Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays 2025

Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection. - Winston Churchill

 

Here we are, Christmas week of 2025 and nearing the end of another year.

 

I thought I had another substantive post in me before Christmas . . . then I got walloped by the flu.  Honestly, it kind of seems like a fitting end to what has been a very challenging year.

 

I tend to evaluate my years from Christmas to Christmas instead of the from one calendar year to the next.  So, I’ll follow my usual pattern of using this pre-Christmas post to sum up how the year went.

 

The reality is, most years are mixed.  I’ll look back and identify things that I wish had gone a little better and areas where I lost ground on personal goals and resolutions, but there are lots of other good things to offset the bad.

 

This year, and really going back to mid-2024, was just hard.  Injuries. Illnesses. Hospitalizations. Surgeries. And, just as the year began, a really big loss. 

 

Looking back on my Christmas post from other years, I often had a line that said something like, “Still, as I said at the end of last year, I can give thanks for a few simple things.  All my immediate family made it through the year in one piece, as did most of our extended family.  Most of our family and the important people in our lives made it through the year in relatively good health.  None of our close friends or family suffered health or financial calamities . . . .”

 

2025 just wasn’t that kind of year.  It began with a huge loss, one that totally blindsided me. Almost a full year later, seldom a day goes by without me thinking about it.

 

 

It's also an odd Christmas for us in that we have no kids or family around, as one daughter is traveling to see in-laws and the other has to work on Christmas. And we're not traveling to see anyone extended family because I don't want to risk getting anyone sick.  So, this will be the first Christmas in over three decades where the only people gathered around our tree will be Anne and me.  And, the dogs of course.

Yet, even with all the challenges and losses, there were good notes.  In fact, often good came out the bad.  I had no real relationship with one of my close family members, to put it mildly, but we bonded over our shared loss and really supported each other.  We see one media reference after another to the supposed “friendship crisis” among middle-age males, yet the trip on which I got the injury that I’m now recovering from a surgery to fix was the starting point for what has become a pretty tight friendship with a guy I barely knew before we set out on a multi-day adventure trip together. 

 

Financially, it was a pretty good year, and much closer to how I thought things would shake out when I decided to retire.

 

Physically, I’ve been kind of mess for about a year, but I feel like maybe—just maybe—I’m starting to knock the problems down one after another. Unfortunately for Anne, given my current physical condition, a visit from a naughty Santa Claus will be her only hope for a good time this Christmas Eve.

 

On the DD front, I can’t say there was any kind of sea change, but I do feel like there was progress. It just tended to get stymied by all the “real life” discussed above.  And, I think this was a year when maybe Anne progressed more in this area than I did.  She seemed to be much quicker to slap me down verbally when I got out of line.  She was also faster to threaten spankings.  Although that didn’t translate into more frequent spankings, I do think it’s fair to say that spanking as a way to deal with annoyances and anger was much more top-of-mind than in years past.

So, here’s to 2025.  I can’t say I will be sorry to see you in the rearview mirror.

 

As I sign off to do some last minute gift wrapping, I truly do hope that all of you and your families have a safe, healthy, and very Merry Christmas. Happy holidays to all.  Don't get your holiday celebrating create a behavioral debt that you ass will have to pay!  Instead, I wish you the kind of peace that this drawing, which has become a tradition for my Christmas post, conveys to me.  See you in 2026, if I don't decide to post sooner.