Content Warning:
This post contains discussion of chronic illness, seizures, medical trauma, financial strain, grief over the loss of a beloved pet, and disability-related challenges during the holidays.
Welcome Back to the Cryptid’s Den
Welcome back to The Crippled Cryptid, where disability, chronic illness, service dogs, and everyday sorcery gather under soft Christmas lights like friendly ghosts trading secrets over leftovers and dessert.
If you’re new here: hi, I’m Sky.
Professional cryptid.
Unwilling amateur cyborg.
Medically interesting enough to make half my providers sigh when they open my chart. Honestly, I sigh too. Then I roll my eyes.
I live in a haunted meat suit with a deeply questionable, long-expired warranty. The holidays, unfortunately, don’t change that. There is no pause button for chronic illness, even though I’ve spent years wishing there were.
Returning readers: welcome home.
New cryptids: welcome to the Lunatic Café.
On today’s menu: Christmas.
Just… in a different font.
This Christmas arrived wearing a typeface I wasn’t expecting.
Normally, once Thanksgiving is over, and no, not the whitewashed “Columbus discovered America” version, I shift into Christmas mode.
Think more Jack Skellington trying to figure out what Christmas means, and less Mariah Carey screeching “it’s time.”
In this family, Thanksgiving looks different. M&M comes from an Iroquois and Métis background, and I carry Cherokee and Blackfoot roots myself. We may have grown up calling it Thanksgiving, but we approach it with intention rather than mythology.
We give thanks for what we have.
We try not to take anything for granted.
And we use this time to be with the people we love.
After that, I usually prepare for Christmas. The lights. The decorations. The small rituals that used to make me impossibly happy. One of my favorite memories from childhood is listening to my grandfather sing along to old Christmas music while we decorated the tree. We weren’t a religious household, but that never mattered. It wasn’t about belief, at least for us.
It was about being together.
Those are the traditions I love.
The ones I want to keep.
And this year… they looked different.
This year wasn’t big.
All of my extra money went to Ubers. To and from the hospital. Doctors’ offices. The grocery store. Back in October, another car hit ours and totaled it. M&M had a seizure that day. My own seizures began in December.
They haven’t stopped.
We also lost Bear. Our constant companion for ten years. Our steady presence. Our old soul in a dog’s body.
So, we made a choice. One that didn’t come easily.
Instead of forcing the version of Christmas I didn’t have the body, money, or heart for, we tried something new.
Christmas, yes.
But in a different font.
M&M comes from a more French background than I do, so she’s used to having the big Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas Day. Given where my health has been lately, we decided to try it her way.
We got lucky. Very lucky.
Thanks to coupons and timing at Meijer, we scored a prime rib roast for $6.99 a pound. It had been on sale for $8.99, and it usually runs closer to $19.99. What should have been a $130 roast came in under $60.
We cooked it rare, the French way, under the close supervision of M&M’s Aunt Lise, and it turned out flawless. Tender. Juicy. Served with the au jus it was cooked in, because of course.
Since we don’t yet own a potato ricer, that’s officially on the thrift-store wish list now. Along with a slicer. And a proper platter for roast beefs, turkeys, and future “we survived another year” meals.
We served the roast with my holiday staple: cream cheese mashed potatoes. This year, I added garlic, parmesan, and a little parsley to feel fancy.
There was corn with butter for the Yard Yeti.
Because BJ firmly believes corn belongs with everything.
M&M made her absolutely perfect pineapple upside-down cake. We intended to have it for dessert, but by the time dinner ended, none of us could move. We ate slices later in bed while watching Invasion on Apple TV from Bed Jail™.
No regrets. Worth it.
The appetizers were a hit, as always. Tiny BBQ sausages for BJ. Our traditional cheese ball. And a shrimp ring we managed to snag on sale, which delighted my cryptid heart more than it probably should have.
(But can you go wrong with shrimp?)
Earlier in the week, M&M and I made sugar cookies with Aunt Lise over video call, along with a gingerbread loaf. Gingerbread cookies were just too much work with my health this year, and that’s okay.
The Friday before Christmas, we also made my family’s famous Christmas Balls. Some traditions bend. Some stay exactly the same. That was one tradition I wasn’t going to let my health even come close to touching.
Tonight is leftovers.
And no one is complaining about reheating prime rib, mashed potatoes, and all the fixings. I’m still thinking about that prime rib. Even Luna got in on the action. The Yard Yeti is the best uncle a Service Dingo could ask for and gave her a few trimmings, with permission, of course.
There was only one thing that would have made this Christmas better.
More family.
I wish Bear had been here. This being our first Christmas without him was hard in ways I don’t quite have language for yet. The house still expects him. The quiet notices his absence. Even Luna feels it, I think, curling up with his stocking like it remembers something important.
I wish Aunt Dee and Aunt Lise could have been here, sitting at the table with us. Laughing. Making fun of us. Especially last night, when the three of us sat in the dining room far too long trying to figure out how to open the wine, absolutely refusing to admit defeat. That’s the kind of chaos that feels like home.
And I keep thinking about Christmas brunch with my family. How much I’m looking forward to it. It may be smaller than it ever was, even now, but it matters all the same.
Because even though we’re broken, we’re still here.
We’re still holding on.
Still hanging in there.
Still showing up for each other every day.
That counts. It has to.
Since we’re doing things the French way this year, today is Pajama Day. A phrase I love, coined by Aunt Lise.
She once told us that no one is allowed to visit her on Christmas Day unless they’re in their jammies. And you know what? I’m honestly here for it.
We’re all in jammies. My socks are green with red and white candy canes and stars, perfectly matching Luna’s Christmas sweater. That alone brings me joy. Almost as much joy as Luna got from her gifts.
Santa Paws definitely came for Luna Bean this year.
She received Bear’s stocking, something precious we passed down to her because it felt right. Inside was a rope toy that looks like rainbow string lights. Each “bulb” is a squeaky toy, and yes, they all squeak.
She’s already bullied BJ into multiple rounds of tug-of-war and fetch.
So here I am. Sitting at my desk. Coffee in a snowman mug. M&M in the kitchen making crepes. I’ve been banished, my job complete. I started the hash browns, made the bacon and sausage, but you cannot rush perfection, and you absolutely cannot interrupt crepe-making.
Today, you get a special double-feature Christmas post from me.
Because later, you’ll hear nothing from us. (No Spoilers: I promised.)
Episodes 5–7 of Stranger Things drop at 8pm CST. That means leftovers, Luna snuggles, and me in Bed Jail™ wearing my Stranger Things blanket hoodie.
I hope everyone who celebrates is having a Merry Christmas.
And to those of you having a hard time this year, please remember this:
It won’t always be this bad.
Christmas isn’t about the presents.
The lights.
The tree.
Or how much you can give.
It’s about surviving.
About choosing softness where you can.
About finding joy that fits the body you’re in.
It will get better. I promise.
Even if you’re living with chronic illness and disability like I am.
Love you, now say it back.
-Sky
© The Crippled Cryptid
Disability, honesty, and a little chaos.
https://linktr.ee/skylanarissa
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Support Sky’s Journey to Health and Mobility:
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