How to celebrate - complication: tired introverts
November 22, 2024 1:57 PM Subscribe
I got a new job! My partner doesn’t have the medical issue he was worried about! This is good news. But my partner and I are mildly depressed introverts who have forgotten how to celebrate things. How to celebrate?
It feels like this is the first good news to happen to us in a while, we’ve just been slogging through shit for some time now. All we want to do is sleep and be pain free. Neither of us needs a big meal or sweets, I barely drink. Give me some small ideas for celebrations that might remind us that good things sometimes do happen.
It feels like this is the first good news to happen to us in a while, we’ve just been slogging through shit for some time now. All we want to do is sleep and be pain free. Neither of us needs a big meal or sweets, I barely drink. Give me some small ideas for celebrations that might remind us that good things sometimes do happen.
Take out chinese/pizza. Popcorn, a movie rental, special bankets out on the couch, snacks. Get a bottle of champagne or make a fancy cocktail. It doesn't have to be a lot of drinks to enjoy one super delicious drink you spend way too much time preparing.
posted by ReluctantViking at 2:10 PM on November 22, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by ReluctantViking at 2:10 PM on November 22, 2024 [2 favorites]
Agreed.
Just enjoy each other's company, hotel or not. Give your partner a hug and cry a bit. Get some food you both enjoy. Congrats to you both!
posted by Windopaene at 2:11 PM on November 22, 2024 [2 favorites]
Just enjoy each other's company, hotel or not. Give your partner a hug and cry a bit. Get some food you both enjoy. Congrats to you both!
posted by Windopaene at 2:11 PM on November 22, 2024 [2 favorites]
Go quite early to a fancy/hip restaurant with casual bar seating, tell them you’re celebrating. order a glass of wine or champagne or a cocktail or a mocktail and an appetizer. (If you can’t think of where this should be, go to the nicest hotel near you, they’ll have a hotel bar that will work.) Then go home and get into PJs and watch a movie and eat a comfort meal.
posted by vunder at 2:17 PM on November 22, 2024 [5 favorites]
posted by vunder at 2:17 PM on November 22, 2024 [5 favorites]
Another option would be a low key, long walk/hike in nature - forest bathing, some water, then finding a quiet spot that serves tea or coffee or light snacks with comfy couches and then settling in to read, journal or just some light snuggling.
You could also substitute the walk with a trip to a gallery or museum that has a show up that you want to see or just a stroll in your neighborhood.
posted by brookeb at 2:20 PM on November 22, 2024 [9 favorites]
You could also substitute the walk with a trip to a gallery or museum that has a show up that you want to see or just a stroll in your neighborhood.
posted by brookeb at 2:20 PM on November 22, 2024 [9 favorites]
I just recommended a slumber party a few days ago and it's great for introverts. No internet! No leaving the house! No responsibilities!!
posted by phunniemee at 2:32 PM on November 22, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 2:32 PM on November 22, 2024 [2 favorites]
What would be a small splurge? Go out to dinner, Hire a cleaning person, Go to a concert.With tea, coffee champagne, wine, whatever is a celebratory drink, toast to good fortune, and to being together for the hard parts, too.
Congratulations on both events, and thanks for sharing, I needed some good news!
posted by theora55 at 2:32 PM on November 22, 2024 [2 favorites]
Congratulations on both events, and thanks for sharing, I needed some good news!
posted by theora55 at 2:32 PM on November 22, 2024 [2 favorites]
Massages. Possibly a whole spa day.
Get a festive beverage / snack and walk around and enjoy Christmas lights. Ice skating?
A short class / experience you can do together, on the order of ceramics painting or making a mini terrarium. Community college adult ed should have options.
posted by momus_window at 3:01 PM on November 22, 2024 [2 favorites]
Get a festive beverage / snack and walk around and enjoy Christmas lights. Ice skating?
