Home Posts tagged "holidays"

Tag: holidays

Tis the Season

To tell you the truth, I waffle a lot around this time of year. It starts at the beginning of November (but definitely after Halloween.) Gimme carols! Lights! All the pretties! Except–OMG, not that song AGAIN. What do you mean if I want lights, I have to go out to the shed and get them, and probably half of them don’t work? Look, if we put up a tree, it’s just a battle for weeks to keep the cat from eating it or taking it down. And our living room is small enough without putting a big tree in it. (My kid is convinced if it’s not scraping the ceiling, it’s not REALLY a tree. And don’t get me started on real actual go-pick-one-out-every-year formerly-live trees, and the fight there, to get one that will actually fit in the house…) I want to bake cookies! I don’t want to effort. And I really don’t need cookies around. I need to find the perfect presents! OMG, these people are so spoiled! I do everything for them and their legs ain’t broke, why would I give them presents too? I want to give everyone food and hugs! OMG, get away from me. And my bank balance weeps… Seriously. My Christmas spirit sputters like a candle in a drafty window, only it’s one of those joke candles that looks like it’s out, then comes back when you least expect it. Again and again. Christmas always wins. Then I’m that lady, looking for Christmas…

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noooo the holidays cometh

Do you know what’s in a week, friends? American Thanksgiving. Do you know who hosts Thanksgiving and hasn’t ordered a turkey yet? If you guessed me, you’re absolutely correct. (In my defense, the place I always order from went out of business about two months ago, and now I don’t know what to do.) It feels like as soon as November hit everything went full-bore toward Christmas and, for the life of me, I am not ready to do Christmas. Let me enjoy November! Let us at least get through Thanksgiving before we worry about Christmas! But, alas, it seems not to be. For example, the small-ish, mobile one’s school is having their Holiday Market, where they can buy presents without us parents knowing what they’ve gotten us, tomorrow. And I don’t know how many emails I’ve gotten that are titled something like “Haven’t gotten your Christmas cards yet?” I can only imagine how irritating this season is for people who don’t celebrate Christmas. The Christmas market downtown opens Saturday, as do a number of other Christmas-themed activities. Please. Please can we just wait until after Thanksgiving. I don’t even have a turkey. It also adds unnecessary stress, you know? I haven’t done my Christmas cards or bought presents or anything, and quite honestly I won’t until after Thanksgiving anyway, but now I have to worry about it. Thanks, commercialism. Any tips for keeping Christmas at bay for another week? Any tips at all? (help me)

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COVID Christmas, Year 2

Things are a bit different than they were last year. For one, we’ve gotten vaccines and boosters, whereas last year we did not. We’d had a full lockdown in March, and this year, we didn’t. Masks are not required now in Michigan but are “recommended.” And yet, COVID-19, the “virus in Seattle” from December 2019, is still very much with us. We’re on our, what, twelth variant now (second Variant of Concern) with omicron? There was a tweet the other day from a doctor about not wanting to learn the entire Greek alphabet due to the virus. I don’t mind that. I find it kind of interesting; kind of like the tropical storm/hurricane naming. I just want it gone. Last year, my family made the heartbreaking decision to not see my in-laws for the holidays. They’re elderly, and we were concerned about them catching the virus. We did a FaceTime thing on Christmas Day to open gifts and that was okay…and we made the best of it….but let’s be real. It just wasn’t the same. They were missed. Terribly. This year, we’re all vaccinated and boostered, so we’re going for it. We’re seeing them both days, actually. It is great to go back to some measure of normalcy, although the specter of this thing is still hanging in the background, always there. Siri Paulson, my fellow Turtleducker, posted on Facebook a meme about in the future, how we’ll be going through old stuff and run across a mask and it’ll…

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Happiest of Holidays, Whichever You Celebrate

