Tag Holidays

Happy Freakin Holidays

Dusty 3 Comments

I bet you’re thinking that I forgot, aren’t you?

Or worse: that I remembered, but decided to just blow you off, to ignore the promise I made that I would be on time with the next blog.

It would make sense if you thought either of those things: since here I am, not only a few days late, but two full weeks. I broke my promise. Missed a post. Missed a deadline. Twice. (Almost three times, but as this is Monday, and a new year, I’m giving myself enough slack to consider this one on time.) I flaked, I slacked, I failed.

Nope. I broke my house. And I had to deal with the holidays.

I don’t want to get into too much detail, partly because it isn’t just my house, it is also my wife’s, and I don’t mean to take away her privacy by talking about things that concern her as if they are only my issue; and also because the insurance is still considering our claim, and I don’t want to do something like claim fault that could potentially screw up that claim. I am clearly going to have to write about insurance at some point in the near future.

And to be clear: it was not my fault. But it is the reason why I have missed now two deadlines for posts, on the last two Sundays.

Friday the 16th was a rough day. It was the workday after the end of the fall semester, and so I had grading to do. Because I believe in grading students based on their work rather than their adherence to deadlines, I always have extra late work to grade; because I teach AP, which are supposed to be rigorous classes designed to prepare students for a rigorous test, I give final exams in the last week. And because this has been a tough month, I fell behind on my grading. All of which meant that I had a ton of work to do on the last workday of the semester before grades were due — and I am still planning to write about how teachers have too much responsibility and too much work. And then my administration raised the difficulty level for me: because they set the grade deadline at midnight on Friday the 16th, at the end of the last week of classes, at the end of one teacher workday for grading and finishing up the semester’s paperwork.

To be clear: the grade deadline is arbitrary. There is no requirement from the state Department of Education, or any other regulatory body, as to when grades must be finalized. Schools are required to provide grades or something equivalent in a timely manner, of course; but what does that mean? Does that mean the final grades must be complete within 36 hours of the last bell releasing students? Of course not. In comparison to other local districts, we got out of school a week early — Tucson Unified, the largest public district in the county, had classes up to the 22nd — and even if you want grades completed by the next business day, which for us would have been Monday the 19th, is there any reason why those grades couldn’t be collected by midnight on Sunday? Of course not.

But for no good reason, the person in charge decided it had to be midnight Friday. So I tried, as hard as I could, to get everything graded by midnight Friday — to be clear, not to please the administration, but because after the grading deadline, the window to update and post grades would close, and I wouldn’t be able to add anything else to my students’ semester grades. They did the work, they deserve the grade (Or they didn’t do the work, and they deserve that grade [Caveat here: anyone “deserving” a grade is pretty antithetical to my view of education, but hold off on that for now. You get my point.]): so I had to get everything done before the deadline. I started grading when I got up at 6am on Friday, and other than breaks for meals (and a VERY valuable hour-plus spent commuting to school and back home, because the same administration (Not the same specific administrator, but it might as well be) insists that we go into work even on days without students, and also wanted to have a VERY valuable staff meeting in person, at which they introduced us to new staff members [Totally different subject, but my school lost four staff members mid-year, for various reasons, which almost never happens in schools because contracts are for the whole school year and we generally strive for continuity — but this is the second year in a row in which we have gone through this mid-year staffing issue. Four staff members is roughly 10%. Second full year we’ve had this 10% staff turnover midyear, after the pandemic shutdown — but surely that’s just coincidence.] and bid farewell to those leaving. Then they wished us a happy and restful vacation. As my students say: LOL.) I continued grading for the next 16 hours. At 10:45pm, I received the email which informed me that the grading deadline had been moved to midnight Sunday. And I went to bed.

Saturday morning I was back to grading; fortunately, there really wasn’t much left, and I soon had it all done, including the last-minute stragglers. And then, to start off my vacation, I headed over to a friend’s house to help him string Christmas lights and drain his reservoir of available beer. But partway there, I got a text message from my wife: the kitchen faucet, which had been leaking, had suddenly gotten worse, actually spraying water when she turned it on. So I turned around and came home to fix the leak. No problem: I have changed kitchen faucets before. My wife and I headed out to Home Depot, bought a faucet that seemed reasonable, and I went to work.

And when I tried to turn off the water under the sink, the hot water valve broke off in my hand.

