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Posted by Matthew McQuilkin

https://www.fruitcakeenterprises.com/blog/2025/12/26/christmas-2025

Christmas Eve

Christ I look old and homely here. I mean, whatever. Time comes for all of us. I'll probably look at this photo ten years from now and feel wistful about how good I looked. Or not: it's not the most flattering photo.

But, I am holding what are the coolest gifts Shobhit gave me: two postcard calendars, one postcard for each month, each postcard a painting painted by our neighbor, Mary. Shobhit has kind of gone out of his way to find ways to support Mary and her art, and I fully support that. They're very pretty paintings.

Shobhit suggested I either keep one at home and take one to work, or maybe bring one to Olympia for the White Elephant gift exchange. I had completely forgotten about that, and I very much wanted to participate, so I took the second option.

It's our 2025 Christmas Tree ornament! It's become a sort of tradition now, for us to select an ornament for the year together, at whichever is the most notable trip we took during the year—this year, of course, it was World Pride Washington, D.C. I didn't get a Pride ornament, though; I bought an ornament in the gift shop when we toured the White House—entering through the East Wing that President Fuckwit has since demolished. Don't even get me started on how much that bothers me. I'm just really glad we got to see the White House before that heinous man completely shit all over it.

Anyway, we select the ornament together, Shobhit kind of forgets about it, and I save it to wrap and put into his Christmas stocking. I only put two things in his stocking this year: this ornament, and a wrapped pair of red plaid pajama pants. The only other gift I gave him was this year's calendar, which I returned to as a collection of 12 photos of us together from the past year. (Last year, he asked that the calendar feature the cats, who both passed away in 2024.)

You might notice here that these pajama pants are not red. This was at Target Christmas Eve morning, where I went while Shobhit was at his Weight Watchers meeting, to exchange the one I had initially bought. I really deliberated whether to get him the small or the medium, and I really should have gone with the small. He tried the medium on and found them too loose, especially in the waist. He could just tighten the drawstring, but whatever; he wanted the small, and I did tell him I kept the receipt so I could either return or exchange it if he wanted.

The red would have been preferable, but they had only one pair of those left when I returned, in the XXL size. So much for that color. The next-best option was this blue-green plaid, which did have small sizes. This and the red cost $20 and were made of microfleece; there was another pattern I thought could work but it was $25 and made of fleece. I found the microfleece softer so I stuck with that.

I had to go to the registers actually manned by people, down on the lower level that exits out onto Union Street at 2nd Avenue. There were two people ahead of me in line, one of whom was a very large man in a Grinch onesie, incredibly thick ankles, and a shopping cart full of stuff with a tarp over it. When he was called to a register, it was immediately made clear that he was mentally slow, but the cashier was very kind and patient with him. He had a homeless vibe about him, and I texted Shobhit that I might wonder if he was trying to get cash for merchandise he stole, except the guy was clearly too slow to have pulled that off. Shobhit theorized that maybe he was returning for someone else who stole, which I suppose is possible.

There were some other items, but most significantly, the guy had 10 bags of the same brand of sugar, in light blue packaging. Whatever he was trying to do didn't work, because eventually the guy just stacked the sugar all back onto his cart and left. This was after he did attempt to do something with a card reader, and he kept hollering some moan-like thing and the machine.

Christmas Eve Dinner Roll Call!

1. Dad
2. Sherri
3. Me
4. Shobhit
5. Jennifer
6. Matthew
7. Hope
8. Chase
9. Ian

This was the same number we had for Christmas Eve dinner as last year, with just one person swapped out: Ian's girlfriend from Alaska, Bella, was not here this year; but, Shobhit was—for the first time, in fact, since 2018. This is also the first year Shobhit has come down with me on Christmas Eve and actually stayed the night; ever since then, most years he had a work shift that precluded it, and he liked having the excuse anyway because it gets cold in Dad and Sherri's guest bedroom. He had to work Christmas Eve in 2019, 2021, 2023, and 2024—he did in 2018 too, but that year his shift ended at 3:30 which gave us barely enough time to get down to Olympia for the Christmas Eve dinner.