A short class / experience you can do together, on the order of ceramics painting or making a mini terrarium. Community college adult ed should have options.
posted by momus_window at 3:01 PM on November 22, 2024 [2 favorites]
Mr. Blah and I sometimes like to go to a bookstore, assign ourselves each a small budget, and then go off and shop on our own for a book or two to take home and read. This is our idea of a good time!
posted by BlahLaLa at 3:22 PM on November 22, 2024 [16 favorites]
posted by BlahLaLa at 3:22 PM on November 22, 2024 [16 favorites]
All we want to do is sleep and be pain free
Lie in bed all day and give each other massages, get up to eat small snacks in your robes, get back in bed and doze and chat. Do this til you really don't want to anymore. Call it Relaxing Spa Day.
posted by ponie at 3:26 PM on November 22, 2024 [4 favorites]
Lie in bed all day and give each other massages, get up to eat small snacks in your robes, get back in bed and doze and chat. Do this til you really don't want to anymore. Call it Relaxing Spa Day.
posted by ponie at 3:26 PM on November 22, 2024 [4 favorites]
If you have the budget, donate something extra to an organization. Send some wish list items to a cat rescue, or help fund someone's gofundme. Share good fortune with others. Also, buying flowers or a plant for your living space feels festive.
posted by lizard music at 4:28 PM on November 22, 2024
posted by lizard music at 4:28 PM on November 22, 2024
I feel like silliness is sometimes the best way to blow off some steam when you haven't felt safe to laugh in a while. Get some good snacks and put on a goofy movie*, showered and in pajamas, and maybe also play a game.
*For some tension release after the election, we did this with Twisters. It was...goofy.
posted by Lyn Never at 4:42 PM on November 22, 2024
*For some tension release after the election, we did this with Twisters. It was...goofy.
posted by Lyn Never at 4:42 PM on November 22, 2024
Split a milkshake with two straws at a diner.
posted by MadMadam at 4:57 PM on November 22, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by MadMadam at 4:57 PM on November 22, 2024 [2 favorites]
Shrooms?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:00 PM on November 22, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:00 PM on November 22, 2024 [3 favorites]
Two options, depending on the weather and your tolerance for it:
- Play Tetris head to head until you see tetriminos everywhere. Whoever wins the most matches (best 21 out of 40, or some crazy number) gets breakfast made / picked up for them the next day
- Spend the *ENTIRE* day outside on a hike, bike ride, picnic, horseback ride, snowshoe, etc.
posted by chiefthe at 5:30 PM on November 22, 2024
- Play Tetris head to head until you see tetriminos everywhere. Whoever wins the most matches (best 21 out of 40, or some crazy number) gets breakfast made / picked up for them the next day
- Spend the *ENTIRE* day outside on a hike, bike ride, picnic, horseback ride, snowshoe, etc.
posted by chiefthe at 5:30 PM on November 22, 2024
Go to Texas Roadhouse and tell them it's your birthday? If you happen to be on the East Coast of the USA you could go to a Wawa and have them make you some "hoagies" and buy some Ben & Jerry's for dessert?
I know you said all you want to do is sleep and be pain free. But the above is what my wife and I do periodically just to air out our brains. Maybe for you it would be sufficiently "out of the box"? FWIW.
posted by forthright at 5:36 PM on November 22, 2024
I know you said all you want to do is sleep and be pain free. But the above is what my wife and I do periodically just to air out our brains. Maybe for you it would be sufficiently "out of the box"? FWIW.
posted by forthright at 5:36 PM on November 22, 2024
Congratulations! There are some great ideas here from others, and already just taking the time to ask this question you are marking the occasion(s). That's great in and of itself. A celebration doesn't have to be elaborate to be effective, and I think that just taking the time for some sort of mindful acknowledgement of the occasion is really good.
My ideas:
- Get some bubble bath and take a bath together (or separately).
- Splurge on some new bedsheets and relax in bed as long as you want
- I saw this cute video of a couple doing a twist on a Paint Night. Instead of going out and painting in a big group whilst drinking wine, they stayed at home and ate tasty snacks while painting with simple supplies like canvas boards and acrylic paints. Their twist was that after a set amount of time, they would switch canvasses and work on each other's for a bit.
- If possible - but don't pressure yourself - try and think about a time that you weren't feeling so depressed. During that time, did you celebrate something? What did you do? Could you incorporate elements of that into this celebration?
posted by I_carried_a_watermelon at 5:41 PM on November 22, 2024 [1 favorite]
My ideas:
- Get some bubble bath and take a bath together (or separately).
