The Third Thing

Normal Life Field Report #7

How to celebrate a holiday at home

Dec 30, 2025

Location: Couch corner (again), Grand Junction, CO
Date: 12/30/25
Weather: HOT & DRY
Vibes of the month: Hope someone else remembers my work computer login (because I sure as shit don’t)

We started the month with wet snow and I thought, what a glorious season it’s going to be! Temps dropped into the 20s. I was out swapping blankets on Tex and making sure his hay didn’t go moldy. By December 10, the ground was parched and dusty. I went up to the ski resort last Monday and there were just strips of manmade snow from the snow machines and the rest was bare dirt. Only two chair lifts were running: one for the 200-yard bunny slope and the other for a single blue run that midway down turned into a sheet of ice so slick and dangerous the employees were roping off just about the whole thing. Around 2:30pm that lift abruptly stopped running, trapping around 50 people high above the mountain and forcing a rope rescue. I’d gone up to ski with my buddy who happened to be the head of lift ops—it was his day off—but when the lift shut down, he disappeared with the rest of the lifties trying to get the problem sorted out. I had to ask his girlfriend for a ride back into town because I’m selfish and impatient and quite frankly I didn’t want to hang around for another couple hours while 50 people were roped off a lift.

J and I have a pact that we don’t travel on the holidays—especially by plane—and I think that’s one of the greatest agreements we’ve ever come to. On Christmas Eve I made pierogies. Christmas Morning, J made cinnamon rolls. Christmas Day Eve (or whatever you call it) we ordered Chinese food for dinner—as is our new tradition—and apparently everyone else in Grand Junction had the same idea. It took three hours before we had our food. J and I took one-hour shifts waiting inside for our order to be called, watching the strangest and worst of humanity play out in front of us. The staff were so frantic, I swear I could see their hair graying. The boomers were having emotional meltdowns. The line to the front desk never moved and the phone never once stopped ringing. One TV was playing old Westerns, another was playing Christmas Hallmark movies. An ancient man behind an electric keyboard near the bar played Sweet Caroline and yelled out, “C’mon everybody!” when he got to the chorus as staff flew through the restaurant, and a woman attempted to wipe up an entire spilled glass of water off the floor with a single napkin, and the son of the owners—a little boy who can’t be older than 9—cried out, “I’ve been working for 22 hours and my feet are killing me!”