In 2024, though, his Christmas Eve shift was his last at Total Wine, which he finally quit working for as of that day. (In 2022 he thought he needed to pick up Shivy at the airport Christmas morning on his way to Olympia; she wound up three days delayed that year, but Shobhit still picked up her suitcase which did not miss the flight. And of course, 2020 was the covid year, when Shobhit and I merely drove down to Olympia to sit outside around a fire on their back patio for a few hours.)

Now? The cats are gone, and Shobhit works from home. He did have a couple of hours of work to do on Wednesday, and I totally understand him wanting to get some hours in, after spending Monday and Tuesday on our trip to Victoria and back. He resisted at first when I said I wanted to go to Olympia Christmas Eve as usual, but when I said I was willing to take buses down on Wednesday—I've done that five of the past six years, after all—so he could spend time getting work done on Wednesday and then drive down Christmas morning, he said we could both drive down on Christmas Eve. "I compromise," he said, in his quasi-whiny tone. He loves to say that, as if I never compromise. He's always half-joking, but still.

Anyway, occasionally Gina and Beth join for the Christmas Eve dinner, and I suspect they might have this year, except they both had respiratory colds. It sounds likely they will be feeling better by the time they come to Seattle for New Year's Eve, so I'm relieved about that.

We all went back to Emperor's Palace in Lacey—that being the restaurant chain we've now used ten out of twelve Christmas Eve dinners. We tried a place called Tea Leaf last year, and none of us liked it very much. I can't say that Emperor's Palace is significantly better, honestly—their food was bland enough that even I added salt and pepper, something I never do—but at least they have windows.

As usual, we all went back to the house after dinner and hung out for a while. I never see Jennifer on Christmas Day anymore, so I'm really glad this tends to happen—another thing that incentivizes me to make sure I get down there on Christmas Eve.

In this shot, Dad is lying on the floor because it's one of only two positions in which he has no back pain. The other is standing. Apparently sitting is really painful, and doctors haven't been able to figure out what's causing it. I guess he'll be going in for some kind of scan soon, and hopefully they find some answers that way.

Christmas Day

There's a local lady who bakes and sells cookies Dad and Sherri really love, and they've been buying from her every year for several years now. Gina and Beth came by briefly, using the beloved cookies as an excuse: "I'll wear a mask. I want my cookie!"

This allowed me to give them their gift, of this year's calendar: "Children's Art" was the theme. Mostly it's art by my nieces and nephews as well as grandnieces and grandnephews—but, Jaycee, the oldest of my grandnieces and grandnephews (she's 16 now), is quite over-represented: her drawings cover four of the months as well as the front cover, with a little bonus one in the grid for Shobhit's and my anniversary, so six of her pieces are found on the calendar. I've long been utterly charmed by her drawings over the years, and what is still my favorite, the Christmas dinosaurs representing Shobhit and me, which she drew in 2022, still hangs on our refrigerator to this day.

Also represented is a kids' art project once made by David; two different art projects by Georgia and Emmy, David and Jackie's kids; a poem Becca write for Shobhit and me in 2006 when she was 10; "peep art" by Cheyanna, Nikki's oldest; a Happy Birthday stitch Brandi made for Dad when she was little; a very weird ornament Gina made when she was a kid; and a Christmas Card I made at around the age of 12 that Dad and Sherri still had at the house. I had discussed this idea as a theme with Gina last year, so shortly after she texted me photos of the stuff by David and his kids, plus the thing she had made. This also made Gina's line somewhat over-represented, but this still felt right to me as I don't have as much connection with David and his kids so they've been sort of underrepresented historically.

I also usually do a separate collections of photos between Sherri's side of the family, versus Chriatopher and his kids. But, it was impossible for me to integrate two fully separate groups of 13 children's art pieces, so I just made the same collection for all of them, just with the usual, slightly different set of photos in the grid dates for Christopher and his kids. I did, however, make the usual special calendar for Shobhit and me; as well as for Jennifer (it focused on her kids when they were really little); and I even made another Calendar for Laney. I haven't even been able to give it to her yet, because I totally forgot when I saw her last Sunday. I don't think I had even wrapped them all yet then. Anyway I'll be giving her hers tomorrow, and you can see all the photos used for all the calendars here.

