2022–2023 and Christmas and holiday season
 

The holiday season is just around the corner, with the American Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday and First Advent Sunday all occurring this week.

Since many years ago, Christmas gifts mean nothing to me since I can buy what I want at anytime. Instead, it's the holiday season I enjoy. Seing the Western world calming down and relaxing (unless you work in a shop, of course :)) and entering a festive atmosphere between late November and early January, while families and friends gather, is always great.

Happy Thanksgiving fellow U.S. people! Thought I'd toss this in here to share since most of you probably don't get to see Philadelphia's Thanksgiving parade. (I always spend the morning flipping between both it and Macy's two channels.)

Philly doesn't seem to have very many balloons these days, at least not all that many this year, but surprised me with this. Guess who was the very first one! Even if it's a version some are tired of, still nice to see TMNT show up, esp even when they're in a bit of a tv lull right now.

https://i.imgur.com/dbp1TKZ.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/3vQnYs7.jpg

It indicates that the Turtles are still a well-integrated part of popular culture.

Definitely, and was glad they got a good mention of their "nearly four decades."

Better image:

I think he was their biggest balloon this year. and I assume new. The Bumble from the old Rudolph tv special prob came close, but prob not as tall. (Or not close at all... Can't find a good enough pic to judge.)



Anyone hear of this Little Drummer Boy Challenge? Starting a minute after midnight tonight you must avoid hearing that song anywhere, not even a snippet of it. Hear it and your ass is "out." Good luck. :trazz:

Man, between the Shredder's Revenge game, the Cowabunga Collection, the comics, the continuing NECA stuff and now this, this really has been the year of the 80's TMNT.

Anyone done their shopping? Cutting back this year? Tried to cut back but failed?

Personally... think I'm done, anything else may just be a little extra filler (candy or whatever) for certain people. Did try to cut back, but with birthdays to also shop for that makes it less easy to decide what will be for birthday vs Christmas and then make sure the others have a roughly even amount for Christmas. >.<

Might put the tree up Sunday. While I miss having a real one, I don't miss killing them, AND with costs of everything up, including real trees, I'm glad it's one thing we can skip having to buy.

Done? We’ve only BEGUN to shop!

Judging by Leos plastron protrusions it was a tit bit nipply out.

I was trying to ignore that, but never mind. :tlol:

Little more than two weeks left, I see someone likes to make a sport of it. lol





Our modest outdoor lighting... The inflatable is not mine, not really a fan of those personally, but I put up the rest.

https://i.imgur.com/DU52SfO.jpg

Got most of the shopping done. Probably finish the bulk of it this weekend. We always end up grabbing a few last-minute things anyways. Haven't done much else; I'm hardly home anymore so decorating or watching seasonal stuff on TV isn't really on my radar.

Company Christmas party tomorrow. Whoooo. No alcohol though; bummer. I'll live, but man. Lots of companies don't allow drinking at the holiday parties anymore though, they don't wanna be liable if/when someone drives drunk after and something happens. Makes lots of sense; it's just a far cry from our parents' day when company Christmas parties were all about getting drunk on your boss's dime, blowing rails in the bathroom and bending the secretary over the copy machine in the back office. :lol:

Seriously though I am actually looking forward to going; most of my other jobs never even bothered and I work with some pretty nice people.

None of that for us, and wouldn't have the energy or desire to go anyhow, and with Christmas a Sunday we're mostly just lucky that we aren't required to work on Christmas Eve (which I've had to do before) unless someone has the misfortune of having an account that's a multi-stop per week.

Only annoyance... it seems the chance of a "bonus" this year is via raffle, with one drawn per region. Woo... Trying not to be annoyed at that, it's otherwise a decent company to work for. Maybe they put too much into producing the newest cheesy Christmas movie and had to put it all in some actor's paycheck. *sigh*

At least we should still be getting our exclusive employee-only ornament soon. My 5th one already. Those better still be happening.

I joined up too late in the year to be eligible for any sort of holiday bonus. The job does have lots of little incentives along the way, like if you have no lates or absences for an entire month, you get $100 cash, so potentially you can get up to $1200 cash bonus every year if luck falls in your favor. And apparently everyone gets a bonus whenever the company hits its performance output quota for the month, but I'm not sure how much that bonus is and apparently it's not super common that it happens. But at least it's out there.

When I worked at the gym we did a Holiday dinner thing maybe twice; most of the other employees really couldn't stand the owner and thus such "morale builder" type things didn't have the desired effect. The one lady was like, "I've been working here for 10 years; I don't care about Chinese food and a prepaid $50 debit card, I'd rather have a f*cking raise." I mean *I* will never turn down a free meal but I saw where she was coming from, sure.

And then at the moving job we never had anything for the holidays because every year come January 1st everyone was gonna be laid off and collecting unemployment until Memorial Day, anyway, so it just would have felt weird to get together for any sort of celebration.