The next segment of time seemed like forever, though it was not very long. Hot water was spurting out of the pipe end, spraying me, spraying the kitchen; fortunately it wasn’t scalding hot, but it was a LOT of water. I ran outside to turn the water off where it comes into the house — only to find that this house doesn’t have a cutoff valve at that usual spot. I ran to the driveway to turn off the water to the whole house — only to find that what I thought was the main water valve was only a junction for a defunct sprinkler system. I ran around literally yelling “I don’t know what to do!” along with the loudest profanity I think has ever come out of me, while my wife and I tried desperately to catch the water, to use a hose to redirect the water that was soaking our kitchen and puddling in the living room. My wife ran to our neighbor’s house, asked him if he knew where the water cutoff was — and he did! It was in back of the house, in the alley. So I ran back there, to meet him because he had the tool to open the cover and turn the valve if it was stuck.

It wasn’t stuck. It wasn’t there.

This wonderful neighbor did eventually find the main water cutoff: it was in the alley, where he said; it was just buried under a good two inches of dirt. He unburied it, turned off the water, and ended the crisis.

Then we started the cleanup. A plumber came out that night, on Saturday, and told us the pipe couldn’t be fixed without tearing out the wall; he recommended that we contact a restorationist to deal with the water damage, and said we could either fix the pipes when the restorationist tore the kitchen apart — or we could repipe the entire house. (If there’s been good news in this, it is that we do not need to repipe the house.) Because he couldn’t even get the replacement parts, it being Saturday evening after the hardware stores closed, he left without fixing the hot water pipe. Though also without charging us, so I don’t have any complaints about that. I did have complaints about not having working hot water, and a flooded house. In December. Over the holidays.

My amazing friend Tim (The one I had been headed to help string lights and drink beer) came over that evening with a shop vac and helped us clean up the water; he also showed me how to turn off the hot water at the water heater, so we could have cold water, at least. Which let us stay in the house for the night, which was good for our pets, if not necessarily for us. He and his wife also gave us lasagna and invited us over in the morning to get a hot shower. And then the next day, Tim came over and fixed the broken pipe, thereby saving us hundreds or thousands of dollars in plumbing bills. I can’t thank him enough. I am doing my best to thank him as much as I can. (By the way, Tim, if you read this, my dad said he’s proud of you.)

The issue of the water damage to the house is the focus of the insurance claim, which as I said is ongoing; suffice it to say that insurance claims are never fun, not even when they pay out. There are investigations and reports and deductibles, and worst of all for my introverted little family (My dogs are both extroverts: but they didn’t like this either, because they are also territorial), there have been people coming into our house essentially every day since it happened. As I write this, it’s been five days since people were here — but there’s another coming over on Friday. And who knows how many more, over how much longer, after that.

So. That was the first Sunday I missed a deadline. I was too busy trying to unbreak my house (I do apologize for the reference, but the words came out and I had no choice but to link it) and deal with my what I can only describe as trauma. I don’t mean to exaggerate it, or minimize what other people have gone through that is so much worse than just a broken water pipe; but honestly, I have never felt so much anxiety and so much guilt so intensely in one period.

And then for the next week, while we were trying to handle the fallout from the damage, my wife and I also tried to deal with the holidays.

Which is what I want to talk about now, today, when they are finally fucking over — and I am almost as relieved about that as I am about the house. Though of course, the house issue is still ongoing: and those goddamn holidays aren’t finished yet, because I still have to go back to work and answer every single person who asks me how my vacation was. And since I teach high school, that’s going to be a lot of people asking about that. And since I try to foster an atmosphere of open dialogue, and I model that by trying to be open and honest about myself and what I’m doing at the moment, I try to answer all of their questions honestly and completely; so I can’t just write on my board “Don’t ask me about the vacation” or something similar. I am just going to have to relive it in every single class period.

The thing that made the house problem so difficult for me was guilt. I felt responsible for the broken pipe — even though, again, I am definitely not responsible for it — because it broke off in my hand, so I keep telling myself it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t tried to turn off the water to the sink. But much worse than that is the guilt I feel because I didn’t know what to do afterwards. For years, I have been telling myself that I am good in a crisis, that I keep my head and take the correct steps when the shit hits the fan; and that has, generally, been true. I have been through two housefires, and have extinguished both; I have dealt with medical emergencies in my classroom; I have stopped student fights, including a potential knife fight (They were just posturing, but they did both have knives.) without anyone getting hurt. It’s a minor list compared to what, say, emergency personnel deal with; but still, I have handled those situations and others — I am particularly good at handling emotional crises, considering what I do and the kind of person I am, and I still think I’m good in those emergencies — and done it well.

But this time, I was completely useless. I had no idea what to do, and I didn’t even know who to ask for help. If my wife hadn’t gone to the neighbor, who knew where the water cutoff valve was, I honestly have no idea what I would have done. Called the city water? Asked them to cut off the whole block? I don’t know. Which fact just makes it worse: I didn’t know what to do, and I didn’t handle it well. And I feel guilty about that.

