Holidaze

Normally I'd never use punny wordplay in a blog title, but this one was inspired by a holiday themed song by Bootsy Collins, so I'll allow it. Just this once.

By all accounts I was well ahead of the game this holiday season. I started listening to Christmas music before Thanksgiving (but only Robbie Williams' new record The Christmas Present, because it came out in November), had my tree up and all gifts wrapped up under it by mid-December. So why am I only writing about the holidays now, in February?

The cool answer would be that my holiday season goes through the end of January, so it can include my birthday. But as we all know, I'm not cool. In reality, there were a series of times that I meant to write over the last couple of months, and then I just didn't.

First, I went to London for a few days, in mid-December. When Rob's aforementioned Christmas album was released, he also announced a one-off show in London to support it: The Robbie Williams Christmas Party. So I dutifully woke up at 2am (for the 10am GMT opening of the ticket presale window), and got my ticket... but only after fighting with Ticketmaster online for a good 30-40 minutes. Evidently the site's issues were because of overwhelming demand, so when tickets sold out in a few minutes, RW and team added a second show the following night. Despite my flight & hotel booking keeping me in London for both days, I decided one show was enough.

Until I landed at Heathrow and got excited for the show. And decided to just look online to see if any tickets were still available for the second show, out of curiosity. There were some, including better seats than I had for the original gig, for a lower price... so the decision was made: I'd go to both nights!

Of course I was glad that I did. I never regret joining the Robbie Williams live experience, even for essentially the same show multiple times. Sadly, not all of the audience members were as stoked as I was. Normally the whole crowd stands for the 90-120 minutes the Man is onstage. Not this time. Both nights, while I spent the whole time out of my seat, singing and dancing along to every song, almost everyone around me sat, annoyed that they couldn't see through me. They would get up and show some enthusiasm for the hits and the covers of Christmas classics, but spent the other half of the set slumped bored in their chairs, scrolling through their phones.

Look, I know the majority of folk at Rob's shows aren't going to be maniacs like me -- he needs the casual fans who only know 6 songs to show up, since the small number of us devotees aren't going to pay his mortgage. I don't begrudge their presence, and normally I'll never complain about the set lists catering to their limited interests.

But come on... this was a show called The Robbie Williams Christmas Party, where it was very specifically stated as promoting the new Christmas album, and most of the tickets were only available to people with codes they got by purchasing said new Christmas album. Don't be irritated when the majority of the show is new songs, from the new Christmas album. I mean, what did you think you were buying a ticket for?!?!

Ahem. What was I saying? Oh. So the show was great, as always. Nothing like it. I had a fantastic time, regardless of the disinterested masses. And so did the other Friendlies, and Rob, per what he told us the next day. That's what matters.

Anyway, I didn't write about all this while I was in London because I wanted to wait until after the second show to do it, and I was off to the airport with the beginning of a cold less than 12 hours later. When I got home, I was fully taken over by the miserable Tube virus (yeah, I blame my getting sick on having to touch things in the London Underground full of sniffly, coughing people and forgetting to coat myself with hand sanitizer immediately afterward). And it left me doing nothing but lying around feeling sorry for myself the next few days.

The cold was improved but still hanging around at Christmas, when my mom came to visit and I went into hostess mode. With the loss of both my dad and grandma this September, two big figures in the Christmas traditions were gone and I was more than happy to do something very different. We tried to plan the holiday at my brother's farm, but it turns out travelling to remote parts of Alaska in the middle of winter is easier said than done. There were other travel challenges, and in the end we stayed at my place and had a very quiet time. It was nice.

By Hogmanay I'd been hit with a bit of the winter greys and couldn't be bothered to write. Not the blues, nowhere near depression -- nothing of concern -- just the general state of blah laziness that strikes all of us living in a place where the darkness and grey skies roll in mid-November and don't roll out again until April. I pretty much spent January there, and did nothing but work too late on my birthday, so nothing much to report.

But now blue skies are smilin' at me, so here I am. I'll try not to type your ear off.