Well, it's THAT time again, and after this awful year I'm really in no mood for celebrating. Like every year I have to visit my family, of course (well, family.... by now that's just me, mom and an uncle whom I barely saw 5 times before my father died and who now practically lives with my mom. That's nice of him to look after his sister, but I have no idea what to talk about with him and always feel like I insult him by ignoring him... *sigh*). But it's not as bad as I dreaded. It's not as hard as I feared to talk to my mom after so long and with all our financial problems and my problems at university. She doesn't get angry (yet) with me for watching TV or sleeping in either. She even seems to be delighted by my ideas to make some money by trying to sell some "kitsch" fantasy art, which she normaly never likes me spending time on. I guess she's trying to keep up a good mood to make up for missing Christmas presents or something. Anyway, I'm grateful and play along. On Christmas Eve (when the coming together and exchanging presents part takes place in Germany) I was so tired and sick I went to bed at 7:30 p.m., not even an hour after I arrived. Thankfully the fancy Christmas dinner usually takes place at Christmas Day in my family (because mom has to work on Christmas Eve until afternoon), so at least I didn't had to hurt my mother by rejecting her carefully prepared dinner. Since we can't afford a christmas tree or any real presents this year, (well, she nonceremoniously gave me a cheap necklace trinket and I gave her some ginger chocolate while unpacking my stuff, but that was it) we pass the days by practically ignoring it's Christmas at all, safe for some candles and fancy food - We're atheists anyway...

So I'm spending my holidays here getting some important things done in my hometown (new glasses and personal ID), making myself useful by repairing small stuff around the house and cleaning out my old rooms so mom can use them for clothes storage or something.
I won't celebrate New Year either. It could get better than the old one, yes, but with my rotten luck it will only get worse anyway.

Like my favorit cynic, Bernd the Bread from a kid's puppet show (hey, if you'd be forced every day to play the guinnea pig for a mad, but incurable optimistic inventor and a sugar-high pyromaniac, you'd turn cynic and sarcastic, too) phrased it when he summed up his New Year speech:
"Behind us lies a bad year and before us probably lies an even worse year. So have no illusions - everything stays as it is, just worse. Stay under cover and always look out for the next anvil with your name on it!"