And that same stupid, useless feeling of guilt is how I and my wife and countless other people feel about the holidays.

Because Christmas and New Year’s, and Hanukkah and Kwanzaa and the Winter Solstice (and Festivus), are supposed to be happy times. Joy to the World, and we’ll take a cup of kindness yet, for Auld Lang Syne. My wife and I had had a rough fall, because of school and family and everything else that makes life difficult; and we were really looking forward to this break. We needed the vacation, and we needed the happy times. We were going to decorate the house, go shopping for interesting presents for each other, send out Christmas cards to everyone; we were going to spend some time exploring Tucson, going to various holiday events and so on. So it wasn’t just the expectations from others: we had the expectations ourselves, and they were pretty intense.

But of course, we didn’t do any of that. I did put up lights outside the house, which I’m happy about; and we did manage to do a little shopping for gifts for each other and for our pets. But that was it. We watched a couple of Christmas movies, hiding in our bedroom because our house was full of large, loud machines trying to dry out the water damage. We did not have the time, energy, money, or mental space to live up to all of ours and others’ expectations this year.

Which is why I missed the second post deadline: I tried to write this post on Christmas morning, I did; but I couldn’t handle it, and I had to stop. I would have posted it the next day, on Boxing Day, but the house crisis heated up that morning, and instead I had what was pretty close to a panic attack. I cried, which is unusual for me. Not a good day for blogging.

It was not a merry Christmas.

But the point is, that isn’t just this year, and it wasn’t just because our house was broken.

Christmas and the holiday season are always fraught with expectations: and really, we never live up to them. The holidays never live up to their own hype, and neither do any of us. The decorations are never as cool as we want them to be; the presents are never quite as wonderful and inspiring as we hope they will be. If we see relatives, it’s not as much fun as we want it to be; if we get to spend the time alone, it’s never as long or as peaceful and relaxing as it should be. Pretty much all of that is because our expectations of the holidays are simply too high.

That’s probably why my favorite Christmas movie is A Christmas Story: because Ralphie gets his Red Ryder BB Gun at last — and immediately hurts himself. He has literally no fun with that thing, at least not as far as we see in the movie. The family loses their Christmas dinner, the lamp gets broken but repaired so that both parents are upset about it: basically, their holiday sucks. I relate to that.

But much of the issue is that we don’t only put those expectations on ourselves: we do, and that’s a problem; but at least when I look at my Christmas lights and think they are lame, I can also tell myself, “But come on, you’re no electrical engineer. What did you expect, the Las Vegas strip? This?” Of course not: and so I am able to talk myself out of those unreasonable expectations. But I can’t stop other people from looking at my lights and thinking, “Wow those are lame.” I can’t stop people from asking about our holiday plans: and then being disappointed in whatever we say. I can’t stop my family from calling me over the holidays and asking about what activities we did, what food we ate, what gifts we gave and received; and then being disappointed in everything we say.

I can’t solve the ever-present issue I face as a teacher, which all of us face in our own workplaces but is somewhat intensified for teachers because we work with children: do I decorate for Christmas? Do I wear festive holiday clothes? Do I participate in Secret Santa and holiday potlucks? It’s a little more intense with teachers because people have more intense expectations around children and the holidays — and I realize my wife and I are lucky that we don’t have kids to carry through all this shit, this year (But also, that wasn’t luck, it was an intentional choice on our part, and right now, it was a good one and I’m quite happy with it) — and so they put those expectations on teachers since we are around their children. This isn’t new, of course, and it isn’t unique to the holidays: but again, it is more intense during the holiday season. I am expected to be jolly for THE CHILDREN, and to dress up in my ugly Christmas sweater — but also, to value and celebrate all of their diversity as people (as CHILDREN) of different cultures and traditions, so not to go too hard on the Christmas music in my classroom, for instance. (I generally play Heavy Metal Christmas music in school when I have the chance. I think it strikes a nice balance between living up to the expectations of those who want traditional Christmas trappings, and those who want to subvert them.)

And the big issue, for us this year and for too many people every year: what if you just don’t fucking feel like Christmas? What if you’re sad? What if your house is broken? What if you don’t want to be around people? What if you’re broke and you can’t afford Christmas presents? What if you don’t like Christmas movies or Christmas music or Christmas decorations? What if you’re a vegetarian and you don’t eat turkey? What if you have troubled relationships with your family — or no relationships? Or no family?

