jlh | holiday

I post from the family homestead, in the snowy woods of Maine, where the only online is dialup and the cell reception is frustratingly intermittent, therefore the holiday is pretty isolating with just me, my newly deaf mother, and her very shy cat. Tomorrow my brother, sil, and his oldest daughter will be here for dinner, so there's the larger family obligation done. I'll be in points north until Thursday evening, trying to get out of my own head by possibly doing work, probably writing fic in my little notebook, and definitely organizing my college books and the records that my father bought at a million yard sales and auctions. He left them to me or my BFF C____ to do with as we wish, but I have no idea what we will do with them until we know what's there (though C____ already took all the Glen Campbell).

This is the first year I did Yuletide, and it was so much fun! I usually stay away from holiday fic fests because writing a gift-fic feels too constraining in a fandom I participate in, since I tend to have my own rather firm ideas of what I want to write (though I'm very open about what I want to read). That's why

a_pumpkin_xmas was so fun; all I had to do was write a Harry/Hermione story with a Christmas theme. But for Yuletide I got to write in a rare fandom that doesn't have all that baggage of tropes and ideas and fanon character set ups, and it was fantastic. To think that tomorrow there will be a fic written for me is icing on the cake but exciting nevertheless.

Even if you're not celebrating a holiday this week because you celebrated it last week, or a couple of weeks ago, or you don't celebrate this time of year, nearly all of us have a little extra time off from our usual routine, and a little more time around family. Stay sane, and remember that they may be family, and you may love them, but your life is your own, so don't let them get you down.