Grey Christmas

Check it out, I figured out how to make a large linebreak, like I did in the Lair of the Gryphon Days.

I had to settle for a smaller linebreak combined with an indent when Blogger first started forcing changes. Now that they've gone all the way, I can go to all of my previous posts and copy whatever code they translated my former formatting into.

Before we get into Christmas, we had a pretty cool event happen on December 21st, our shortest day of the year, the Winter Solstice. On that night, Jupiter and Saturn passed each other, an event that occurs about once every 20 years. That's not too frequent, but what makes this even more special is that this was the first time they've been so close in almost 400 years. This event has been named the Great Conjunction, and the fact that it occured on the Winter Solstice makes it even more magical. The planets were both supposedly visible from Earth, but I didn't see them.

Anyway, I’ve got to apologize for the fact that I left one of my posts incomplete a little while ago. On my post titled “COVID 19 Update: Colour System” I only covered the measures put in place for our “Red Zone”, up until they inconvenienced me, which was around the point they were talking about cinemas. I intended to add the rest of the measures, but recently, the Ontario Government has chosen to put the entire province into Code Grey, which is a mandatory lockdown, and looking back at the resources I was using before, they have since been modified to simplify things.

At first, they were considering putting all regions in Red in lockdown, but they wound up deciding to do it to all of Ontario. Southern Ontario is up for reassessment in four weeks, and Northern Ontario in two.

Last Christmas, Uncle Steve had recently passed away, as well as a beloved family pet, Luna. Because of the timing, we didn’t really celebrate that year. In fact, I titled last year’s blog post, “Blue Christmas”. This year, we’ve got a “Grey Christmas” because of the government mandated closures. I wonder what colour Christmas will be next year. If we’re at war, maybe we’ll get a “Red Christmas”. I’m complaining, but we did get a fresh coating of snow, which offered the traditional “White Christmas” that we were hoping for.

Originally, our Grey Zone was supposed to start on Christmas Eve. This seemed like an attempt to capitalize on the Christmas economic boost so that businesses that had to close down would be more likely to survive, while at the same time shutting people down from social gatherings and prevent a boost in infection rate. This was kind of a slap in the face though, because the government was basically expecting us to do all our Christmas shopping, but then not give it away or use it for its intended purpose. They backed down though, and moved the lockdown date to boxing day. I’m guessing they realized that we’re already dealing with a lot of noncompliance, and by canceling Christmas like this, noncompliance would increase even further. So I went to Guelph for Christmas, because while in Red, we’re allowed to have a social group of five, and between me, my mom and my brother, we’re a social group of three. Since we were still technically in the Red during the time I was up there, we didn't violate any of the rules.

We had a Christmas ham this year instead of a turkey. First time we’ve done that. Duncan made his potatoes au gratin, and we had Brussels sprouts, stovetop stuffing and a little storebought pecan pie. It did the trick.

I got my mother a breadmaker. She likes homemade bread but she doesn’t like to knead. I kept us supplied with homemade bread after I learned how to make it in Katimavik, but after I moved out, they got cut off from their bread supply. I like to make my own by hand, but the breadmaker solves the kneading issue for her. I got Duncan a video game. He always knows what he wants. I got Lee-Anne a book on cat language, and a book on tarot that was written by the person that designed her deck. It doesn’t cover individual cards, it’s more about how to get in the right headspace to do a reading, what the different spreads are etc. I got a tarot learning kit for my friend, who is moving away in the New Year (I’ll have to talk about this in a future post). We got Kieran three cat wands to replace his old ones, as well as two new cat toys, and Mom got him a new scratching post.

My mother got me a rice cooker, which I requested, and I apparently have a wok coming to go with it. My brother is having a set of headphones mailed to me. They also got me a coffee bean canister and coffee beans to go with it. Lee-Anne and her family got me a bread knife and a fancy chess board.

Pretty decent gift exchange. Glad to be able to celebrate a little. Despite the circumstances, I hope all of you made the most of the Christmas season.