Do you really need to explain that to every single person who asks what you plan to do for Christmas this year? Or to every single person who asks how your holidays were this year? Should you really have to listen to the Hallmark movies, and the commercials, and the newscasters, and the random passersby in life or on social media, telling us that the holidays always bring people together, for a time of celebration and joy with our loved ones?

No. Fuck that. Fuck — and I say this with nothing but kindness in my heart — all of you people who ask about how the holidays were. Wish me a merry Christmas, or happy holidays; that’s lovely, thank you for the pleasant wishes. Hopefully you do the same when it isn’t holiday season, and you wish people a good day often and sincerely; but regardless, I accept and appreciate kind wishes. But don’t fucking ask me about my holiday, neither before nor after. And not just this year, but every year. Stop expecting me to have a big story to tell about my holiday plans, stop angling for a way to tell your big story if I didn’t ask about it; if we’re friends, go ahead and tell me — and if we’re not, go find a friend to tell it to. Stop expecting anything of me for the holidays. Then maybe I can stop expecting big happiness and joy for my entire world, every year.

And maybe I can just relax.

Thank you, if you didn’t give up on me over the last couple of weeks; and I do, sincerely, wish you a happy New Year and a wonderful 2023. But if it doesn’t work out that way, I won’t be disappointed. I promise. And either way: I won’t ask.

Sourpuss Sunday

Dusty Leave a comment

Holiday season is too long, which makes it too complicated. My answer? NEW HOLIDAY!

Okay so: the truth is I’m far too deep in NaNoWriMo to pull out of it in order to write a proper blog post. I’d apologize, but I’m not going to say I’m sorry for not writing, when the reason I’m not writing is that I’m writing too much. Instead, I’m going to take this time to do some better, more constructive destressing, by writing something that doesn’t mean too much. Writing just for fun. Which I don’t do nearly enough of.

So this weekend is the big turn. The month of October starts with Bitching Season (Though of course, Bitch-Creep has moved back into September, partly because September has no damn holidays. Labor Day. Bah!), when everyone gets mad at everyone else for either A) obsessing too much about Halloween, B) interrupting Halloween season with creeping Christmas cheer (this is mainly the stores that start stocking Santa before Satan has left the building), or C) buying pumpkin spice lattes and pumpkin spice donuts and pumpkin spice toothpaste. (You think I’m kidding. I’m not.) Not to mention the CONTINUING fight over Indigenous People’s Day, which used to be named after a genocidal slaver and rapist who “discovered” a continent 15,000 years after people migrated there from Asia, by “finding” an island that was already populated. But that all passes as we get closer to Halloween, and the Bitching Season becomes the Witching Season (I really want to point out that’s taking a big W for Halloween, because I enjoy making teenagers cringe), and we all enjoy at least a week or so of spookiness and silliness. Then Halloween ends (Here in the Southwest it turns into the Day of the Dead, but I just feel bad for the people who celebrate Dia de Muertos in the US, because it’s gotta be hard to go from the absurdity of Halloween to a genuine, solemn remembrance of those we have lost. Though respect for the cognitive dissonance required to hold a genuine solemn remembrance of those who have passed — with sugar skulls. [Though also please note that calaveras are an inheritance of the Spanish invasion of the Aztec empire, and thus have a whole lot more history than my joke gives credit for]) and — we don’t know what to do.

Do we start celebrating Christmas? On November 1? Or is that too early? Do we need time to wind down from Halloween? Do we start putting up pictures of turkeys? Almost four weeks before the holiday with the weakest iconography of all?

Seriously. Turkeys? I mean, turkey is delicious, don’t get me wrong — it’s one of the few things I genuinely miss since my wife and I became vegetarians (Though to be precise, we are ovolactopescatarians, so there) — but can we all just admit that making cute images of the things we plan to kill and eat is creepy as fuck? Befriending your cows while naming them “Hamburger” and “Sirloin” is terrible. People talking to giant anthropomorphic M&Ms is terrible, especially when they’re talking about eating M&Ms.

This is terrible:

(But this meme is amazing:)

I think the reasonable compromise is to focus more on the autumnal theme, now that it’s actually cold and the leaves have turned and are falling, now that we don’t have the confusion around Halloween. But I realize that’s not terribly exciting. How many times can you sing “Over the River and Through the Woods?” (You knew that was a Thanksgiving song, right?)

So November is a continually awkward part of the holiday season. Once again, but this time nationally, we try to be serious and solemn for once on Veteran’s Day; but in this country (or maybe it’s just me), anything celebrating the military is just so tangled and fraught and therefore just hard to deal with. Awkward, like the rest of the month.

