on) Thanksgiving, as the holiday itself is traditionally spent with family. Friendsgiving is more of a casual, partyish atmosphere that may or may not contain a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

I've been invited to a few various Friendsgivings over the years, but have only rarely attended them. It's not exactly my thing. You want me to be social and talk to people? In person, with my mouth? Eew. 

That's old man Brandon talking, though. Brandon in his twenties and early thirties delighted in these sorts of gatherings, and my own parents did a variation of them every year usually between Thanksgiving and Christmas, disguised as an early Christmas party or a birthday party for me. In grad school, I attended a couple Friendsgivings, and even as recently as six or seven years ago we used to turn our game night into a Friendsgiving-like party around the Thanksgiving holiday.

Those days are long behind me now though; all of those more local friends have either moved out of the Omaha area or we've all slowly drifted apart over the years, sometimes by circumstance and other times by choice. So, it was a surprise to me when, in our text messages, both Daisy and I got an invite from our neighbor for a Friendsgiving celebration on Saturday.

Our neighbor is not young, but she is not old; she is 50 (just turned 50 while we were in Canada, as we missed her party because we were up there) and looks 30. She lives alone but has a daughter of college age who lives in Chicago and who occasionally comes to visit. I have always liked this neighbor; she is calm, seems pretty rational and sane, is rarely loud -- though she does occasionally have a hot tub party with friends during the summer months -- and has never caused any problems. We let her know when we'll be out of town, and she does the same when she leaves town. We watch each other's houses. She is kind and sweet and funny, and likely the best neighbor we could have asked for.

And, in the spring, she's moving to Chicago. 

She is not selling the house; she is planning to rent it out for a while and eventually return to it in a few years. We will be sad to see her go, and apprehensive about any new renters; we don't live in a great part of town, but it's far from the worst. Still, I've seen some of the other nuts who live on my street and it's enough to give me a little pause about interacting with anyone else in the neighborhood if it can possibly be avoided. What bothers us more, at least bothers me more, is that by the time she returns, we may or may not still be living here or in Omaha at all. 

After all, we don't know what the future holds -- depending on the state of the government in this country, we could be living in Canada this time next year. If we're not, Daisy and I have been having serious discussions for some time about gutting this house, refurbishing it and selling it, and purchasing another home in...ehhh...I'd say, maximum fifty-mile radius of the area, and that's likely being generous. We do want to be closer to her parents if possible, and I want us to have more room, an actual two-car garage, and a basement. I'm not married to being inside Omaha; I could just as happily live in a suburb or twenty miles outside the city limits in the countryside -- as long as high speed internet works and Amazon Prime can still get stuff to my door within a day or two, I'm good. 

Anyway.

My point is that we're not really social people anymore. We haven't been for some time, at least since before the pandemic. But, the event is quite literally next door. And our neighbor is moving soon -- might be the last time we actually get to see and/or hang out with her for a while.

"The invite says 'swing by or stay for a while' so I vote we go," Daisy said. 

"Sure," I replied. "It's not like we have to drive there or anything."

The "Friendsgiving" is Saturday afternoon. Daisy asked if she wants us to bring anything. It's but one more event in a long list of holiday happenings coming up over the next month and a half.

I've always said the holidays are a magical time of year for me now that I can enjoy them again and look back on the old ones with grand nostalgia. I love going Christmas shopping, I miss malls, I love the lights and trees and pomp and circumstance all surrounding the holidays. I like making plans for my birthday and then executing those plans. I like the downtime of it all the most -- knowing that during the holidays, I get at least a little extra time off to decompress and relax.

Daisy said she is a big fan of this year's Christmas card design and that it's one of her favorites of all of the card designs I've put together over the years. I responded that for $171 -- and that was with a 50% off coupon -- I was glad they came out that nicely. 

I can't show them here -- they have our personal information on them -- but I will say that it's seven photos on a dark blue background that says Happy Holidays in rose gold foil printing, and lists all of us, including each of the cats, by name. There is a large photo of us in the center, taken on the waterfront at the Cove Motel in Nova Scotia, and the six photos surrounding us are of each of the cats. On the back is a longform holiday message and a memorial picture of Sadie wearing her Santa hat and scarf, taken just a year or so before she passed:

There was an entire set of these photos taken of all the cats we had at the time, all the way up through Mable (and including Maggie, since she was still with us then too). I'd like to get some photos of Charlie and Gary in the hat and scarf this year too. Hopefully I can find where I put them.

We have made zero concrete plans for the holidays aside from the bare framework of them. We know that we'll spend Thanksgiving alone with the parents and that for Christmas, the Denver denizens will be coming to town to spend the holidays here with us and the parents. Other than that? No plans, no ideas for anything to do, and I'm already low on energy after slowly recovering from my back trauma.

