Christmas And Boxing Day 2020

 

Well, that’s the silly season over and done with for 2020. Here’s how I spent it:

Christmas Day: even the Christmas before I was born, when I was still inside mother’s tummy, I attended church. Mother insists that we attend church every Christmas Day and every year, come December the 25^th, our family will be attending some church service. I know of people who aren’t regular church-goers but they too will attend church for Christmas day. This year, however, marked the very first year where we didn’t attend church on Christmas Day. Since BCAC doesn’t have a Christmas service, for many years we’ve always attended the one at Redeemer Lutheran College. Only this year, due to COVID-19, it either wasn’t on/dad was afraid about community transmission and wouldn’t drive mother there. May I say it was a novelty not having to attend church for Christmas without getting lambasted? Like, not having to sing any songs that I mean nothing of the words I’m singing (like, if we’re singing about how God’s powerful and all-knowing you can’t deny that, but if I’m singing that God’s loving/compassionate/whatever that’s just a load of bullcrap from my experience ><) The parents did find a service livestream to attend, somewhere in Hebron. Since I only did geography for six months twenty years ago, got a B- and never touched the subject again, I’ve got schocking geography skills and dunno where hardly any country is. Hebron … umm, isn’t that like in Israel? If so, how could mother have found a livestream Christmas service to watch there? Apart from New Zealand, every place is behind Australia timewise and would it even be Christmas Day there yet? When they parents turned up the volume of the livestream really loud, I pushed my bedroom door closed because I’d planned to continue sleeping for a bit more. However, only several minutes later, mother pushed open my bedroom door and tried to gimme some eye goo (I wear eyegel for my right eye because post disabling brain injury my right eyelid cannot fully shut; the eye gel just keeps my eye lubricated). I mutter sleepily @ her, “I thought you said you’d help me up after you and dad finished watching service. It must’ve been a really short service, if you’re already in my room?”

Mother screeches back at me, “We started watching the service but then they had technical difficulties and the livestream was cut!”

Well, I couldn’t do anything about that, but my sleep-in plan was cancelled. No biggie.

After getting myself mostly independently kitted for the day, I brush teeth, use the bathroom and head out to the dining room for breakfast. Ooh, how fancy, dad’s cooked omelette and toast; that’s usually Saturday’s special breakfast!

Breakfast finished, I use the bathroom, then sit at the computer and read my daily Bible passages (I’m followingf a Bible reading plan where I’ll read the entire Bible in one year) before tootling online for myself. Usually channels Seven and Nine have a morning news bulletin @ 11am/11:30am on the weekdays but there was nothing today … presuming coz it was Christmas and therefore a public holiday?

 

When the parents summoned me for lunch, I used the bathroom and then joined them at the dining table. Breakfast was great but I was a lil disappointed at lunch: after getting myself a spoon for lunch, mother placed a bowl of boiled, bland and practically tasteless rice leftovers in front of me. XD

Lunch over, I took my bowl over to the sink and returned online. Dad washed the dishes and mother headed upstairs to hit the sack for her long afternoon nap, which often stretches until the Sun has set and it’s night.

I literally sat in front of the computer until dinner was called! For some reason, mother restricts me to only a PISSY two hours of internet time per day; believe me, it’s hardly enough time to check my e-mail, use Facebook, blog and play my favourite game, Bejeweled. Still, I’m careful never to exceed two hours, because if mother catches me doing that, she’ll use it as reason to deny me the full two hours another day. Once my most important two hours of the day are up, I usually just open a Microsoft Word document open and write. Blog posts, GCCW homework, whatever catches my fancy.

·                     When I’m summoned over for dinner, I grab myself a spoon and join the parents at the dining table.Dinner was rice, lotsa yummy cauliflower, one tiny strip of chicken, two wee slices of cheese and some pork. Dinner was spooned down with one bowl of soup; after I took my bowl over to the sink I returned online, visiting the bathroom once more @ 9pm and then letting mother boot me off to bed @ the ridiculously early time of 9:45pm. All in all, a very quiet Christmas.

Boxing Day: another awesome night’s sleep for me, since after I bid my teddy sweet dreams and fell asleep, I didn’t wake again until 5:25am. One of my favourite thing about the Summer months are how early the Sun rises; come the middle of Winter, it’s often pitch black until like 6:30am!

That morning, when mother lets herself into my room to gimme some eye gel, I immediately sit up, give her a great big hug and wish her a very happy birthday!

Since it’s Saturday, dad cooks omelette for breakfast, and I munch some on one slice of dry (unbuttered) toast. After a bathroom trip, we hit the Boxing Day sales! My heart sinks when dad refuses to put my manual wheelchair into the boot, which means that even before our shopping trip has started, my day has been ruined. See, nowadays I walk with the intention of reaching the next place where I can sit down and be safe; without my manual wheelchair to sit and enjoy windowshopping/browsing at things I will only keep walking and hopefully find the next place where I may sit. *sigh*

To avoid all the really big crowded places, dad tootles mother and I off to somewhere like Wynnum Plaza! He says he wants to see if he can find me a pair of sneakers. See, nowadays I usually wear a pair of sturdy hiking sneakers, coz since I must wear an orthotic left foot if I am to walk at all, the shoe must be very sturdy around the sides. Dad found one pair he wanted me to try; I obediently plodded a lap aaround the store before reporting that the sole of the shoe seemed very thin. Like, I remember trying on new shoes in years past where I was immediately struck with how padded the new shoe was! Don’t they only wear thin after you’ve worn them for awhile?

Because of that, I didn’t buy the shoes. Instead, dad tootled us off to another shopping centre, this one that actually had retailers. I ducked into Big W and bought two new books, since my Australian godmother had sent me a thirty dollar gift voucher. I bought Jodi Picoult’s latest novel and Barack Obama’s memoirs!

Lunch was by some river? Dad had brought a whole eski of foodstuffs and made us healthy salad sandwiches for lunch.

Next

 

Our last stop was some electrical appliance store like JB HI-FI, coz mother needed to buy herself a new mobile. Ever since the beginning of the year, she’d reported that her phone was playing up and slowly dying … only by Boxing Day, it still hadn’t karked it! In the end, mother lost patience and just bought herself a new smartphone. XD Dad dropped mother off at the entrance and then parked all the way at the very end of the carpark, before insisting I walk all the way to the store with him. When I finally arrive, mother appears and orders me to walk all the way back to the car! Dunno what was with that … *sigh*

Anyway, thus ended our shopping trip! Dad tootled us home, mother hit the sack and I tootled online.

Later, I showered, and after dinner, I opened my Christmas presents! My favourite one was one from Kim; she’d found me a minion snow globe! All in all, a good day~

Apologies for any spelling/grammatical mistakes you found in this post; I’ve been slack because it’s already the 30^th! Must publish this tonight and tomorrow bash out my Reflections for 2020, coz it’s NYE tomorrow! Cheers~