But then Thanksgiving comes. And the week leading up to it is a madhouse of planning and preparation; then the day itself is halfway between madness and celebration — but I think that’s sort of as it should be. Thanksgiving is a harvest festival: and that means we celebrating having busted our asses for the weeks prior trying to get everything harvested before winter comes. Harvest festivals are supposed to be the final relaxation after a time of incredible hard work, bringing in the crops. Which is part of why it’s weird, because we have moved away from the agricultural society that once celebrated the harvest; we are in a state of constant abundance and even overabundance as a society. Our issue with food is not how hard we have to work for it and how rarely we get a surplus of it: it’s how badly we adulterate it, how foolishly we consume it, and why in the name of all that’s good and holy we still can’t manage to get everyone enough of it. Which means, of course, that we shouldn’t celebrate Thanksgiving until we actually manage a victory in one of those fights: we should have Thanksgiving whenever this country passes a law that provides free lunch at school for kids. We should have Thanksgiving whenever we manage to improve SNAP benefits, and feed hungry families. After that difficult work has been accomplished successfully: that’s when we should be giving thanks.

But one thing is for sure: Thanksgiving is not the time for feeling bad about the problems in the world. That is the real gift of the season: it’s time to actually focus on the good things, for once. And yes, that’s hard: the bad things are still around us, and keep happening, and if we are at all aware and sensitive to the suffering of others, it’s so very hard to be happy with and thankful for what we have without also feeling guilty for having what others don’t. But it’s useless to compare lives. We all try to live the best lives we can, and the fact that some of us live happier lives than others is, first, not a safe assumption, considering that anthropologists have shown that hunting, gathering, and foraging is generally a better and happier life; and secondly, usually not our fault. If we actively fuck up others’ lives for our own profit, then yes, we should feel guilty about that. But most of us are not corporate robber barons or exploiters of child labor or the like. So the point is, it’s important to remember that there are good things in our lives. And Thanksgiving, for all the cheesiness of being thankful and whatnot, is a perfect time to remember some of those good things. Family. Food. Celebrations with games and decorations and all that.

And then, of course, we move straight into unbridled consumerism: Black Friday. I don’t think I need to add my screed to the copious outpouring of bile about how terrible this day is conceptually; the truth is, I don’t buy a lot of stuff, and I sometimes like buying stuff: that being the case, sometimes I like buying stuff for cheap. So I usually buy something on Black Friday. And yes, I feel kind of bad about that; I’m aware that makes me a supporter of the consumerist culture that is killing everything. But since Thanksgiving is a time for focusing on the good side of things, and Christmas is the same, I’m going to focus on being happy that I got a new Blu-Ray/DVD player for $60, and so I can stop playing movies on my tired old PS3. (Also, that means I can move my PS3 into my office, along with the old TV we just replaced, and I can actually have my dream gaming setup. Please note that this is the first time I have ever had this — a dedicated gaming TV not in the living room — and I’m fucking 48. Like I said, I don’t buy a lot of stuff. Not gonna feel bad about buying this stuff.)

Suffice it to say that riots on Black Friday, and the excessive spending and consuming, and the commodification of the good parts of the holidays, are all terrible and disgusting and should be opposed.

So after Black Friday, we have the newest attempts to commodify and exploit the consumerist culture during the holiday season: one for a good cause, and one for the worst. Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday. Small Business Saturday is a lovely idea, and a wonderful cause: I would like to take this opportunity to point out that I am a self-published novelist, and I would love to sell you copies of my books; you can buy them from Lulu.com — which is not a small business, but also is not Amazon — or from Barnes and Noble — again, not an independent bookseller, but certainly not Amazon — or you can contact me directly (Comment here or find me on Facebook or Twitter) and I will sell it to you myself. Also my wife is a brilliant artist who sells her work through Facebook and Instagram.

And then on the other side is Cyber Monday, the brainchild of Jeff Bezos, who felt that one day buying shit was not enough of corporations exploiting American consumers, and so he made up a new shopping day that focused on his business, and intentionally took time away from productive work, because the idea of using Monday was that was the day everyone went back to work and had computer access: at work. To go holiday shopping, instead of working. Look at capitalism at its finest! However: while I detest Bezos and Amazon, I recognize two things: one, there are lots of places — I used to live in one — where shopping access is limited, and Amazon frequently is the only and usually is the cheapest way for people to get things they want and need; and also, while Amazon is grossly exploitative of content creators, still they do furnish something of a marketplace; so I will, once again, look at the bright side: sometimes it’s good to buy things, and buying things online is not inherently bad, so people can do a good thing on Cyber Monday by shopping. I do not believe that the toxicity of the seller transfers entirely to the buyer, unless the buyer is actively propping up the evil done by the seller.

