Adrian got a Skylanders game and a bunch of Skylanders figures for Christmas. These are now his new favourite thing.

Meanwhile, Eric has been working on designing and building a shelf for our entry hall (for a very particular purpose, so we can’t find an off-the-shelf one).

Now those things merged, and Eric ad Adrian are designing and building a shelf for all the Skylanders figures.

My mother and my brother are here for Christmas.

My mother is an incredible energy thief. This is not the kind of thing one is supposed to say publicly about one’s mother, but I’m tired of pretending.

She enjoys complaining. Literally, she enjoys talking about things that upset her, because then she can be righteously upset. And I have to listen.

She criticises and denigrates just about anything that anybody does. Other people’s actions, opinions, choices – basically anything in the world – fall into one of three categories: it’s either something she agrees with, or something she has no particular opinion on, or it’s wrong/stupid/weird. There is no room in her world for simply having different opinions on anything, without the other opinion being wrong or stupid. And she simply must tell me how wrong/stupid/weird it is, whenever one of those things come up, and I have to listen.

She never has a conversation with me – only against me. Every conversation is an argument, or at best a debate. To everything I say, she will find a counter-example, counter-argument, counter-something. I can say that the sky is blue, and she’ll say that, well, it could be bluer.

I have stopped talking to her about anything I care about. I don’t talk to her about my work, my hobbies, my interests, my plans, my worries, hopes or concerns. Because there’s at least a fifty-fifty chance that whatever I say will be met with disapproval or contempt.

Instead I just listen and make polite noises, and grin and bear it.

The odd thing is, when I see her in a situation that involves other people, she can be perfectly nice: funny, polite, charming. I wonder if it’s just me she doesn’t respect at all – or if she has no respect for any human and simply feels that she can let down her facade with me and show what she truly thinks of people, myself included.

I can do it for a while, but it truly wears me down. Two days is about what I can take. My nerves are in a twist, I have a headache and I can’t sleep. I am running out of energy to constantly parry her negativity, find ways to turn the conversation in a more positive direction or change the topic, etc. I start snapping at her instead, or avoiding her. And both of those of course only make things worse.

I go to nature to charge my batteries. Today Adrian and I went geocaching in Ursvik. We walked, climbed on rocks, played with sticks, and found three fun caches. Now I mostly feel like a human being again.

We went for a walk.

Yes, yes, we did Christmas as well… but I felt that we also needed to move our legs and get some fresh air.

I am not very excited by Christmas any more. It’s mostly yet another chore.

I’ve never quite seen the point of teaching kids to believe in Santa Claus. The “It’s a tradition” argument doesn’t fly with me. “Everybody else does it” is also not a valid argument. “It makes kids be good” is the worst of them all – if the only way you can teach good behaviour to your kids is by lying, then maybe you have problems…

So the kids are fully aware that Christmas gifts are from people to people, and fully involved in the whole project. They buy or make gifts of their own, and they help choose gifts for each other. (Ingrid is markedly better than me at predicting what Adrian will enjoy.)

And wrapping all the gifts is a big, messy, fun project of its own, that we also do together.

Adrian beading Pokemon figures.

He is not quite Pokemon-obsessed, but he does love them.

Some of Adrian’s other Pokemon-themed activities: Playing Pokemon Go. Playing with Pokemon cards. Collecting Pokemon cards. Comparing Pokemon card stats. Trading Pokemon cards. Watching Pokemon videos. Drawing Pokemons. Colouring Pokemon pictures. Putting up Pokemon posters. Reading/browsing Pokemon magazines.

Likes:

• Colouring
• Sewing (small pillows) and embroidering (colourful lines on waffle cloth)
• Order and separation. Mixing Legos from two sets is a no-no; Lego guys never climb on Plus plus constructions.
• Movies with action and bloodless fighting in them.
• Maths. Out of nowhere he tells me that “50 is an even number, because if you divide it then each one would get 25”. Or that 4 times 5 makes 20.
• Reading. While I’m reading a bedtime story for him, he starts spelling out some word in the middle of the page and distracts us both. So he gets to read a bit now and again (for example the title and beginning of a chapter) and then I read the rest.
• Pokemons. They’re almost better than Legos.

Does not like:

• Criticism. He’s very sensitive to when someone is annoyed with something he does, or even sounds like they might be annoyed with him, and marches off in tears. Especially when he’s tired.
• Chores. Even the lightest chore – setting the table for dinner – is too much. It’s “I’m so tired” and whining all the way through, even though it would take him all of three minutes if he just focused on getting it done.
• Movie scenes that are too scary or too intensely suspenseful. He cuddles up very close to me, hides his face, or hides behind the sofa. It’s just too much.

Adrian built a paper version of Minecraft on our chimney wall, with some help from Ingrid: complete with a login screen, dirt and grass blocks, and inventory. Later they also added a Steve and a zombie.

Adrian has (re-)discovered embroidery, and sewing. He embroiders squiggly things on waffle cloth, and sews little fluffy felt or fleece pillows.

Today we had our traditional Christmas baking day: lussebullar and gingerbread cookies. The gingerbread dough would not co-operate but stuck to the table all the time, so Eric was kneading in more flour and rolling it out again and again. Which the kids found incredibly boring – but they also didn’t want to miss a single moment of making the cookies, so they stayed and waited.