I've Never Really Like the End of the Year

 

The holidays are fun and all, usually, but you have to bend over backward to do everything and worry about the year-end stuff. We paid our property taxes today. (Online.) Oooof. Since we have this little business we have all sorts of year-end tax things to worry about between that and the personal stuff. I always worried about getting gifts for people (when I did that and I did at least for the parents when they were still alive). This year there are no parties with great food and decoration and booze to relieve the dread of year-end. We used to walk around downtown and look at all the window displays and hotel decorations, but this year it doesn't seem worth the risk of wandering through a hotel lobby to see a giant nutcracker.

Usually, we go to the performance of the "Nutcracker" that Ballet Austin does at the Long Center but this year we watched it online (a recording from last year). We almost always go on Christmas Eve to the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar and see Christine Albert and Chris Gage. It's canceled this year.

We aren't big celebrants of New Year's Eve but we usually do something with other people. That's my husband and two of our good gal friends at one of our clubs for a low-key dinner to celebrate.

So it seems the end of the year is drained of everything but starting to worry about taxes and winding up the year. At least we don't have to take the Required Minimum Distribution from our IRAs. Thanks CARES act. And we don't have any elderly parents left to worry over. We have food and shelter and it's certainly a time to realize that not everyone does.