Christmas Eve 2025. A completely different affair than last year, should you look back at the entry. We were coming off a stinking hot day of 44.3C and the weather was turning mild. Today, by comparison, it got up into the high 30s and tomorrow should be 40 with maybe a thunderstorm. We’ll see.
The day started with Gary and I releasing the last two episodes of Coode Street for 2025, and making plans for the next few weeks. Sophie and I then went out at about 7am to do some errands – collect the mail from two post offices (one of my pieces of offical merch went astray), get some groceries, have some breakfast and so on. Then back to the house for tidying and prep for the big day. I ended up going out on another trip to get groceries and such and then spent time to laying out my tasks for tomorrow morning. All of the usual stuff.
Along the way, I spent a little time wth my favourite new podcast (Bill Nighy’s Ill-Considered), read a bit of Ben Aaronovitch’s Moon Over Soho, and felt slightly stressed about being not prepared enough. We then had Chinese for dinner and watched Miracle on 34th Street. A nice day, with no car accidents, for busy and not super Christmassy.
Tomorrow will be up early to see if Santa’s been, some family gifts, then breakfast, cooking and final tidying. The family are due about noon, and the turkey should be coming out of the oven aaround then. We’re sitting inside, so it’s a little cramped, but it’s also well air conditioned, so you have to pick what’s important to you. We’ll share gifts, no doubt, and then food and games and such for the rest of the afternoon. At some point, I’ll eventually slip into a mild food coma, and then watch something or other and crash.
As to Boxing Day – cricket, reviews editing, and year-in-review column writing. I owe Locus a review column after all these years, so that’s on the to do list. All in all, a busy few days.
