So much

There is so much to think, so much to say. I've wanted to write about a lot of things, but I take a lot of time to go about and I lose interest in the words. Hmm.

One issue was that Flesherton this year feels like an echo of my youth. My father's house wasn't decorated for Christmas and dinner wasn't planned. I went about setting up the tree myself and ordering Christmas pizza. The meal went well, there was a lot of food (salad, garlic bread, wings for the omnivores). My brother, his fiancee, and their recently-born daughter made it. Christmas Eve church service and Cliff and Vera were absent. For the first time, really, Christmas celebrations depended in large part on my active participation. I will try to be more prepared for next year.

A lot of my friends have left their homes in search of life, freedom, careers, and school. However, they almost all managed to make it back to Grey County for a Wahoo! I haven't seen Danielle or Emily yet, but Ashley made it over for breakfast, snowballs and Dutch Blitz. Shane visited his family, and I visited them all. They're a good family that is very welcoming. I persuaded them to play Dutch Blitz as well, though Shane's brother's girlfriend had protested. Frank and his first sister came to Flesherton for a few days around New Year's Eve. We visited them twice and had Frank over for a supper once. We got in a lot of conversation, tea, an episode of Get Smart, and a viewing of the anime Origin which I gifted to him. Also, popcorn, chocolate turtles, ice cream, and ice cream bars. Also, two sessions with the twins, with movies, driving, pizza, East Side Marios, and board games.

The case of Frank emphasised the feeling of this Christmas holiday being a faint echo of those that came before. Only he and his first sister were present in a house that hasn't been properly lived in for months, and which has been cleaned largely bare of its former life and activity. It seems somewhat like social states can be establish where annual deviation is relatively small, but only for a certain period, after which breaks need to be made. Over the course of Schwarting-family Christmases starring my father as Dad, there has been a rather great deviation from the first to the last, but between any two Christmases the deviation has seemed smaller. The actual deviation between this one and the previous one doesn't seem great, but it feels great. I'm very grateful that Frank was able to visit Grey County and that we could enjoy New Years with him. I'm glad that Shane was pleasant and Shane-as-usual. I'm glad to be able to toss a snowball in Ash's face. I'm glad that my father, despite having a great deal of complaints recently about pain, has seemed to be as Ox-strong as ever during my visit, willing to drive several times for the same egg-breakfasts in Markdale.

The twins, oddly, seem like they'll never change. Things seem to be improving, rather than deteriorating, as well. They seem to be investing a little more in their home, which makes it all the more pleasant to visit in. At its worst, it's been cold and uncomfortable, but nothing that could really deter me from visiting them. Their media collection seems slightly more organised and consequently more impressive. Their family bond seems a bit tighter than in recent years. We got to play Scattergories with them, and Settles of Catan. Liv won a game of each and I won a game of the former. Liv's quite good :) We also saw with them Yes Man, National Treasure, and the new The Hulk. They have a tradition of funding my entertainment during excursions some times, given their workingness and my education-induced poverty. I am not sure whether that was appropriate this time, given my recent period of payed work :)

So, that about sums up a report on How Life Has Changed. It seems shallow. I'm concerned anew with shallowness, since Liv introduced me to the Daria movie. Sigh :)