Gifts and other Material things
Jan. 4th, 2026 03:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
got_quietTl;dr I got some Hades stuff for Christmas and a new mini phone.
My family agreed many years ago to stop with the gift giving. But a few weeks before this Christmas my brother asked me if I was getting any gifts and when I said no he said actually he had gotten his wife some presents and was concerned that she would feel awkward if she was the only one who received any, so he got gifts for me and mom too. He's very right that my sister-in-law is the sort who would get very uncomfortable if she was the only one benefiting from anything. So I told my brother I'd see if I could find a few small things for everyone too so he wasn't the only one breaking the rules.
The result was that we had some nice gift giving again this year. I was able to find presents last minute that were well received and my brother ended up getting me Hades socks! I've got three pairs with the boons for Chaos, Athena, and Poseidon on them, which I wore the rest of the time I was visiting. I also stuffed myself full of delicious food. My sister-in-law and mom were both dismayed at the sudden appearance of presents, because they had followed the rules and gotten none, but we insisted that because they had both been cooking us a veritable feast every day for a week that was more than enough. My sister-in-law had previously been a professional baker and she made us a cheese cake that I made myself happily sick on.
Once I got home there was some gift giving between housemates too. I really had no idea for this year and my roommates had no idea what to get me, so we ended up just telling each other what we wanted. I got some steam bucks and the NoClip Hades anthology, so this was an unplanned very Hades Christmas in the end. I was also given a book that my roommate randomly picked up. She has a habit of giving me books that are likely to be sold in places that aren't bookstores, if that makes any sense. Like she got me some book about kitchen knives once that probably came from a kitchen supply store. In this case she bought this book while in some sort of housing goods store and it's just a bunch of essays about the color white. I think she got it for me because the author is Japanese lol. But I'm curious about how you write a book all about the color white.
I also got some Steam bucks which I will probably end up sitting on. I looked at the Steam Sale and considered KCD2, but my graphics card is at the minimum specs and my enthusiasm for a new game is not high right now, so I'm holding off, playing the patient gamer, and saving for when my friends inevitably decide they want to try out some new group game and ask me to buy it with them.
Sometimes for the holidays I also get myself a relatively large gift. It tends to be something practical but higher quality than the cheap stuff I usually spring for. So one time I got a very nice vacuum, and another I got a Zojirushi. This year I got a new phone, since my old one for some reason can't connect to our wifi without overheating and crashing until it's dead and it's almost a decade old anyway. But rather than get something cutting edge I got a model I've had my eye on for a while, the Unihertz Jelli Star. Unihertz is a Chinese manufacturer that sells alternative model phones, including this mini smartphone. The screen is only 95 x 49 mm (under 4 x 2 in.) but it functions perfectly fine as a smart phone. The battery life was great after I swapped out Firefox for Chrome, and now that I'm used to it, holding a standard sized smartphone feels stupid and awful. It only cost $200 too, so it was an economical splurge.
The phone has not, unfortunately helped me avoid doom scrolling, which was one of the reasons I got it. So I still need to work on that.
My family agreed many years ago to stop with the gift giving. But a few weeks before this Christmas my brother asked me if I was getting any gifts and when I said no he said actually he had gotten his wife some presents and was concerned that she would feel awkward if she was the only one who received any, so he got gifts for me and mom too. He's very right that my sister-in-law is the sort who would get very uncomfortable if she was the only one benefiting from anything. So I told my brother I'd see if I could find a few small things for everyone too so he wasn't the only one breaking the rules.
The result was that we had some nice gift giving again this year. I was able to find presents last minute that were well received and my brother ended up getting me Hades socks! I've got three pairs with the boons for Chaos, Athena, and Poseidon on them, which I wore the rest of the time I was visiting. I also stuffed myself full of delicious food. My sister-in-law and mom were both dismayed at the sudden appearance of presents, because they had followed the rules and gotten none, but we insisted that because they had both been cooking us a veritable feast every day for a week that was more than enough. My sister-in-law had previously been a professional baker and she made us a cheese cake that I made myself happily sick on.
Once I got home there was some gift giving between housemates too. I really had no idea for this year and my roommates had no idea what to get me, so we ended up just telling each other what we wanted. I got some steam bucks and the NoClip Hades anthology, so this was an unplanned very Hades Christmas in the end. I was also given a book that my roommate randomly picked up. She has a habit of giving me books that are likely to be sold in places that aren't bookstores, if that makes any sense. Like she got me some book about kitchen knives once that probably came from a kitchen supply store. In this case she bought this book while in some sort of housing goods store and it's just a bunch of essays about the color white. I think she got it for me because the author is Japanese lol. But I'm curious about how you write a book all about the color white.
I also got some Steam bucks which I will probably end up sitting on. I looked at the Steam Sale and considered KCD2, but my graphics card is at the minimum specs and my enthusiasm for a new game is not high right now, so I'm holding off, playing the patient gamer, and saving for when my friends inevitably decide they want to try out some new group game and ask me to buy it with them.
Sometimes for the holidays I also get myself a relatively large gift. It tends to be something practical but higher quality than the cheap stuff I usually spring for. So one time I got a very nice vacuum, and another I got a Zojirushi. This year I got a new phone, since my old one for some reason can't connect to our wifi without overheating and crashing until it's dead and it's almost a decade old anyway. But rather than get something cutting edge I got a model I've had my eye on for a while, the Unihertz Jelli Star. Unihertz is a Chinese manufacturer that sells alternative model phones, including this mini smartphone. The screen is only 95 x 49 mm (under 4 x 2 in.) but it functions perfectly fine as a smart phone. The battery life was great after I swapped out Firefox for Chrome, and now that I'm used to it, holding a standard sized smartphone feels stupid and awful. It only cost $200 too, so it was an economical splurge.
The phone has not, unfortunately helped me avoid doom scrolling, which was one of the reasons I got it. So I still need to work on that.
no subject
Date: 2026-01-05 12:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-01-05 01:43 am (UTC)Almost 10 years for a smartphone is a really long time! Especially compared to newer models these days.