So I mean, this is nice. It definitely makes me feel like it's more of a "real job" if that makes sense, the fact that they do stuff like this.

Well, my folks don't really do so much gift-giving since we're all old and don't know what we want. lol I still haven't done any shopping for my folks yet. No one wants anything and there isn't really anything offhand that I know of that they need. I think my father is getting my mother some new pajamas, though since he was asking me about her measurements and junk like that.

In all honesty, we got the gift that we truly wanted...being back in our home for Christmas since we had to put up with being out of it and misplaced since February this year. Everything is nearly back to normal as November was the first month when we all could reside in our full living spaces again. We still have boxes to unpack and go through, but I personally don't even care about that. Just being able to have a proper sleeping area again is good enough for me.

Outside of that, we do have gifts in mind for the pets. We want to get all three of them new beds to sleep in.

Oh, I know what I want for Christmas that I jokingly tell my mother every year since "Santa" couldn't afford it back in 1986...a Teddy Ruxpin. :lol: Back in the 2000s, mom did manage to find an old one and surprised me with it, but it didn't work so she sent it back. I was like so sad she did that. I didn't care....just the fact that she managed to track one down!

Yeah, always have a hard time because there aren't many wants at all and most needs are just taken care of as they come unless it's bigger stuff that's out of my budget to give... I tried to focus a bit more this year on things that people might actually get legit use out of.

Did score a win yesterday by giving my mom a stun gun flashlight I'd been considering for a while, for her occasional after dark walks around the neighborhood when it's nice out. For the sake of giving it when my nephew was not present, I decided to give it to her privately for her birthday (yesterday) instead of Christmas, but turns out she'd been wanting one for a while and just never had the nerve to get one. So that's one gift success so far if it counts.




:lol: Aw, maybe someday you'll have one. Thought I remembered there supposedly being a new one some years ago but just went and looked it up and...wow, the looks of that "modern" update is kinda disappointing.

I haven't done any Christmas shopping yet. I better start getting on to it this week. Shopping malls must be packed by now.

Shopping’s done online nowadays, so the people at Amazon must be pulling the hairs out of their heads right now.

Call me old school, but I still prefer going to an actual shop to buy something.

My hassle is simply that while I prefer to do shopping in-person, for the type of gifts my wife and I give each other it is only feasible to shop online. Like, decades-old video games, high-demand action figures and website-exclusive toys, there's just very little you can do except hit eBay and such.

The upsides are, I'm no longer at the mercy of "whatever the stores have" and can also do 99% of my shopping in one day, then relax for a few weeks. I used to make a whole weekend out of hitting the malls but they just don't have anything I can't get online for half the price.

Yeah, if I was just to look in a store I prob won't find much that's suitable on that one trip. Stores are good for just basics or "a gift," like those food sets from the seasonal aisle, when you don't have a clue otherwise, but I tend to occasionally spot things earlier in the year and then just hide them away for Christmas.

Can't beat eBay and the like though. Prob the thing that will mean most to my mom is a rather old book I ordered from England, printed in 1880. (And fretted the whole time it was shipping with four tropical systems/storms/hurricanes scattered about in the Atlantic.)

Just saw Santa again! I suppose if the pandemic has any silver linings, this fire company did this the first time in 2020 and I love that it seems that they might keep it up. :)

We're lucky we live by the intersection so we get a second chance to get a decent photo.

Spoiler for big-ish photos.

Yeah, he swung through here this morning on the fire truck. I happened to be awake for a change.

We saw him later on at the mall, too.

Video games
 

Right now, I'm enjoying video game Christmas nostalgia on the Youtube.

I thought this was an interesting video and thought I would share it if anyone else was interested in learning the locations of the Rankin/Bass puppets and some background information on them.

Have a great Christmas, you all, and the rest of Hanukkah to our Jewish friends.

Hope some of you don't receive too much coal in your stocking. :trazz:

You too! :D

Merry Christmas to you too :)

and hanukkah/Yuletide to those who celebrate

Well said! I agree: While I can appreciate the western work ethic, it’s refreshing to get an annual pause and reminder of what’s really important. And for entire towns, cities, and countries to honour and relish the moment in unison is truly magical. I may no longer believe in Santa Claus, but that truth is proof enough of holiday magic :)

Happy holidays all!

Have fun festivities whereever you are, happy holidays to all

Just wishing everyone Happy Holidays.

Happy New Years Eve! Or Happy 2023 for those already there!

Local view of the last day of the year. So foggy, even at noon! A little spooky, like the year is fading out.

https://i.imgur.com/wDWWB64.jpg




**Ignore my speckly window... the result of frequently misting a plant (photo bombing the lower right corner) in front of it this time of year.