Skip Christmas Eve 2023: On paper, 2022 had been a great year. Margaret had worked as an intern at at a small investment bank on Fifth Avenue. She had married a handsome, successful man, and was whisked away on an incredible honeymoon to Australia and New Zealand. Sure, there had been some setbacks that year. Her PhD project wasn’t moving as fast as she had hoped; in fact, her thesis committee hated her project. She had lost 20 grand in savings from her wedding and travel escapades. But those could be recovered, right? She had unconditional love from a husband, two precious cats, and an apartment in Manhattan. What more could a person ask for? Lucky for her, Margaret could always count on her family to make her feel more worthless than a doormat. Cue Christmas Eve at her her wealthy uncle’e new Greenwich house. That particular night, the temperature was below freezing and felt like the arctic with the stinging winds. The house was impossible to find, and once they finally arrived, the atmosphere of the party was full of cranky relatives and horrible iridescent lighting. She knew the bad lighting would only emphasize the exhaustion on her face. The uncle who owned the house was married to a powerhouse of a federal judge. Margaret loves her aunt for her generosity and her fierce love for family, but the one thing she wasn’t too fond of is her painful lack of emotional awareness. Margaret’s aunt referred to the Greenwich house as “his house,” (referring to her uncle). As they sat down for dinner in “his living room,” the first question of the meal was not asked, but rather fired directly at Margaret. “So tell me, when will you be done with this PhD?,” her aunt commanded. This is a taboo question in the book of PhD etiquette. The interrogation lasted for the entirety of dinner, with no remorse, no breaks, and no mercy. Margaret’s face turned from the light blue haze of the lights to a dark purpleish blue with a gleam of sweat. She spent the entirety of Christmas Eve dinner sweating, feeling increasingly self conscious and moronic, and growing a grudge against her family. Restart therapy: Earlier that day, Margaret had left work as soon as she could to get ready for the evening. She had gotten dressed up in a chic outfit that her grandmother bought for her as an early Christmas gift - a caramel half zip sweater with pleather stripes down the sleeves and beautiful suede pants. Her English (step) grandmother really had an incredible eye for fashion, and the outfit was perfect for a low key celebration on a frigid Christmas Eve. As she started to put on her makeup, her heart began to sink. She wasn’t the young and tight skinned girl that she was a few years ago. She looked tired - her eyelids had started to droop, and this particular evening, her eyebrows looked especially uneven with one sinking lower than the other. Her neck was starting to sag. As the youngest in the family (at least of her generation), she felt pressure to be spritely and youthful. So, she tried her best to put on makeup and feel good about herself. She had cut a few strands of her hair to try to make it look a bit more voluminous. The year had been good, but it had been hard. Sometimes she wondered if she brought stress on to herself, or if it was thrust upon her. Maybe both? Either way, the whole year had felt a bit out of control. She had been going to therapy up until her internship started, when she felt like she had reached a good place to take a pause. Her therapist wasn’t helping much at that point anyways. That may have been her biggest mistake of the year. Or, was it accepting the internship in the first place? Or, maybe it was that she hadn’t fought hard enough to wait until she was less stressed to go on the honeymoon. It was hard to choose. Anyways, the last thing she wanted to hear on that Christmas Eve was, “darling, you look tired. Have you been spending a lot of time at work?” Margaret knew her grandmother asked out of care, but that evening, the comment hurt.Stay healthy?: Prior to the holidays, there had been some family drama. The drama had actually been going on for a couple of years by then. Her family was strictly divided into antivaxxers and vaxxers-or-I-don’t-know-you. Two summers prior, her antivax brother showed up at his aunt and uncle’s vacation house, both of whom did not know that he was not vaccinated. When they found out, they banished him from their property and sent home with his tail between his legs. That was two years ago, and this year her brother still wouldn’t show up at Christmas because he was still upset with his aunt. In any case, Margaret had three Christmases this year, because her brother hosted a second Christmas Eve at his house so that he didn’t have to see his aunt and uncle. The family played Cards Against Humanity with Margaret’s 85 year old grandmother and religious aunt. that evening. She couldn’t stomach the crudeness of hearing her mother talk about “porn stars,” and how horrifying it was that nearly the entire family mixed up Willie Mays and Billy Mays, so she stayed in the kitchen with her brother and father, instead listening to small talk about golf and retirement. Margaret saw that her grandfather was beginning to look tired, so she told her dad that they should leave to bring the grandparents home soon. Well, Margaret was right - her grandfather was definitely tired. The following morning, Christmas morning, she watched him get carried down the stairs on a gurney and brought to the hospital. Both of her grandparents had Covid and her grandfather had Covid and pneumonia. A day later, her mom got Covid. And the next day, Margaret got Covid. Such a fun time.Find…happiness? Somehow, her husband never caught Covid. Still testing negative, he went on his merry way to fly back to Australia for a coworkers wedding and another three week long adventure. Margaret was left in quarantine to pass New Year’s Eve alone with her cats. Margaret’s PhD project felt hopeless, but she still spent her week in isolation trying to find a way to salvage it. She scheduled therapy. She cleaned out her closet. She tried to learn more about computational biology. She did the things that one does in the new year in quarantine (except write thank you cards to her wedding guests, which had became the most motivating form of procrastination). Finally, she was allowed to return to work. She didn’t want to go to work, but she was excited to be around people again. The night after her first day back, Margaret’s dad called her out of the blue and left a voicemail. I hope it’s not an emergency, she thought. He was just checking in, which was unusual. Margaret didn’t feel like talking, especially to her parents, who never made any effort to get on the same page as her emotionally. She gave brief one sentence responses. Her laconic father tried painfully to keep the conversation going, but Margaret was in no mood to take over and drive the conversation. When he finally seemed to get the hint, her mom interjected from the background, “are you happy sweetie?” She asked this question not actually wanting to know if Margaret was happy, but rather, “have I failed as a parent?” “That is a loaded question,” Margaret responded. “Goodnight,” she said.