Week commencing Monday, 22 December 2025. Happy Christmas!
Quantified Self
- This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 7/7. (76%). Morning walks: 0/3. Office days 0/3. Total steps: 33,347
Life
- How did it get to Christmas week so quickly? Yesterday, Kylie was announced as the Christmas number one. I assume it’s because it’s probably included every time anyone asks Alexa to play Christmas songs. Clever marketing.
- Related, at least it’s on YouTube if you don’t subscribe to the Amazon Music service.
- A giant hole emerged in a Shropshire canal.
- All week, at about 4 p.m., I turned my attention to activating Christmas lights to run on timers (six hours on, 18 off). I strung a new set around the back garden, only to discover they require a much larger battery than the ones I had to hand. The timer had to wait a day, which felt mildly annoying but also very normal for this stage of December.
- Monday, the Christmas food was delivered by Sainsbury’s. Unexpectedly, it fit in the fridge.
- Related, Tuesday, PY made mince pies, which filled the house with a properly Christmassy smell.
- Relatedly related, Christmas Eve began with PY heading to Waitrose at nine to collect the turkey bauble. We’re not doing a whole turkey this year, mainly because some guests aren’t fans, so chicken will be doing the job for them.
- Also on Christmas Eve, I suggested Greggs’ festive bake for lunch, which felt seasonally appropriate. PY returned with a cheese and onion slice and one with beans in. It was only later, while chatting with P&J, that it emerged he hadn’t realised there was such a thing as an actual festive bake. He thought I was asking for a Greggs’ bake in the festive period.
- Christmas Day: lots of food prep, lots of eating, and some hilarious indoor fireworks. A lovely day spent with lovely people.
- Sunday, I attempted to navigate various stations step-free and relied heavily on lifts. At Victoria, that means navigating a slightly bewildering network of lifts between levels to reach the ticket gates and the mainline platforms.
- Reminder to me (and anybody who knows of a memorial bench): Open Benches.
Media
- I mentioned before that I only started watching Stranger Things this series, but it is good, even if I am not really sure what’s happening. Obviously, Tiffany’s I Think We’re Alone Now is a massive part of the joy.
- The video reminds us that, in the 80s, pop stars made videos in shopping malls and we all thought it was cool.
- Jemma Redgrave playing Kate Lethbridge-Stewart is fantastic in The War Between the Land and the Sea. Ditto Russell Tovey. However, it’s another series where the ending seemed rushed or incomplete.
- Boxing Day movie 1: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie. It’s a fairly convoluted made-for-TV story about the band trying to get back from a European concert in time for Christmas, rediscovering their bond as brothers along the way. It’s light and festive, with some catchy songs. Entirely disposable, but enjoyable enough.
- Boxing Day movie 2: The Accountant 2. The original felt more focused on the accounting side of things, whereas this leans much more into being a buddy movie, with a slightly tangled plot centred around identifying the people in a photograph. I still enjoyed it, though.
- Saturday: we watched Wonka. It’s an origin-style story in which Willy Wonka, played by Timothée Chalamet, arrives in an unnamed European city to open his dream chocolate shop. Things don’t go to plan. It’s easy to see why it was nominated for Outstanding British Film at the BAFTAs. A warm, feel-good film that fits neatly into this quiet, between-days stretch.