I quite fancy my Dr. Manhattan one!

It's the holidays, I dress as I like in the sanctity of my own home! 

Besides, the confinement is back in effect until January 11 over here.

Well, my family had mostly kind of drifted away from getting each other gifts, as it was harder and harder to get together, since we were spread across the country and I work retail (and my brother and his wife work agri-business and the fall is their major workload period). Both my parents are gone now and we couldn't get together with my aunt and uncle, who live in town, because my uncle has several health issues that make him very vulnerable to Covid. The missus and I usually get each other something small (t-shirts or similar). I can never really figure out what she wants and she doesn't give me hints; so, I got her an Amazon gift card (since she usually focuses on her grandkids) and she burned me some music I have been exploring, including Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, Graham Parker and Mott the Hoople. I've been trying to explore the stuff that I either missed because of radio access as a kid, or that never really made it in the US; but was right up my alley. This mostly means Glam Rock, the Roots Rock/Pub Rock stuff, the Neo-Rockabilly, and the proto-New Wave acts who got lumped ito Punk, but were something else (like Elvis Costello). I had some of their songs, on compilations of 80s stuff, as a couple of series I collected had sort of ancestors to the New Wave/Post Punk bands on at least one-set. I wanted to hear some of the other stuff on their albums, besides the songs I knew.

I also baked pumpkin bread for my co-workers, which I have been doing for a few years now, after finding a Libbys baking kit that makes one that is pretty close to the way my dad's recipe used to taste (we used to devour it in great hunks).

I did buy myself a couple of Christmas-themed cartoon t-shirts and a Snoopy sweatshirt. I got a Looney Tunes and Scooby Doo X-Mas t-shirts, a Snoopy t and a Snoopy X-Mas sweatshirt. If Disney ever wised up and created Uncle Scrooge, Donald and Huey, Dewey and Looey holiday shirts (or the group, in general) I'd be all over them!

My birthday is mid-November; so, the missus gifted me there, with a pair of Terry Pratchett Discworld t-shirts: One with Death, and a "school shirt" for Unseen University ("Nunc id vides, nunc ne vides!"). Now I just need a City Watch one, a Feegle, and maybe a Lord Vetinari (preferably one with a mime chained under a sign that says "Learn the Words!")

I finally broke down and bought the 66 Batman series on DVD as a present to myself. It only amounted to around 43 dollars so I don't feel guilty using the money on a guilty pleasure. Man, when the series was first released it was over 100 bucks. 

This was a hard Christmas for me. Since my ex and I cannot play nice, I decided not to try to do something together this time around and to let her have my girls for Christmas since it fell out on her days with the kids (we share 50/50 custody) and then give them a second Christmas when I get them back on Monday. It's a little weird watching the world wind down from Christmas when mine hasn't started yet.

Doing right in difficult moments is never as easy as it sounds Shax. Don't second guess or doubt yourself as from what you share here we can all see the awesome dad you are.