Apparently, three days and three nights is the maximum amount of time I am able to spend with my family in Tennessee without committing any violent crimes. Therefore, as a pacifist, I was ethically obligated to leave without spending any more time there. I did manage to spend the holiday up there and have a fairly peaceful time, but only thanks to the magic of Twitter, which allowed me to air my every grievance without having to actually argue with my family. If you don’t follow me on there, you missed out on some gems, such as the fact that my increasingly conservative father tried to make the claim that “leftists” are all “eugenicists,” as evidenced by the existence of Planned Parenthood, which apparently exists so that poor people can be made to have abortions. Well. The more you know.

No, sadly I am not kidding. I won’t go into the rest of the nonsense, but take that one point above and multiply it by three days and three nights and there you have it.

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Nonetheless, I managed to have some fun while there. I went for a wonderful run on the Kingsport Greenbelt, a paved trail in my hometown that connects different parks and neighborhoods, and is long and flat and pretty. It’s one of the few flat places to run there, actually, as my town is in a very hilly/mountainous part of Tennessee. It had been so rainy that the creek was really high and parts of the trail were flooded out, but I managed to see some lovely sights, meet a family of geese, discover an abandoned putt-putt course, and enjoy the signage that reminded me distinctly of something you’d see in the parks of Pawnee, Indiana. (Seriously, if you’re not watching Parks and Rec, get on that now.)

I also left on a good note after Christmas dinner, which my brother and I cooked and which came out wonderfully if I do say so myself. I forgot until after eating that marshmallows are not vegetarian (they contain gelatin) and I should have skipped them, but I guess I am not perfect. The gift exchange went well and I think everybody was happy with what I chose for them.

I had been planning to stay over until Monday morning and then drive home in the daylight, but I decided to leave after dinner on Sunday. I still made it back home by 10:30 pm even though I left right as the sun was sinking low. A road trip in the dark is not my favorite, but I tried to enjoy the quiet roads and the prospect of my own couch and bed awaiting me.

It was much better than the trip up there a few days before, which had involved over three hours of driving through a blinding, furious, torrential downpour that actually followed me northeast on interstates 40 and 81. How rude.

Egon and I were both pretty exhausted after the stresses of travel and family drama, and we slept in until almost 11:00 yesterday morning. It was glorious, as I’m sure I don’t need to tell you. Today has felt pretty self-indulgent, too: I started out with Body Pump class at the gym and then a quick run. Nothing better than doing something good for yourself first thing in the morning, whether that’s much needed sleep or a workout: each one has its own time. Body Pump, if you don’t know, is a group strength training class where you do a routine of weight-lifting moves set to music. Normally I love this because the music, instructor, and other people in class are all very motivating. I don’t need much motivation to do cardio as I just plain love running and biking — but when it comes to weights, I need all the help I can get, so this is a great option for me. But can I just mention that it drives me absolutely insane when the instructor and/or the other class members can’t keep time with the beat correctly? As a former marching band nerd, I take offense at any human’s inability to work within a 4/4 time signature. BUT ANYWAY.

Continuing my self-indulgent day, I watched some Vampire Diaries (I’m just getting started with season three), read a bit, and then went TV shopping. I’m buying a flat screen HDTV after getting to use W’s for a long time and seeing how much better it is than my old, crappy, 19″ tube. It is seriously nice, y’all. He’s been generous enough to leave his TV over at my place since Egon came home from the hospital and had to be crated 24/7 — we just stayed here all the time and it was better to have the nicer TV for a lot of reasons. The ability to play BluRays and stream Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon is, in a word, awesome. But I need to give it back to him soon, so I’ve been shopping around for my own smaller version. Thanks to a couple of gift cards and some money I received, I was able to get a 37″ model (which I got a great deal on because I ordered it online). It feels quite silly and materialistic indeed to be getting myself something so, well, excessive, but I think the enjoyment will be entirely worth it. It should arrive the week of January 2. Hooray!

So how was your Holiday weekend? Do you have any incredibly indulgent gifts about which to boast? Shocking tales of family conflict? Please do tell!

What I really love about the holiday season is staying in, enjoying the quietude of my house, staying warm when it’s cold outside, enjoying holiday foods and music, and generally feeling warm and cozy. What I do not really love about the holiday season is the travel and the series of obligations and expenses. That is the phase of Christmas break about to begin.

Thursday I’ll be heading back to my hometown to visit my father, brother, and stepmother for the holiday. I don’t see them all that often so I’m looking forward to spending some time together. I just wish there were some magical way that I could preemptively edit out all the parts where they criticize my diet, ask me about the academic job market, talk about politics, and invite me to go shoot guns with them. That would winnow the trip down to a manageable few hours or so.

While I’m throwing out impossible Christmas wishes, I also wish we had a family tradition of exchanging gift wish lists. You know, so that I had any clue as to what to give them (and they me, of course). We are complete and total opposites and I always find myself at a total loss. I don’t think I am hard to shop for, but apparently I am. I have very definite, specific, well-known hobbies and interests (photography, running, cycling, cooking) but I usually walk away with something along the lines of a calendar of cat pictures, or a throw-blanket with cats embroidered on it. Because I have a cat. They don’t even realize, for example, that I don’t actually like my cat and in fact prefer my dog.

I don’t think I’m a materialistic person and in no way do I feel like I should receive expensive presents or anything. It’s not about that. A calendar with dachshund pictures instead, for example, would actually go a long way toward soothing my crankiness. It’s just these gifts sometimes feel like an empty gesture: a disconnected and unconcerned gesture of obligation. This aspect of Christmas always makes me sad.

When I ask them what they would like, I just get a non-answer. “Oh, nothing special.” “Don’t worry about it.” “Whatever.” And then whatever I buy winds up collecting dust, still in its packaging, on some forgotten shelf five to ten years later.

This whole entry sounds horrible, doesn’t it? I just feel like when you know a person well, it’s easy to think of things they might like to receive as gifts. So it doesn’t seem like we know each other that well. Couldn’t we just start using Amazon wish lists so we could fake it, at least? Grumble.

Well, I don’t mean to be so Grinchy. I really am looking forward to most aspects of the trip. Especially the night when my brother and I try to collaboratively cook Christmas dinner. Apparently all of his cookware is cast iron and “seasoned” with bacon fat. That should make a good story, at least. Let’s just say the bottle of wine will remain uncorked. Happy Holidays!