🎁 Bonus! 24 Boxes and Banter

A game and refuge for December 24th

Dec 23, 2025

If you think these are cool or useful offerings, please help me spread the word. 🔊

You’re sitting between Uncle Don and Aunt Pam. Your mom has dressed you, even though you’re in you’re 30s. You’ve heard “Last Christmas” three times already, and your cat puked up something that isn’t cat hair.

Someone asks why you’re still single. Someone else starts talking about “the border situation.” Your cousin won’t stop showing you their crypto portfolio. You feel your jaw tightening. You’re thinking about your phone. You’re thinking about leaving.

What if you had a map for this moment? Or an escape hatch?

Alas. I’ve got two other offerings, specifically designed for December 24th.

24 Boxes: A game about presence

You’ve heard of “mindfulness bells.” Allow me to introduce “mindfulness bingo.”

There’s no real way to play. There’s no wrong way to play.

Use it to reflect afterward (”I got all boundaries, zero in the ‘I feel’ column…?”)
Mark boxes as you practice them (even if you fumble)
Share wins in tomorrow’s chat (more on this later)
Just reference it for funsies (why not?)
Ignore it entirely. (YOLO!)

Double-dipping is okay. Say, for example, someone says,

“Hey aren’t you so glad the Department of Government Efficiency got to ensure a random private citizen/Lex Luther could be privy to sensitive data of everything?”
- Notice when you judge
- Decline to engage
- Go to the bathroom
“No, really. Your breeding years are almost over. Why don’t any men want you?”
- Do a body scan
- Say, “I feel hurt when you say things like that. It’s as if you can only see me for my reproductive capacity.”
- Ask a follow-up question
“I’m really grateful you came home this year. I’m sorry I’ve been such a bad friend. Can we restart monthly phone calls?”
- Breathe before you respond
- “I feel [happy] you asked.”
- State a limit / ask a follow-up question / “No.” (It’s a complete sentence.)

If you’re on the fence about whether whatever you did counted, it did! Congrats! Mark the box.

Different Strokes

I cannot be the only fountain pen person here. (COME OUT OF THE FOUNTAIN PEN CLOSET. SHOW YOURSELVES IN THE COMMENTS SECTION.)

There are two versions:

📱 Digital — Save to your phone, screenshot, mark progress in your photo app

🖨️ Print — A printer friendly version to fold and keep in your pocket! Use your favorite Diamine Ink (clearly Stargazer or Tempest because you have excellent taste).

24 Boxes

246KB ∙ PDF file

Download

The Holiday Chat (1-6pm PST)

Tomorrow (December 24th), I’ll be tending the Light Hive chat for five hours.

I’ll drop little prompts and salutations through the five hour block. You can respond or just say hi and share how your day is going. Paste in your 24 Boxes wins!

The chat is

A chill place to check in
A refuge on a day that can feel isolating
Easily muted! This will run for five hours, and you can mute chat notifications! Lurk and observe my descent into madness as I type into the void!

You don’t need to play 24 Boxes to join the chat. You don’t need to join the chat to play 24 Boxes. They’re separate invitations.

Please share this with whoever you think might find this cool and, most of all, most sincerely, enjoy the day.

Light Hive offers embodied and engaged practices in systems designed to disconnect. Subscribe for cultural analysis, community care, and thoughts on play.

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Newly un-paywalled post on December Dukkha! I still think about Kim Allen said: it’s healthy for fields to lie fallow sometimes. Why not us, too?👇