It is currently Christmas Eve at 4:20 pm as I'm starting to write this (smoking a joint is really tempting right now btw) and I'm at home. alone. because I fucking hate how stressful Christmas is.

Christmas Eve is the day we celebrate everything here. dinner, opening gifts, the whole thing.

Work always fucking explodes right before Christmas when every single fucking asshole in the country decides that they need to fix something before Christmas Eve and apparently can't fathom that we have other costumers who had the exact same idea.

This means that I have been working overtime, often 7 Am to 10 or 11 pm for over a month now, and of course no matter how much I work it's never good enough. And apparently my boss keeps promising every new costumer who calls that we'll have it fixed before Christmas Eve even though he knows we're all overworked and understaffed. I think it's just his knee-jerk response. I have also noticed that some of the orders are a couple of months old that he probably forgot about until they called him and asked where we are. jobs I could have done while we didn't have much work to do before the whole christmas stress started. although for all I know the costumers could have requested that we wait. I know my boss is incredibly stressed and overworked too. on top of that his mom is sick. very sick. this will probably be her last Christmas. heck, for all I know she might already be gone. and he has so much work he hasn't had time to visit her, at least the last time we spoke about it.

Ever since I became a full on electrician the annual Christmas ritual has become to work way too much from about halfway through November and all the way to new years eve, but it's especially bad before Christmas Eve and ending up having a mental breakdown sometime in the middle of the whole Christmas hell. basically Christmas to me is 2% cozy family time, 98% stress and hoping I get injured so I can get a fucking break.

well, this year my mental breakdown happened yesterday on "little Christmas eve". For 2 days in a row I had to drive from work, 2 hours home because fuck Christmas traffic (it takes half an hour if the traffic is normal) then jump in some new clothes, drive for half an hour to pick up grandma, then drive for another hour to visit my mom. then after that drive for an hour to drop of grandma and then drive another hour home, all this while trying not to fall asleep for too many seconds at a time behind the wheel. I am fucking exhausted.

yesterday the final drop was something as stupid as me opening my soda stream bottle while driving and it decided that that was a great time to play the volcano game! which it has never done before btw! of course I dropped the cork on the floor and could do nothing but curse while this energy drink covered both me and the inside of my car.

now, before this you need to know that I had been too busy to call and arrange for somewhere to be during Christmas. I finally was able to talk to my dad 2 days before and he was mortified that I didn't have a place to be and offered to cancel his own plans so I could come to his place, but I don't wanna ruin his plans just because I'm a useless sack of shit, so I just told him I can go to my sister's place and not to worry.

I don't like to invite myself to places, but I was planning to call my sis and hoping it wouldn't be an issue with the amount of food or anything. But as I was punching my steering wheel after the soda stream fiasco I decided "you know what? fuck this! fuck this whole ass piece of shit dumb fucking Christmas! I'm gonna spend Christmas eve morning wrapping presents (I had time one day to buy them, but not wrap them), go drive them around to everyone and then I'm gonna go home, eat some frozen pizza, maybe play some COD, smoke some weed and just sleep until the 26th.

so that became my plan. I told my dad's side of the family that I'm spending Christmas with my sister and my mom's side of the family that I'm spending Christmas with my dad. I'm sure they'll figure it our eventually because my grandma's are neighbors and pretty much bff's, but when they figure it out it will already be overwith.

I was okay with this plan. not happy, but okay. then I realized that I'll have to open my own gifts all on my own, and imagining that was just so depressing. Maybe If I end my Christmas gift delivering at my sister's place I can ask her to stay and she would probably have said "yes, of course".

then today I woke up whenever I woke up because my gift to myself was to not use my alarm clock. I sat down to wrap presents, and I MAJORLY underestimated how long it takes. I finished an hour ago, then took a shower and then.... realized that at this point it will be suspicious that I'm not already at someone's house to celebrate. so instead... I'm just sitting at the bottom of my stairs with some bags of gifts I already told my family I would be delivering today and just feeling fucking depressed and tired. To add to my depressive state, remember how I said I'm a useless sack of shit? I do about 20% of the house cleaning at my place. and I live alone. so my place looks like a bombed whore house.

I did read on Facebook that someone's arranging a Christmas dinner for transgender people who has nowhere to be, so I might just go there. If I can find the energy. I won't be bringing my gifts of course, I'll just open them tomorrow anyways, it's just to depressing to open them today. But then when someone from my family calls to wish me a merry Christmas they'll hear that there are people around me and hopefully not get suspicious.

I wanna make it clear that this is on me, not my family. My family is great and very loving and accepting. this is all on me not taking the time to pick up the phone and call someone earlier.

I've been wanting to just escape for Christmas earlier, but I thought I'd go on a vacation somewhere, not just sit at home alone. I also realize now that being alone on Christmas Eve would suck no matter where I am. I could be on the beach in a warm country with a Piña colada and basking in the sun and would probably still feel alone and depressed.

My girl just sent me pictures from where she's celebrating. we're not officially bf/gf, but I think we're getting there. she also has no idea that I'm alone today. I hope she doesn't ask me for pictures of my own celebration, because I don't know what to tell her. I don't want her to know.

I actually considered going to work for a costumer who's open 24/7/365. at least I wouldn't feel useless if I work. But I don't want them to know either. especially since they can probably force me to get a psych evaluation if I can't keep my happy-mask on.

TL;DR I ruined my own Christmas by working too much, stressing myself out and basically becoming the grinch and now I'm alone and have regrets.