It’s Christmas Eve. My 21-year-old kid is regressing to wide-eyed childhood as I write. It’s the third night of Hanukkah. Kwanzaa begins this week. For my beloved witch friends, solstice just passed. Islam doesn’t seem to have a holiday coming up right now, from my quick look around the interwebs, but I don’t want leave out a whole lot of people. So I’ll say it with all my heart–happy holidays. Whatever you celebrate, I hope it is joyous. I hope you find rest, and peace, and comfort. I celebrate Christmas, but one of the best I ever had was the time I stayed home alone with Chinese takeout and a Bruce Lee movie marathon. Take that time if you need that time. And hey. I get it. Sometimes family is just not what you need, so you go on the internet and read blog posts. I’m here for you, hoping to give you a laugh. Please enjoy this video of cats and Christmas trees. There are a lot of tweets about this, too. I used to have two cats. Frito would take down the tree at two in the morning, and Rohrschach would come wake me up to snitch on his brother. Unfortunately I don’t have any video of that. Cats and menorahs apparently are also a bad combo, but I didn’t find a funny video of that. Perhaps because when your beloved cat sets itself afire, you help the cat instead of recording? One would hope. Are there other…

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Christmas in the Movies

I’ll admit it–though in my household we celebrate Christmas, I’m not a big fan of a traditional holiday. Two of my favorite Christmas movies are Lethal Weapon and Die Hard. Every year my daughter and I spar over the purchase of a Christmas tree. I don’t bake cookies unless I really get the urge, and I don’t send cards pretty much ever (though I do buy cards on sale after Christmas, for stashing for that day I may somehow decide to send cards again…?) And–well, we live in Southern Arizona. We don’t get snow on Christmas. We don’t get snow pretty much ever. (I’ve lived here 30~ years. We’ve had snow…twice? In January both times.) I’ve never seen Miracle on 34th Street, and I’m pretty blah on White Christmas. But I’ve seen Home Alone 2. And Ghostbusters, and Muppets Take Manhattan, and Godzilla (1998), and Newsies, Sleepless in Seattle, Die Hard 3: With a Vengeance, Rumble in the Bronx, Spiderman, Avengers, Ally McBeal, Night at the Museum–what do all of these have in common? They’re set in New York City. Guess where I get to go for Christmas this year? I am So. Excited. There’s the little kid in me, who remembers watching the Macy’s parade every year. Skaters at Rockefeller Plaza, and there’s an awesome bridge in Central Park I remember from some movie, I don’t even know. There’s the young(ish) lover of every monster movie ever. “Negative impact! That’s the goddamn Chrysler Building!” There’s the writer, just drooling…

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Ten Things I Learned On My Spring Vacation

I’m back from vacation! Did you miss me? (Don’t answer that.) If you’re anything like me, coming back to real life is always hard, although it’s also good to be home. And if you’re anything like me, you love to overthink analyze everything. So here goes: Things I Have Learned About Myself On Vacation. 1. When I’m on vacation, I really just want to go on leisurely walks…explore neighborhoods to find delicious restaurants and fun coffee shops…nap/lounge around…rinse and repeat. This is also true on long weekends at home, or even longer staycations–except of course it’s cheaper to do it at home. 2. But it’s nice to be away from all the “shoulds” of home, and my ongoing mental to-do list. 3. I always think I’m going to get lots of writing done. This is a lie, especially if seeing/visiting family is involved. (I miss my folks and want to spend tons of time with them when I can. Thank goodness I’m an introvert and need recharge time, and thank goodness they’re all fine with that.) The only time it ever happens is if the vacation is designated as a writing retreat and nothing else. Even then, 4 or 5 solid hours a day is my limit. Otherwise, it’s 1 or 2 hours, tops. 4. Maybe that’s okay. After all, a person needs some time off from the little niggling voice in the back of the brain that says “You should be writing!” 5. My mattress is clearly too soft,…

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What Are Your Holiday Reading Traditions?

