three days of christmas

 i have been meaning to blog, and post a dozen different end-of-the-year, let's-wrap-it-up fun posts. but i have been putting off writing for days, since the 26th at least.
somehow i never managed to sit down and gather myself and my ever so random and zigzagging thoughts though, and form them into sentences that make sense, more or less at least. anyway, here i am now, making an effort on new year's eve. to me new year's eve is like christmas to jewish people: it simply doesn't exist in my universe. so here i am, on a random monday evening, trying to organize my random thoughts into less than random sentences. let's hope they actually make sense.

so, the holidays are over and i haven't written for over a week. christmas was all right. on christmas eve, with my mom and brother i went to sajóvámos where my cousins live with their parents, and along with my grandma and some other relatives we had a big christmas feast. this side of my family never really gets together, we are not at all close and hardly meet, let alone hang out together, so i had my doubts about how this whole get-together would end up. apart from a few awkward moments (and the fact that i am unable to make small talk with my own cousins), it was fun and i enjoyed myself. i had three glasses of wine and time flew by quickly. 

the following day i threw on my backpack and hit the road again: i visited my dad and family in tiszapalkonya. it was my little sister's 15th birthday, so we had a cake with a photo of adam lambert on it (my sister is pretty much the most devoted fan of adam lambert). she received a camera similar to mine for her birthday and christmas, which we fiddled around with all day long. we also had a christmas dinner of stuffed cabbage, took a long walk down the bank of river tisza in the mild weather, played a round of monopoly and watched this great chick-flick entitled morning glory in the evening. on the morning of 26 the entire family put on their sunday bests, got in the car, and payed a visit to tiszafüred, where my dad's mother-in-law lives with her partner and step-son. there we had another christmas feast, loads of alcohol in the form of pálinka shots and champagne, then a whole afternoon of hanging out with my dorky-cool sister and watching the various mtv channels on cable tv. these three whole days of christmas with neverending visits and eating and drinking was fun and felt much christmassy. much more christmassy than the christmases used to be in the previous years, if you know what i mean. 

but when i got home on the evening of 26th, i was glad to be back at home and sighed with relief, because christmas was over. and all of my christmas spirit was gone. actually, it was long gone, even gone before christmas started. it vanished into thin cold air sometime in early december and never came back. it really is a shame, because i am definitely one for christmas. but what can you do when the spirit is all gone, you've got the poops in your soul, and it doesn't feel like the season to be jolly at all? well, not much. enjoy the visits, eat well, laugh much, try not to pretend too many smiles, and let out a sigh of relief when it's over.

it's over and i am sort of glad. but i am sort of blue too, because it's january in a couple of  short hours, and januaries tend to be tough, dark, depressed months for me. i always sigh with relief when i survive januaries.

i tend to sigh a lot with relief these days when things are over. i would love to be very funny and say: i am about to sigh with relief yet again, since this pointless post is finally coming to an end. but since i like to finish my posts on a positive note: i am glad i survived this year (too), and i am about to embark on a new, hopefully eventful and jolly year in a couple of hours. i am also glad i've had a jolly little christmas, a christmas that felt the most christmassy i have ever had. so here's to more such christmassy christmases to come, hopefully with a bit more festive spirit left for the last week of the year.