Merry Christmas and Happy New Year - 2025

[Chewy509]

Just like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and hope you enjoy a safe and pleasant holiday period.
For all others who also celebrate other events at this time I also wish a:

• Happy Hanukkah
• Io, Saturnalia!
• Happy and Joyful Kwanzaa
• Happy Constitution Day
• Joyful Feast of Winter Veil
• Happy Malkh-Festival
• Happy Festivus
• A peaceful Anastasia of Sirmium feast day
• And reasons greeting for those that celebrate Newtonmas

PS. Apologies if I missed a holiday you celebrate.

 

[Mercutio]

I always refer to the time of year as gifting holidays. I give out horror themed cards devoted to the bleakness of short days or to Krampusnacht, the holiday for beating children.

Followers of the Peacock Angel fast just before midwinter, the three days of Rojiet Ezi, and I expect all of you to have done so.

 

[ddrueding]

I hope everyone is enjoying what they have and where they are the best they can. I managed to avoid losing any fingers while solo sailing in the Nordics today.

 

[Gödel]

Happy New Year (EST) (UTC-5) ​

 

[Mercutio]

I have had an absolute fuck of an end of year. A friend attempted suicide in my place a couple nights ago; another former roommate had her home invaded and was SA'd this morning and to top it all off, for the first time in my life, I got left alone with a 10 month old for about six hours because the other two things wiped out available babysitter supply. I need everyone to understand that nothing about my life is equiped for dealing with babies by myself. I have nightmares about being responsible for children.

Suicidal friend will be medically OK. She didn't think I'd hear her carving on herself. She got stitched up and now she's on a 72 hour grippy sock vacation, all because her ex is a manipulative scumbag. My other friend spent around 7 hours at the hospital getting what she described as the most invasive examination of her body imaginable. This looks like a situation where ICE might be a good thing since it'll almost certainly be faster to get this perpetrator deported since police seemed profoundly uninterested in taking her report.

To top things off, my power is out at home so I'm spending my New Year sitting in a customer's office, the nearest warm place where I could let myself in.

So anyway, 2025 sucked every bit of ass and so far 2026 isn't exactly winning friends or influencing people. I might be a little bitter.

 

[Gödel]

I was very sorry to hear this, Merc.

I, as I'm sure all of our members do, , hope and pray, in our way, for you to find the strength to persevere through your troubled times.

 

[sedrosken]

Jesus Merc, when it rains it pours. That’s all horrible. Here’s hoping you’re at the end of it and things pick up from here.

I’m up with my uncle visiting my dad, and he’s in better health than I’ve seen him for a good year or so. He’s got his upper body strength back and seems back to his usual energy levels.

Getting to walking longer distances again is touchy mostly because he lives with his girlfriend who has a bad back, so if he topples over, it takes an ambulance to get him back up usually.

I’m contemplating seeing if I can land a remote IT job and moving back home. Probably the worst time possible to be considering such a thing, but we will see where things go. I’m not immediately writing the idea off, so that’s something.

 

[Handruin]

I'm really sorry to hear all that happed Merc, that's really awful. You're a god friend helping them through some really difficult times. I hope over the coming weeks and months they can get the help they need and you're able to be there for them as they work through processing each of their traumas. Those times will be difficult as well.

 

[Mercutio]

I've kind of spent the last few days in shock over what's been going on overall.
One of the things that seems particularly awful is that these people have still had to do regular things like call off work or go and pretend nothing has happened. My one friend gets out of the hospital tomorrow. I have no idea what happens next. I suppose I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.