Over the course of the next two weekends or so, because we have little choice otherwise, we will have to gather the necessary groceries for Thanksgiving dinner. I've done a little of that already -- I got the sourdough gluten-free bread for the stuffing -- and Daisy has gotten frozen corn. We have to go to Natural Grocers, however, to get the specific vegan turkey I like (before they sell out for the season) and need to pick up the other vegetable staples at some point too. I try not to venture too close to any grocery establishment in the days leading into the holiday, so the sooner we can acquire these items, the better. Daisy says it'll be fine and we'll figure it out soon enough. 

Because of the way the holidays fall this year, and especially next year too, I can minimize the amount of time off I take around them. My birthday is on a Saturday this year, so I don't have to worry about taking PTO then. Christmas is on the following Thursday -- another day that I no longer work after returning to my 4x10 schedule. I took off the 23rd and the 31st, but that's about it -- I wanted to give myself a little wiggle room and cushioning. Now, mind you, I could've taken basically the whole week off between Christmas and the New Year, but chose against it; I know I have a few people out that week and honestly, I'd rather save up my time for when I need it. I know I generally get sick at least once during the winter, and taking any extra time off ends up being "just for me" if Daisy still has to work; I'd rather we be able to spend some of that downtime together. I believe Daisy is working all the way up through Christmas Eve, and then gets right back to work on the 26th. Gross.

To be fair, and I discussed this at length this past week with my executive director, we're about to enter the quiet season at my job. I expect it to be busy up until Thanksgiving week, then have a lull until around December 5, then be busy up until right around my birthday before our workload will immediately drop like a stone. During the mid-winter we have about half our normal workload because a moratorium is put on construction/orders/changes/upgrades and the like until well after the new year. That kicks in around the second week of December. Additionally, during the winter, most outages are weather-based. There are special exceptions here and there for this, of course, but by and large, January/February are some of the nicest months of the year to work that job because you're not constantly bombarded by customers and don't always want to hang yourself, only sometimes.

I have volunteered to work New Year's Day (I always do), MLK Jr. Day, and President's Day -- all three of which are considered paid holidays at our new company. I do this because the latter two are Mondays anyhow and I would already be there, but also because as we have so few managers, we are all required to work at least one holiday a year. If I work three before the end of February, it makes everyone else step up their game and nobody gets to point fingers at me. 

To be fair, I've worked (I think) four other "holidays" this year already -- I made sure my team and leadership knew that I am done now and they won't be seeing my ass anywhere near Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Year's Eve. 

Anyway.

I have finished Christmas shopping for my parents, and all that's left for them is to box everything up and take it to the post office down the street to weigh/mail it. I finished for them, honestly, over a month ago. For Daisy's sister, her husband, and the boys, I still have last year's gifts boxed up and ready to wrap for this year -- they did not make it into town last year for Christmas so those gifts have just been sitting here in my office. In case you're wondering, it's their selection of all of the tie-dye shirts I made last year. It seems so much longer ago than that now.

For Daisy's parents, I don't think we've gotten anything at this point. Maybe Daisy found something here or there for them that I don't know about and don't remember now, but I generally let her handle stuff for her parents. I tend to get Dad one small thing and Mama one small thing specifically from me, and then Daisy handles whatever else she wants to get for them or give them. 

We don't really do gifts for other people much anymore. While I sent off a lot of the tie-dyes last year to some close friends and family, that was sort of a one-off thing that isn't really starting a trend, but more of an act of kindness. And, of course, I haven't made any more tie-dyes this year. I don't plan on making any more ever again, if I can avoid it -- it is a long, messy process and I think almost everyone in my life who would appreciate them, like me, has like 5-10 of them now because of the ones I've made previously over the years. My own parents love them, but even they told me they had enough of them at this point. 

Which brings me to Daisy.

Last year for Daisy, she said she wanted a "treat Christmas," which means a lot of food-and-candy-based gifts. Okay, I said, ask and ye shall receive. So over the course of the several months leading up to Christmas, I stockpiled her favorite candies, cookies, and general treats to give to her. It was a far less expensive Christmas than some others in the past, and she greatly enjoyed the stuff I got her, but it was not something either of us were really interested in doing again. And, to be fair, it was a lot of work spread out over a long period of time and a lot of wrapping paper, especially for the smaller things. 

This year, we set a limit of no more than $100 spent on each of us. I am perfectly fine with that. I have gotten two little things for her thus far, both things she asked for in the past, and I'm sure I'll find a few other small things over the next month or two. I am not stressed about it.

"You want ideas for me?" I asked. "Get me the new Uncle John's Bathroom Reader book and some new Duluth Trading Company underwear and I'll be happy. Maybe some new socks too."

You know you've become an old man when you ask for books, socks, and underwear for Christmas. 

Truthfully I don't really want anything; I could buy those items for myself if and when I wanted to. But, Daisy has told me in the past I am notoriously difficult to buy gifts for (I don't understand why she thinks that, but okay) and I am trying to lessen that stress on her by minimizing any actual importance. Because, truly, it's not important. I'm going to be 43 years old next month. Christmas is for the kids, it's not for people our age.