By Lucy

I read somewhere that there’s 14 different holidays celebrated around the end of December. What did you do? I slept, for ten hours. One of the homeowner’s friends called me and invited me to dinner, but I declined and told her I had plans. I didn’t, unless you count sleeping, but even if I was on dayshift I would have declined. They’re great fun at the beginning of the night, but once the food is gone and everyone is three glasses of wine or beer deep, the racism and ‘kids these days’ comes out and it stops being fun.

Rich was asleep before I got up today, but yesterday evening we hung out. It’s his first Christmas alone, I’m sure he wrote about it in his entry, so we went with his traditions. We each made a cheese plate; he had port and I had Baileys poured into my breakfast Orange Pekoe. We watched ‘Cloud Atlas’. He got me a t-shirt and a keychain from Teeturtle, which he really didn’t need to. It sort of underlined how much of a ghost I am this year. No one’s sent me a Christmas card – I know Kai said he did, but I haven’t received it yet.

I was at Costco debating what cheeses to get when I noticed this bright red box offering British cheeses, and I thought “this is too convenient to pass up”. In no particular order, West Country Farmhouse Cheddar, Red Leicester, Double Gloucester with Chive and Onion, Black Truffle Cheddar, Wensleydale with Apricots, and Oak-Smoked West Country blah blah blah. The Oak-Smoked was my personal favourite. The Chive and Onion was very onion forward.

I got myself an Ekster wallet for Christmas, along with the key case and tool card. Ekster is offering a good deal on all of them as a bundle. I’ve had my eye on them for a while. Partially my own foolishness – I bought a purse with a built-in wallet some time ago. At carpentry jobs, however, I can’t have my purse with me, but most of them want to see some ID, your union card and your training card. I didn’t want a big, bulky wallet, so I love the minimalism. It fits even better now that I’ve opted for vagabondry. Ekster offers aluminum cardholders that are even smaller, but I still prefer the classic brown leather wallet. Allow me some luxuries.

My favourite part of the bundle is the tool card, however. So many jobs, the post office included, forbid carrying knives but still require you to do things like open boxes. The tool card fits that niche quite nicely, I’ve been using it to open boxes for a few weeks at work, and I love whipping it out like a Batarang and watching all the boys ooh and aaah over it. It’s also a screwdriver, a ruler for metric and imperial, a bottle opener, and a few other MacGyvery things.

The key ring is fine, I have less to say about it. It’s not the thing I was excited about, but the bundle was the same cost as the card and the wallet, so why not? I imagine I’ll be much happier with it come summertime, because when I had to wear a harness daily at work, my keys were constantly stabbing me.

This is my own personal Ekster link, if you decided to buy something I’d ask that you use it. I get paid, you’re gonna buy the wallet anyway, all good karma, right? The Christmas sale is almost over, but it should be boxing day sales afterwards. Get the bundle, it’s good value.

https://ekster.com?sca_ref=5000326.oJzvL51R3h

It also made me go through my pile of cards and decide what I really need. The Barrie Library pass, for example, is easily given up, but what about the loyalty card for my favourite breakfast place? I won’t go there again, but I have fond memories of it. Maybe I’ll put it in my business card folder.

The best gifts are unexpected. I was discussing a video game with my good friend Kayla, and she sent me a gift code a few minutes later. I plan to play it tonight, in lieu of streaming. I was debating streaming it, but it’s a ‘visual novel’ style game and not very long. “Slay the Princess”, if you’re wondering.

It’s been solidly foggy for three days here – the Weather Channel even posted a warning about it. Very spooky, you can’t see down to the end of the street. It goes well with my outfit.

It’s been about 5 degrees and perfect weather to move, but Luna is still occupied. That freezer is going to smell awful when we go to clean it. I might plug it in for a bit before we do, to freeze the awfulness so it doesn’t smell so bad.

What do I usually do for Christmas? I had a little fake tree I put up, now donated. The German tradition is to open your gifts on Christmas Eve – gifts are from friends and family, what’s in your stocking on Christmas day is from Saint Nick. Ish. My mother used to give us a chocolate letter on Christmas Day, which seems to be Dutch, but then she was an army brat who learned French in Belgium (which was especially funny when the French in France accused her of being Quebecois). We also got gold-wrapped chocolate coins, and usually a panettone for some reason. I ran out on Saturday to grab crackers for the cheese plate and debated the panettone, but I have my banana bread to eat up.

My Oma used to come and stay with us for Christmas. I can’t remember when exactly that stopped – when she couldn’t walk up the stairs anymore, I know that. It makes strange memories, she used to sit in the garage and smoke, and I’d sit with her and talk, so the combination of cold air and cigarettes reminds me of Christmas.

I wonder what the Vagabond is doing? Since I had no Christmas gift from him to mention, I’ll talk about the birthday gift he got me. In Dryden everyone would poke fun at me for having a small hammer and he was the worst for it. On like the third day he actually grabbed the hammer out of my belt without saying anything and I nearly backhanded him (hmm… that’s not very romantic). I told everyone the hammer was from my dad, but truth be told I can’t remember where I got this thing. It’s just the only hammer I had kicking around.

Hammers are serious business for carpenters, obviously. A good one is usually around a hundred bucks. The gold standard is a Stiletto, which is runs around 300 dollars and is far more than you need if you’re just gonna be scaffolding (Adrianne brought a Stiletto to Dryden and was mocked almost as badly as me. Stilettos get stolen from lockerooms and breakrooms. Don’t do it). When I was working with the Vagabond’s friend, he loaned me a framing hammer.

So for my birthday the Vagabond took me to the store and we picked out the hammer on the right. I went with a smaller weight and a longer reach – for scaffolding, you only need the hammer to tap the wedge in, but you’d be surprised how often you end up using the forked end as chopsticks to grab stuff just out of reach.

The most precious bit to me is just the memory of going to the store and having him explaining all the different hammers and when and why you might chose a certain one. That’s the part money can’t buy.

Buon Natale, cuore mio.