Behold! Sherri's Orange Dreamsicle Salad, her first time making it. I typically try to avoid marshmallows as they contain gelatin (and these were not vegan marshmallows, which I rather doubt would have really worked with the recipe anyway), but sometimes—don't tell anybody!—I cheat on this one. Like, say, when there's a spoonful of Orange Dreamsicle Salad coming at my face. That's some delicious shit. Also I love this picture of it.

And here is Shobhit's dish: crushed baked potatoes. I just realized, looking at this photo, that both Sherri and Shobhit tried out new recipes this year. I'm not sure where Sherri found hers, but Shobhit saw the potatoes being made on one of the cooking shows he likes to watch, and he wanted to try it. The key element is to lightly crush the potatoes about half an hour into baking, breaking open the sides so that the centers bake better.

Shobhit asked Dad a lot of questions about baking the potatoes, though, and Dad was actually very patient and helpful. Shobhit even commented to me later how knowledgeable Dad is about cooking. I was like: I would think so, after he worked as a cook in a restaurant for forty years!

The potatoes did burn just slightly to the pan on the bottom, but that did not prevent them from being tasty. Most of the people coming by were already coming from or going to other places with meals, so Dad and Sherri's table was covered otherwise with just snacks and sweets—of which I ate way, way too much. Shobhit's potatoes were the only thing substantive, and not even those were a protein. I suppose I could rationalise that there was protein in the large quantity of cheese dip I ate (a cheese ball Sherri made using the recipe Aunt Raenae used to use.)

A quick spin of the lazy susan on the table—on which Sherri set the platter of the aforementioned, beloved cookies.

I guess now is as good a time as any—for:

Christmas 2025 Roll Call!

1. Dad
2. Sherri
3. Angel
4. Brandi
5. Nick
6. Jaycee
7. Gianni
8. Enzo
9. Ricky
10. Raiden
11. Ruby
12. Britni
13. Carlos
14. Gina
15. Beth
16. Matthew
17. Shobhit

This was two fewer than last year, when Alex and Caitlin and their two kids made it, but did not come this year because the flu is apparently working its way through their house. So those four are subtracted from this year's list, but with two additions: Carlos, who did not come last year but Britni did, which all the more amazes me as I think now about how they apparently got married on Christmas Day last year. Did they get married at her dad, Rick's house? Is Rick ordained or something?? I need to get some more specifics about this out of Britni. Anyway, the other one is Shobhit, who was not at Christmas last year as his flight to India departed on Christmas Day. (This year, he's flying out today. He's been texting me frequently as I've been writing this very post, and he even FaceTimed me from his plane seat to have me help him decide on a movie to watch. I told him to watch A Minecraft Movie, which was way more fun than it had any right to be.)

Oh! I always do this too, and don't want to forget about it: the Christmas Roll Call history:

2011: 11
2012: 28
2013: 16
2014: 20
2015: 33
2016: 9
2017: 15
2018: 20
2019: 20
2020: 8 [four in person, just Dad and Sherri, Shobhit and me; four at a separate time on Zoom]
2021: 19
2022: 17
2023: 14
2024: 19
2025: 17 [15 at most at the same time, as Gina and Beth only stopped by briefly in the morning]

So: this year was fewer than last year, but still more than the year before, which was the fewest since 2016, outside of the pandemic year.

Another excuse for Gina and Beth stopping by: the gift they brought for Dad and Sherri: a digital photo frame, which all the rest of us can download an app for, sign up for an account, and add more photos whenever we want.

Gina had contacted all the rest of us with a link some months ago . . . and then I promptly forgot about it. It was a bit out of character, I think, for there to be a communal gift like this and I still had not contributed any of my tens of thousands of photos. Well, I got the app downloaded and an account created pretty quickly, and within minutes I had somewhere around 25 or 30 photos added. There had already been around 400 added, which go through an evidently randomized slide show.

You can add captions, which of course I did with all of mine, to date and provide captions on them. Ricky took one of his a step further, adding overlapping text that read, Most favorite grandkid in the whole wide world. (A running joke for years now is Sherri saying to every one of them, "You're my favorite grandkid.")

