Does Ernst celebrate holidays?
If so, how often and with whom?

I ask because I was thinking about Christmas celebrations the other day, and realized that I celebrate fewer holidays these days. Most holidays I just end up working, especially since my night shift makes the actual impact of a day of socializing, reflection, and rest less meaningful. I also used to celebrate some holidays with my Dad's side of the family, but due to lack of interaction I only celebrate with my Mom and Stepdad's extended family.

I've also noticed that due to work/time constraints by many members of the family, we rarely celebrate the holiday on the proper day, but instead move it to the weekend before or after. This was rarely the case in the past, but is now the norm.

Basically, I celebrate the following:
New Years - Alone/online, the last few years working on Gachimuchi collabs and the like
Easter - With Mom and sometime Stepdad's family
Mother's Day - Mom and Stepdad, and visiting Grandma in the nursing home (she has advanced Alzheimers, visit her regularly regardless)
Father's Day - Sometimes with Dad and Stepmom
Fourth of July - Rarely with Dad and Stepmom
Thanksgiving - With Mom and Stepdad's family
Christmas - With Mom and Stepdad's family

Let's discuss non-electronic gaming. Would prefer it not just bog down in chess and go with nothing else, but we'll see. I know we had at least one German here who played the Dark Eye.

Useful links:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/

Decent place to pick up .pdf files legally. Also some print on demand. Surprisingly, it's also pretty easy to sift out the average to bad stuff that exists on it.

https://thetrove.net/

Great resource. Doesn't have everything, but has most relevant things with some notable exceptions, like GURPS 4e. Mostly exists because those that actually have the power to enforce C&Ds recognise the usefulness of having the first sample free, and the rest either don't care or are out of business or the files are out of date editions .

Some discussion starters:

>What are you playing?

Recently finished a Schlieffen Plan scenario in The Guns of August as the German Empire which I lost. Had the game continued I think I could have salvaged it but such is life with short scenarios, they're all or nothing. Next time I think I will add a couple of the optional rules to enforce a historical opening, such as forced French attacking in the first few turns to represent their offensive doctrine. Without it, you just get the Somme from day one which is vastly in the favour of the Entente.

>What are you running?

Only one game at the moment, which is a pretty nice indie game I got off drivethrurpg called Dark Stars. Percentile cyberpunk in space with splashes of space opera. Rules aren't really written for a newcomer but it's all there. Just tends to be sparse and use a bit of assumed knowledge. I'm basically ripping off the metaplot of Far Cry 2, but nobody has picked up on it yet :-DDD

>What are you working on?

A few projects, most of which are currently on hold because I'm creatively bankrupt right now. Mostly in the process of reading more rulesets in my quest to put together my 16-18th Century Kazakh Khanate system together. I've been working in the opposite direction to how I have been previously and making a little progress. Been delving into the OSR more, and while I don't think I'm going to go the OGL route for various reasons, I am finding that taking a step back and stripping down a system to its core is yielding better results than trying to simulate a lot of different modules individually while keeping them feeling meshed. Though I am considering looking through Pendragon again and trying to convert their system into maintaining one's camp instead of holding.