I figured he's keeping up the illusion that he and his "family" are happily spending time together.
Which still doesn't make sense because in his own narrative, he already spends plenty of time with Katherine and there's only so much you can do with a cat as opposed to an actual child. Even legit pet parents exceed Phil in the "having a life" department because they have more people in their lives than just their spouse. And often more than one pet. Sometimes more than one TYPE of pet, which changes things.
Even if you believe Phil's lies, it doesn't add up that he would want Christmas off for his "family" because by his own admission it doesn't comprise of more than a woman and a cat, and that simply does not compute. Not when he's home as much as he is, and never talks about not having time for his "family" unless he's excusing himself from doing something he knows he should be. Otherwise, he claims he spends plenty of quality time with Khet and Jasper. So streaming on Christmas doesn't go against his lifestyle in the least, no matter what you accept.
I think anyone watching his Champions account is going to see him whaling like a motherfucker on Saturday. I think that is the only reason he's taking that day off, because he's full of shit about his "family" to begin with and would be sus even if he wasn't. Jasper is already used to Phil ignoring him and Katherine prefers to avoid him, and privately, the pigroach has no qualms about either. Gives him more time for Champions, which his log-in record and financial investment prove is more important to him than virtually anything.
I was listening to Tevin's coverage of the 2017 Begsmas stream and there was a part where he talked about how Phil struggles to get a 1000 views on his new videos nowadays. Following the pigroach sometimes really does feel like you're being stuck in a timeloop. The big sagas that you remember making the old days entertaining are just a bit of excitement in between a mountain of boredom, just like today.
Nothing ever improves in Phil's life, just sits still or gets worse. Meanwhile, the people he shits on constantly aren't living that way at all. It's almost as if there's some kind of lesson there that he's missing...
You missed a small but important distinction there, there is no tips goal but there is a tips milestone which even comes with a shitty reward (him swapping hats) attached. From a practical standpoint all it means is that he's going to have a $50 target and reset it every time he hits it, rather than one $1,000-plus goal which is tracked against all night.
Phil can be clever as long as it's to do something scummy, and I can especially believe this now because he's pretty stressed out over the paypigs holding out on him. No doubt he thinks this a genius move to trick them into not noticing the amount of money they're giving him over the course of the day. And honestly, it IS smarter than what he usually does, which is draw a lot of attention to the one source of income he should be most concerned about getting exposed for.
Phil really shoots himself in the dick by letting it be so obvious this grift of collecting immediate disposable income on a daily to then spend on Champions on a daily. He should be letting the tips be what they are, and focusing on thanking his fans for spreading the word and getting new people to tune into his streams. He needs to be about views, because it's harder to speculate on how much more money that bigger audience puts in his pocket. Not to mention that by bitching about "lack of support", he just gives more credibility to the Champions meme because nothing he says about bills make sense. Ever. No one needs daily money to cover their financial obligations unless it's their only income, which isn't the case with Phil and he even admits it.
He really could coast for years, but he's going to fuck it all up instead by letting his addiction control what he says on stream.