After this whole weekend, spent recovering from the preparations and celebrations of Thanksgiving, and with three days dedicated to shopping — what is supposedly holiday gift shopping, but really is just shopping — as I said, there is a turn. The Christmas radio stations start broadcasting. The decorations start coming out. I put antlers and a red nose on our car. ChristmaHanuKwanzaakkah time is now in full swing. We teachers are counting the days (Fourteen school days!!) until Winter Break. We all start asking — “Wait, what do you mean it’s almost 2023?!?” Christmas cheer, and Christmas melancholy as well, kick it into high gear. After this weekend, the long awkward time is over, and we can all focus: so this, then, is the good time, the next month or so.

But there’s a hole there. Thanksgiving Thursday, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday — see what’s missing?

It’s today.

So I have a suggestion. Since tomorrow begins the Happy Holiday season in earnest (It started earlier, of course, but tomorrow we all have to see each other again, and the Christmas cheer will be inescapable — and also, for the most part, genuinely nice), we should take one last chance to be in a bad mood. To be crappy, and to complain about anything and everything.

I would like to suggest Sourpuss Sunday.

As with all holidays, the existence of a special day in celebration of a specific idea or situation does not mean we can’t celebrate that thing any or every other day; there are people for whom every day is Veteran’s Day, and people for whom every day is the 4th of July. I do not tell my wife I love her only on Valentine’s Day, and for many people, Earth Day is all year. There is already something of this sort in the Festivus celebrations, which I support wholeheartedly, in the Airing of Grievances. But that comes too close to Christmas for me: I get happier as we get closer to the actual day, as the school season ends and I get to spend all my time pounding eggnog and looking at Christmas decorations. I think now, as part of the farewell to the awkward time, as a last hurrah for the darkness of Halloween, as a bit of relief after the stress of family on Thanksgiving, and well before the stress of family on Christmas: we should have a day when we bitch.

YARN | The tradition of Festivus begins with the airing of grievances. | Seinfeld (1993) - S09E10 The Strike | Video clips by quotes | 6e01524c | 紗
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So let me start things off, and then invite you all to continue it in your own way.

I’m sick. Not very sick: not too sick to stay home from work, or to avoid obligations; just sick enough, with a cough and a stuffy runny nose, to feel miserable whenever I lay down to sleep, and then again first thing in the morning when I get up. So basically, I’m just sick enough to make every day kind of awful. I hate snot.

I don’t know if I have a cold or the flu or Covid; it’s most likely that I’ve gone from one to another, and maybe through all three, and so has my wife. I HATE that we’ve added Covid to the usual collection of germs that come flying in for the winter: I hate that it makes the already dangerous flu season that much more deadly, and also that it means all the right-wing assholes in this country have to avoid vaccinations and masks and social distancing on principle. Fuck the politicization of disease: it’s a fucking disease, you shitheads. Just go to the damn doctor and do what the damn doctor says.

Speaking of right-wing assholes (And please don’t get me wrong: the operative term there is “assholes.” That is who I’m complaining about. Not people who are conservatives, or Republicans, or people who are generally right of me politically, all the way to the end of the spectrum: just the assholes among them.), FUCK Elon Musk and every single person on Twitter right now. I used to enjoy Twitter. It was fun, and funny. I spent an entire year tweeting out the lyrics of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” one letter at a time, backwards, so it could be read by scrolling through my timeline. (Yes, I’m serious. Every Tweet I twitted in 2021 was part of that project. I am proud of it. I will always be.) But then, a couple of months ago, they changed the algorithm so that I had to start seeing more right-wing troll accounts in my Twitter feed. I assume it was because they wanted to increase interaction. And even though I knew I was being manipulated, it still worked: because I have a deep-seated need to reply to people who speak lies and falsehoods, and that was basically every single one of the Twitterati on the right. (Again: it’s not about being on the right, it’s about these particular fucktoads, who would be just as obnoxious if they were on the left. Also, I had one of the most annoying exchanges I’ve had in the last month or two with a leftist who failed to understand that I was on her side, and who kept giving me shit until she finally blocked me.) And ever since Elon took it over, the wave of masturbatory celebration, all founded on complete bullshit (“Elon fired everyone at Twitter and it’s working fine! Clearly all those overpaid leftist Twitter execs did nothing!” Right. Until there actually is a problem, and the whole fucking thing collapses because there’s not enough people to fix the problem. But since it’s been going fine for like two weeks, CLEARLY THERE WILL NEVER BE A PROBLEM EVER AND WE ALL SHOULD HIGH FIVE ABOUT IT), is just getting to be too much to take.

