Holidailies 2020 participants try to update their personal websites consistently -- perhaps even daily -- from December 1, 2020 to January 1, 2021. If you want to join us, all you need is a blog -- hosted on your own domain or by sites such as Wordpress, Blogger, LiveJournal or Tumblr -- and the time/desire to create and share website content with us for a month.

I have been participating in Holidailies since 2015.  For me it's an easy project, since I post an entry a day 365 days a year, so posting an entry a day in the month of December is nothing unusual.

I have enjoyed the others who participate.  Each year it seems like there are fewer and fewer participants--as of this writing, I see only 19 on the list but I'm sure some more will sign up.  What I love about it is finding new blogs to read and getting to know the other people involved.  Some are frustrating -- one of the better writers uses a web sits that does not allow comments, so I am never able to write a comment on her excellent entries.  And, of course, some entries are better than others.  I like Holidailies because Bozoette usually manages to write an entry a day, which she has stopped doing during the year (her last entry was in October).

We all have problems this year, of course, because so many of us are quarantined, whether legally quarantined or self-quarantined (like me), so there isn't much to write about just sitting at home, so this year may be a challenge for everyone.

While most people reading this know me pretty well from my journal entries, it is common to write an introduction for the new participants of Holidailies who have not visited this blog before.

So...I am Bev Sykes.  I'm 77 years old and until March of this year, I was a theater critic.  But theater has ended for now so I have not seen a show since Camelot in March, though I am going to review my first virtual production this week, which will be interesting.  I live in Davis, California, which is a medium-sized university town with the University of California, Davis, at its center

I started this journal in March of 2000 and this is the 7,554th entry.  I post every day with very rare exceptions.  I also post questions each week on Sunday Stealing.  If you like answering questions, check it out!

Walt and I have been married 55 years.  Our oldest child is daughter Jeri, who lives in Boston and teaches composing and arranging for Berklee College of Music.  She lives with her husband Phil and dog Lester, whom I raised through the SPCA, from 2 days until she moved to Boston at 6 mos of age.  Jeri also played music in community theaters around the Boston area, but, alas, the pandemic has ended that too.

Our son Tom, who just turned 50 in July, lives in Santa Barbara, about 400 miles from Davis.  He and his wife have two daughters, Brianna (12) and Lacie (9).  We have not seen them in 2020 and probably will not see them at all this year.  The girls are going to school at home and it's convenient that Tom works from home.  His wife is a bank executive. Her father lives with them.

Our son Ned, 53, and his wife Marta used to live in Sacramento, but Walt and I had some minor medical problems two years ago and they decided they should move in with us to be here to take care of us, as we move into our dotage.  It has worked extremely well.  Marta now works from home, because her office closed down because of the virus.  Ned and I share cooking, so I don't have to cook every night any more.  He has done an amazing amount of work around the house. He also has a radio show which broadcasts on our local radio station and features music by people with connection to Davis.

I have a mother, who is 101 years old.  It was very sad that I was not able to see her on her birthday this year, but she has dementia and does not feel as bad about it as I do.  My biggest fear about COVID restrictions is that she will die before I see her again.  I last saw her in March.

We have a dog, Polly, who is a Chihuahua.  We took her in as a foster and in 6 months nobody was interested in adopting her, so we adopted her.  She has been here about 10 years and she has trained us very well so she is now comfortable living here.

Ned and Marta have Bouncer, a 12 year old lab-mix (I think).  The two dogs are grumpy old ladies who will never play or interact with each other, but they have learned to get alone together.

We also have a lot of squirrels who run around our yard and beg for peanuts at our back door.  They are like having a zoo just outside the window and I love watching them, especially the four who were born in a bird house a few months ago and are now grown up and on their own.