The end-of-year holidays are almost upon us! Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Yule, Kwanzaa, or something else entirely, chances are pretty good that you’re looking forward to some days off work or school at the end of this month. (And if not, you’re probably doing a very important job, like working in a hospital, so my hat goes off to you.) If you’re in a part of the world where it’s cold, you’re probably looking forward to some cozy hibernating time. And that means…reading! (Okay, who are we kidding? My fellow Turtleduckers and I were readers before we became writers. Everything leads back to reading.) Last year, the word of the year seemed to be hygge, the Danish term for a feeling of cozy togetherness. This year, what I’m seeing everywhere is jólabókaflóð, an Icelandic word meaning “Christmas book flood”. (Jola-boka-flod is how it breaks down.) It’s an Icelandic tradition where everyone gives each other books on Christmas Eve and then stays up all night reading them. (Note: All gifts are exchanged on Christmas Eve, not just books, so there’s no danger of wakeful children spotting Santa overnight.) Which means most books are published in the months leading up to Christmas, but I digress. Like Neil Gaiman’s All Hallows Read, this is a tradition I can wholeheartedly endorse. For me as a child, it was always exciting to spot a book-shaped package under the tree. And I look back with fondness at the Christmas books that only appeared once a year,…

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Coming Home

This week, I am home. Sort of. I grew up in a largish but sleepy city on the Canadian prairies. Suburbs, car culture, indoor shopping malls, long cold winters with plenty of snow and sunshine, lots of festivals and a tight-knit arts scene, large university. But for the last 12 years I’ve lived in Toronto – one of the three biggest cities in Canada (Vancouver and Montreal are the others). I remember being amazed by the number of pedestrians when I first moved there. You don’t nod and smile as you pass, you avert your eyes, because there are just too many people for it to make sense to nod and smile at everyone. The sheer number of restaurants, of full subway cars and buses, that Toronto can support still astounds me. And the diversity — half of all Torontonians were born outside Canada. It’s hectic and vibrant and wonderful. When I come back to the place where I grew up, it feels like home and not home. Familiar and strange – and stranger every time. The infrastructure is always changing – big box stores and suburbs continue to sprout up, and other businesses I remember have closed. There’s now an LRT (surface-level rapid transit) running down the nearest major artery to the house where I grew up. The streets look wider than I remember, even though they mostly aren’t. The downtown core doesn’t shut down at 6 PM anymore — people actually live there now, and the whole vibe…

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The Gift of Cash

I’ve heard it. You’ve heard it. Giving cash (or often, gift cards) shows you don’t care. You don’t feel like taking the time or trouble to pick out a “real” gift. Let me tell you a thing. Once, years ago, a friend had been trying to find something to give me for Christmas. I was in rough financial straits at the time. It seemed silly to give me something useless. I had bunches of books and movies already, and also he didn’t know what I might want. (This was in the days before Amazon wishlists. Or at least, before I had one.) I had just moved from a good-sized house to a tiny apartment, so I had no room for anything more than I had anyway. Anyway, as the situation dragged into January and he got to feeling worse and worse about it, he finally handed me $50. He told me I couldn’t spend it on bills–I had to get something I wanted. Friends, I went to a discount home store and bought myself some curtains. My little white box of a living room got curtains, and my new place became much more homelike. My daughter’s room got purple sheer curtains, and I got to stop worrying about how she never remembered to close the blinds before changing. My bedroom got bright red blackout curtains–so I had a pop of color AND some additional darkness for days I got to sleep in. I even bought a little curtain for the…

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Holiday Wishes: Remember to Love

Here we are, five days till Christmas, and it feels like time has just flown by. I can remember sitting at work on December 1st thinking, “wow, twenty-four days till Christmas. It will be forever before we get there.” And now, here we are, twenty-one days later. The mind boggles. (I have a conspiracy theory that time is actually speeding up and it’s not just our perception of it. Why, I couldn’t tell you. But it’s real.) Last night, my accountability group was discussing people we’ve lost, and how it’s been affecting our holidays. And it made me think back to my childhood. And this morning on the bus, I tried remembering my grandparents’ old house. Because when I think of Christmas, I am always hurtled through time to when we had Christmas Eve at my grandparents’ house. It was a small, two-bedroom house with a basement, a dining room, and a small kitchen. My grandparents had a beautiful tree with these antique ornaments on it (some of which grace our tree now) and a Santa on a sleigh that actually spun around the tree. It was neat. There was always mistletoe hanging from Grandma’s kitchen doorway. And, of course, there were other decorations as well. But that tree sticks in my mind. So we’d all go to Grandma’s for Christmas Eve — my aunt, my uncle, my cousins, and of course, the four of us — my dad, my mom, my sister, and me. Usually, they’d be someone there who didn’t have anywhere…

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