- Splurge on some new bedsheets and relax in bed as long as you want
- I saw this cute video of a couple doing a twist on a Paint Night. Instead of going out and painting in a big group whilst drinking wine, they stayed at home and ate tasty snacks while painting with simple supplies like canvas boards and acrylic paints. Their twist was that after a set amount of time, they would switch canvasses and work on each other's for a bit.
- If possible - but don't pressure yourself - try and think about a time that you weren't feeling so depressed. During that time, did you celebrate something? What did you do? Could you incorporate elements of that into this celebration?
posted by I_carried_a_watermelon at 5:41 PM on November 22, 2024 [1 favorite]
I feel like silliness is sometimes the best way to blow off some steam when you haven't felt safe to laugh in a while. Get some good snacks and put on a goofy movie*, showered and in pajamas, and maybe also play a game.
Seconding this! Wear your coziest, goofiest pajamas (I have a fuzzy tie-die print onesie that I'd use if I were in your shoes), make a pillow fort in the living room in front of the TV, get a bunch of movie-theater type candy and pop corn and have a comedy movie double feature. Or binge-watch THE GOOD PLACE or some other show you both enjoy. Do not eat anything healthy for the day, think "slumber party" vibes from when you were in jr. high.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:45 AM on November 23, 2024
Seconding this! Wear your coziest, goofiest pajamas (I have a fuzzy tie-die print onesie that I'd use if I were in your shoes), make a pillow fort in the living room in front of the TV, get a bunch of movie-theater type candy and pop corn and have a comedy movie double feature. Or binge-watch THE GOOD PLACE or some other show you both enjoy. Do not eat anything healthy for the day, think "slumber party" vibes from when you were in jr. high.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:45 AM on November 23, 2024
Me? I go with the classics.
Churchill on champagne: "In victory, I deserve it. In defeat, I need it."
posted by gimonca at 8:37 AM on November 23, 2024
Churchill on champagne: "In victory, I deserve it. In defeat, I need it."
posted by gimonca at 8:37 AM on November 23, 2024
If you live somewhere that has carriage, sleigh, or hayrides, or heck, even bike taxi tours -- might be fun to have someone else drive you around a pretty place while you just snuggle in the back and take it in.
Go get pedicures together. Just having someone else take care of your feet for 30 mins can be very soothing. Plus, massage chair.
Go to an arcade, give yourselves a little budget, and just have fun doing low stress games together. Skeeball and driving games where you can play together can be really fun. Similarly: bowling, axe throwing, etc.
Get a fresh book or game on your phone or both and agree that you'll spend a luxurious afternoon in bed snoozing and enjoying said entertainment with no expectation to do anything but that.
Go on a weird beverages adventure and stock up on seltzers, juices, etc that feel like a treat to you. Load up the fridge and then have a little taste test fun with your celebration drinks every time you're feeling thirsty over the next couple weeks.
posted by luzdeluna at 1:27 PM on November 23, 2024
Go get pedicures together. Just having someone else take care of your feet for 30 mins can be very soothing. Plus, massage chair.
Go to an arcade, give yourselves a little budget, and just have fun doing low stress games together. Skeeball and driving games where you can play together can be really fun. Similarly: bowling, axe throwing, etc.
Get a fresh book or game on your phone or both and agree that you'll spend a luxurious afternoon in bed snoozing and enjoying said entertainment with no expectation to do anything but that.
Go on a weird beverages adventure and stock up on seltzers, juices, etc that feel like a treat to you. Load up the fridge and then have a little taste test fun with your celebration drinks every time you're feeling thirsty over the next couple weeks.
posted by luzdeluna at 1:27 PM on November 23, 2024
I've recommended it here before for a different occasion, but it fits for this one too: picnic on the rug. Sounds like you'd want less indulgent food than we did, but that's fine. A few lovely, small, shareable dishes or snacks, dim lights and some candles if your picnic won't be in front of a fire, some nice music, and a toast with whatever beverage you like. Writing each other a little sentiment in a homemade card could be a shared activity along with the meal, or something you write in advance and exchange during the picnic.
posted by daisyace at 3:21 PM on November 23, 2024
posted by daisyace at 3:21 PM on November 23, 2024
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posted by capricorn at 2:02 PM on November 22, 2024 [17 favorites]