I’m also bitter about my inability to let things go. I don’t even like social media, in concept. But here I am, fighting pointlessly to save a platform that I am not enjoying, just because I can’t let things go. Sigh.

I would also like to complain about obligatory family phone calls on the holidays. I love my parents. I like talking to them. But the requirement that, every year, I have to call my dad and tell him what I’m eating, and listen to what he’s eating, well — it’s a little too much. It’s certainly not the worst thing: there are people who have much harder family obligations, and much harder holidays because of family, than me. But really. I’m tired of hearing about how big the turkey is.

And speaking of having the same conversation over and over again, I would like to propose that every single time a student in my classes says “Can we just do nothing today? It’s a half day,” a full day gets added to that student’s school year. I would also like to propose that every time a student says “Can we do nothing today? It’s Friday” that student loses a weekend. And every time a student says “Can we do nothing today? It’s Monday,” I would like to propose that Garfield pop up out of the ground and slap them.

I am so bloody tired of being the only one in the room who wants to do the work, and who has to fight with everyone else just to do what we’re all there to do. So tired of it.

OH AND ALSO

We bought this new TV, right? And it’s very nice. It’s a Smart TV. Which means it has internet capability, and can stream our digital services without the need for our Roku receiver. Cool. Except that requires that I create an account for the TV, which is an LG, and then sign into that account on the TV in order to do things like “install” the Netflix app directly on the Smart TV.

It won’t let me log in.

I spent two hours fucking around with that thing last night. I made an account, registered it, confirmed it with the email address, and then tried to log in on the TV — nothing happened. I tried a dozen times: still nothing. I changed the password, even though I was using the right password: no change. Still wouldn’t log in. It didn’t say “Login failed,” didn’t tell me that the username or password was wrong; just every time I clicked “Log In,” the loading icon appeared, and then disappeared, and I was still not logged in. I tried to use a different method of logging in — using a QR code on my phone, and then logging in through the website that came up — and the phone logged in, but then the TV said “Verifying login information” and didn’t do anything after that. Over and over, trying to log in to the “Smart” TV we bought, so that I could make our streaming more convenient. That’s all.

And let me note: I was logging in using the remote to move a cursor across a keyboard on the screen, to enter all the letters and numbers and special characters in my email address and the password. Said password, of course, had to be at least 8 characters long, including upper and lower case, a numeral and a special character. Right right right right up up click, left left left left left left down click. Over and over.

Still didn’t work.

I JUST WANT TO LOG IN! TO USE YOUR FUCKING SERVICE!

Okay. There.

Twitch Sigh GIF by Hyper RPG - Find & Share on GIPHY

That’s better.

Now. How about you?

On the Second Day of Christmas, Just Dusty Blogged for Me:

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Top Ten Ways to Enjoy the Holidays

 

Before I begin the actual countdown, here are a few rules about my Top Ten lists. First, they are not in order. #10 is not the least, and #1 is not the most. #1 is not first, and #10 is not last. Second, they will not always be ten items long: I always try for ten, because it feels nice to hit the mark; but I am also obstinate and mischievous, far more than I am traditional and organized, so nine is certainly possible and eleven is likely.

Third, and most important: people determined to take these lists to heart do not have to accept the whole thing. The reason for itemized lists is that the items are not all required to accomplish the goal. If every item were required, this wouldn’t be a list, it would be a full essay, everything linked together and with an end result that is greater (hopefully) than the sum of its parts. But a list is only its parts.

So if you like what I say here, take one thing away with you. Or two, or three. Not all ten.

Especially not if there are only nine.

#1: Jolabokaflod.

This is also #8.

Here’s a lovely article on a lovely idea.

This year, Toni and I tried to do this Jolabokaflod thing (The above article has a link to the pronunciation, but it is pronounced pretty much like it looks. All of the o’s are long, so the word rhymes with the phrase, “Joel, a bloke, a toad.”), the Icelandic tradition where they give gifts of books on Christmas Eve. We went out and bought them on Christmas Eve, which was actually pretty fun; Barnes and Noble wasn’t absurdly crowded, and I enjoyed seeing that many people in a bookstore buying books. I liked buying a book for her, and I loved seeing the book she bought for me. I should have bought her a better book: I bought the one that was a gimme, a Stephen King novel – we both love Stephen King – but she had already bought me the same book for Christmas. She actually took her time and looked around for a book I would like but had never heard of; she found a collection of essays called How to Ruin Everything. I’m going to go back and exchange the one I got for something else. And in future – because this thing will happen again; it was too good not to keep doing – I will buy these books the way the Icelanders (Icelandish? Icelandiks? Icees?) do: I will look around in the months leading up to Christmas and find something she’ll like. And I’m going to enjoy giving her that one, too. I may try to wrap it.