Why do I keep winding up with the weirdest White Elephant gifts? Here my niece, Brandi, who is obsessed with pimple-popping videos (and you would not believe how popular these actually are), contributed this "gift," which I wound up with, and which she informed us she bought off Amazon: an "Ear Shaped Blackheads Acne Remover Set." To be fair, this gift bag also included a Bath & Body Works scented candle, I guess so I can practice removing blackheads by bergamot-scented candlelight. Brandi was so fascinated by it herself that she's hear pulling out the fake plastic blackheads herself.

Actually, my grandniece and Brandi's eldest, Jaycee, was fascinated by it too, so I magnanimously re-gifted it to her, taking it right back to Brandi's house anyway.

A brief Christmas connection to Adelaide, Australia! Mary Ann sent me a couple of photos of her and Uncle David's cat, Flossie, sleeping on top of the package their calendar came in.

Boxing Day

The typical routine at Christmas each year is for Shobhit to start bugging me about heading home as early as 3:00, and me insisting on staying at least a couple of hours longer. But, this year Shobhit still needed to finish packing for his three-week trip to India, and even do a load of laundry, and we also had the season finale of Heated Rivalry to watch. So, especially since he humored me by coming to Olympia to stay the night Christmas Eve, I actually initiated our heading out right around the same time everyone else did yesterday, at maybe a quarter after 3:00.

Shobhit and I both had cocktails a couple of hours earlier—between Christmas Eve and yesterday, I had one glass of eggnog with whiskey each (Dad said he got the eggnog for me; I had to drink it!)—so he was trying to convince me to drive home. By the time we were leaving though, neither of us were even buzzed, and although Shobhit tries to avoid freeway driving at night if he can, this time we were actually leaving while it was still light out. So, he drove after all, which worked well for me as I was able to spend the entire drive editing and uploading my Christmas 2025 photos—this year's album being just 59 shots, the fewest I've had since 2019. These things ebb and flow, though. It's totally natural!

I always like to take my Christmas PTO the several days before Christmas, as it gives me extra time for all my Christmas holiday activities (and, this year, an overnight trip to Victoria). This works well at work for two reasons: I always come back to work the day after Christmas, when most other people are taking their time off, so I can provide coverage after others have done for me the days before Christmas. And, of course, this is how I've weaseled out of doing "Holiday Helper" shifts at a store for the past four years. I'm going to keep doing this as long as I can get away with it.

Which is to say: I went back to work today. Some other people were working today too, just no one at the office. And I mean: literally–anyone else from the office who worked today worked from home. I was the single, solitary person who worked in-office today. I did see one person there at one point, but it was just the guy who does our courier runs on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Otherwise, I had the office all to myself all day. There was an email that suggested Cat, the woman currently working Reception, was meant to be there, but I guess she was unexpectedly unavailable; there was an all-office email about what to do if we had any office needs she'd otherwise be accommodating. So this was a very new, and kind of fun, experience for me. Days like this were always similarly dead at the old office, especially post-pandemic, but there were always at least two or three other people around somewhere. Today it was just me.

So do you want to know how I took that photo? I'm so happy with the new iOS feature that allows me to click my AirPod as a remote button to take photos—I no longer have to set the timer for a maximum of 10 seconds and sprint to the spot I want to be in. Anyway, there's a metal coat hanger with curved hooks that AP uses near the back, and I carried that up to the front of the office. It was surprisingly easy to balance my phone across two of its hooks, and then I was able to go back behind the pillar next to my desk and peak around it for the photo. Full disclosure: I did go back and forth and do this three times before I got to an angle and a pose I was happy with. Thankfully no one else was there to see me doing this!

So that catches us up. I actually left the office early today: Shobhit packed the car with his luggage and drove downtown to pick me up, and he drove us to the airport. I thought I would just drop him off, which was always what I've done in the past, but Shobhit's being even more sentimental about me than usual today. He wanted to park and come in with him as he checked in, even though it meant paying $8 for parking. I stayed long enough for him to get through security at International Departures, and I even took a photo of him from the top of the stairs above him. Then I drove home, I fixed myself half of the lentil leftovers Shobhit still had here (the potatoes will have to wait until Sunday), and I set about writing up this blog post.

[posted 7:47pm]

https://www.fruitcakeenterprises.com/blog/2025/12/26/christmas-2025