A few years back my step siblings on my mom’s side & I agreed to not exchange gifts and it’s great. So I just have to buy gifts for the kids and my mom. Takes less time to open gifts too.
My step siblings on my Dad’s side & I do exchange gifts still, but they’re pretty easy to shop for and there’s not as many of them.
Excited for secular Christmas!
My truck started, albeit weakly, even though it was -8* outside before windchill was taken into account.
It was a Festivus MIRACLE!
Your car isn’t affected by windchill except that it will cool down faster.
Precisely my point. 
Happy Festivus, you filthy animals.
The tradition of Festivus begins with the airing of grievances. I got a lot of problems with you people, and now you’re gonna hear about it!
Followed by the feats of strength. Until you pin me, George, Festivus is not over!
I went to the grocery store. It was surprisingly not rage inducing.
I drove to the mall, the mall was fine, the parking lot on the other hand…
Same experience when buying liquor yesterday.
I feel like ~25% of the population only drives the week before Christmas, and so has absolutely no clue what they’re doing, based on driving here in the last two days.
Eh, park in the handicap zone. What could happen?
You are going to mall a few days before Christmas. It will always be a shitstorm. Please make a note of it.
Mine was busy, but not overbearing. Saturday before Christmas so it was expected. I did park pretty far, but only so I didn’t wait in my car for someone else to pull out.
Went by Costco Friday to try to clear up problem with vision insurance on a glasses order. Hadn’t seen crowds like that since the prepandemic scramble.
My 2023 Airing of Grievances:
Thanks to one of Mrs. H’s best friends for finally dying. Of course, you had to fuck up your kids way before that by living in absolute squalor and not giving a shit, causing them to always stink and then get bullied mercilessly at school through their teenage years. You also made them so dependent on you by making sure they couldn’t do anything else without you, thinking they couldn’t do anything else without you, that 5 months later they’re still struggling with that and everything that happens they still turn to “I wish mom was here.” You made one the absentee father while making the other one the princess, You gave m an eating disorder, you made M quasi-disassociative. You married a goddamn moron so your kids would maybe have decent grandparents, and your fucking moron spouse turned out to be a giant piece of shit like you, stealing money from the kids and scamming money from your best friend in Arizona like you did when you left there and screwed her out of $10,000 plus ruined the house she gave you to live in while you were out of jail. Like, “take it down to the studs” kind of ruined because pets shit and pissed everywhere, and you didn’t potty train your kids so they shit and pissed everywhere. And that’s all before we get to the final act: you stealing their identity to take out credit cards in their name because you’d shit all over your own credit. Seriously, thank you for dying - it really was the best gift you ever gave them, because now we can spend years trying to fix everything you fucked up with them.
Thanks to PSP for robbing my dad of the last ~7 years of his life, causing him to lose his voice and wither away to a body lying in bed unable to move. Not that I might have gotten them out of him, because he was incredibly reluctant to discuss his childhood, but when he couldn’t talk every story he had was forever locked inside him. I had to learn he spent a night in jail from his cousin, I learned about his accident when he was 16 from his cousin, I learned about him spending time in the summer with his mom’s parents from his sister, … and I will never know what his version of any of that was, or anything else that I might have wanted to know, or just be able to ask him a question about anything I thought of and I wanted his advice on. Fuck you, PSP. No, really - fuck you.
Thanks to the state consumer protection department for helping with the issue I had - for 3 years running - with a local major healthcare provider. Or should I say, “consumer protection department” because you didn’t do a goddamn thing. No matter what evidence I gave you, no matter what documentation I provided - names, dates, charges, comments, whatever - you still responded with well, I’m not really sure this is something we can get involved in, have you tried talking to them about this which … yeah, for 3 years and 26 letters and countless phone calls, I’ve probably tried doing something. Maybe our next state budget, when they’re looking for places to cut money, they can cut you completely because you’re a do-nothing waste of my taxpayer dollars.
Finally, to the 7 people on my list of “people whose deaths I will celebrate” - fuck you all for still being alive. It’s OK, though, we all know your day is coming and there’s nothing you can do to avoid it - and for one of you, your reputation got out this year and others are learning what a giant fucking piece of shit you are. Have a miserable fucking rest of 2023, and even worse 2024, and I hope you all finally kick the bucket and go rot in hell like you all deserve.
But as always, I mean all of that in the nicest way possible.