Happy Christmas Eve! I'm writing from my room after being out with my family. While waiting on my brother and sister-in-law to come from their other engagement (with SIL's parents), we plan to just hang out until midnight strikes. I'm up here because I didn't get enough sleep last night and without a nap I will not see Christmas, but I thought I'd get a quick post in before said nap.

We had a nice lunch at a Japanese restaurant and were talking the whole time, and I noticed that at the next table, the entire family was hunched over their phones in silence. This was the case at the restaurant we were at the previous night as well. It's a little sad, but – and this is definitely kind of mean – it also makes me feel proud of the family I have. Although we (the kids) are all adults now, we've grown into the kind of people who like to be around each other and still have a lot to talk about not only amongst ourselves, but with our parents too. We go out once a week all together, never run out of things to talk about, and seldom have tense dinners. I've never thought of spending time with my family as an obligation because it's generally very enjoyable.

Off the top of my head, a few reasons for this are:

1. Our parents treat us like adults, and we still treat them like our parents. We respect the other's autonomy/authority.
2. My siblings and I have an age gap that is too big for us to have developed contentious relationships with each other as children, but not too big to leave us with nothing in common. We have lots of overlapping interests, or at least fields of interest – animation, games, comics.
3. We show interest in each other's interests. My dad will sometimes put Taylor Swift on the speaker when we eat at home, just because my sister and I like her.
4. We're generally an introspective family that finds enjoyment in self-assessment/awareness/reflection. In high school, I would pull up Tumblr ask games on my phone and we'd go around the table answering questions like, "What skill do you wish you learned as a youth?"
5. Everyone's always doing something and can talk about it in a way that is engaging, whether it's travels or a new TV show.

The extended family is another thing, but as we've gotten older, we see less and less of them, to my delight.

Of course, it's not always been like this and it won't always be like this, especially as our family grows, but I'm sure we'll only keep growing together. I'm very grateful to have been born into something that's taught me what love and support and warmth feels like, so I know how to find it anywhere I go.

I've been feeling more myself since my family got back and the holidays began creeping closer. We're not a particularly Christmassy bunch, but I don't think you have to be festive or traditional to enjoy this time. The holidays are just a good excuse to spend more time on people and activities you love, and that's exactly what I'm doing.

I drew this back in 2021 (before my SIL joined the family!), during the pandemic when I was feeling sappy about my family and how grateful I was to have them during such a crazy time. I should make a new drawing with my SIL in it.

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Other good things:

• I finally finished one of my commissions and it was surprisingly very fun! I find it hard to work up the motivation to draw for anyone but myself and sometimes see that lack of motivation in the resulting artwork, but something about drawing for this friend made it particularly enjoyable, and we both ended up happy with the result.
• Misu introduced me to Protobowl, where I learned the only category I have a shot at answering is the Trash category. (It's pop culture.)
• My friends and I had our pre-session for a TTRPG called Oops, All Draculas! and have all gotten really into the character creation. 5/6 of us have never played a TTRPG before, but I knew we would take to it as well as we have.
• My ninja turtle obsession has forced me to learn to draw new things and it's been a humbling but exciting experience.