Speaking of wrapping:

#2: Wrap presents however you want.

I wrap presents like the proverbial mutant T-Rex. I usually struggle with it, and try to make my presents as, well, presentable as possible; my father is a perfect wrapper, and Toni, of course, is a deft and capable wrapper, and so I feel the need to live up to their standards. I can’t. It usually frustrates the crap out of me when I realize that I cut the paper at a bad angle, or just a little too small, or that my corners aren’t crisp. And why is it that every time I fold up the ends, I get a bubble along the center seam? Why can’t the paper just lay flat?

So this year, I said screw it, and I embraced my crappy wrapping.

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It was both relaxing and fun. I mean, the point is to hide the present until the person is ready to enjoy each one, right? I understand the beauty of a finely-wrapped and beribboned present; but when that isn’t an option, why worry about it? Focus on what matters: the actual present. Oh no – I mean the thought. It’s the thought that counts.

Speaking of thoughts:

#3: Do something nice

Do something nice for someone you love. Then do something nice for someone you do not know. They can be things you do all the time. The person you love and do something nice for can be yourself. They can be holiday-themed, like putting money into the Salvation Army bell-ringers’ cans, or not, like donating blood to the Red Cross, which I will be doing this week or next.

Don’t overthink it. If you feel like the nice thing you’ve done isn’t quite nice enough, then do two things. Don’t do something so nice you regret the sacrifice you have to make. But do something nice.

#4: Listen to whatever the hell you want.

The Christmas music station here in Tucson really sucks. It’s terrible: they play two songs and then a pile of commercials; in the evening, when I’m in the mood for music, they have the most obnoxious sap-tastic hostess, who is constantly pulling that “Let’s hear everyone’s warmest wishes for the season,” and then taking calls from people who are grateful they got to have Christmas with their Aunt Buffina before she passed from the rheumatic cancer of the diverticulitis but at least they got to pray together one last time, and I just want to hear Blue Christmas, dammit.

But you know what I found this year? Hamilton. That is a badass musical. And the soundtrack is on Amazon Prime. (Want to know an excellent gift? A year of Amazon Prime. Don’t give me any shit about feeding the corporate monster: I buy local books, too. And Amazon Prime comes with free streaming, free shipping, a free E-book every month, and a streaming music player that lets you listen to albums without buying them. It is an outstanding service.) So this year, it’s been a very Hamilton Christmas for me. And I’ve been singing along, and enjoying it. I like that it has an uplifting element, and also a melancholy element, and that it is oustandingly, outlandishly cheesy.

And yes, I’m aware that I both celebrate the cheese in a musical about the Founding Fathers, and deride the cheese in the evening heart-warming radio call-in show. Everyone has their preferred cheese. Mine comes with speed-rapping about the Marquis de Lafayette.

Along with that: if you are a fan of Christmas movies, then go right ahead and watch It’s a Wonderful Life, or A Christmas Story. But if you are not, watch something else that you love but haven’t seen for a while. This year Toni and I will be watching both the Lord of the Rings extended editions and the Pirates of the Caribbean series. Because nothing says Christmas like pirates and Nazgul.

Hold on: imagine a Christmas-themed installment in either of those franchises. Hoo boy, there’s an image. Who plays Santa, Gimli, or Gandalf? Or maybe Elrond – Santa is called a jolly old Elf.

Speaking of weird Christmas mixtures:

#5: Eggnog Latte

The holidays should be a time for doing what makes us happy. The things I like about Christmas are enjoyable mainly because they aren’t things I do all the time. Like eggnog. I love eggnog. I would crawl a mile, over gravel and rusty nails, for a glass of good eggnog. But after a few quarts – okay, gallons – of eggnog, I get tired of it. Luckily: it goes away. And then when it comes back, I’m excited for it. And the best eggnog moment in the holiday season is when Starbucks brings back their Eggnog Latte. I can’t tell you how gorgeous it is to have a latte made with eggnog. If you are a fan of eggnog and of coffee, go get one, right now.

If you are not a fan of eggnog, that’s fine; turn this one into whatever treat you do love around the holidays. Sugar cookies, candy canes, fudge, roast turkey with all the trimmings, whatever. Eat it. Enjoy it. If you want to combine this with #3, do what my perfect wife did: bring someone an eggnog latte (or a roast turkey) while they are at work. A visit from a friend bearing goodies? Who wouldn’t love that?

#6: Whatever you do, no New Year’s Resolutions.

This may be a pet peeve of mine, but it’s also the truth. New Year’s Day is an invented holiday. It is not meaningful. (Well, this year it may be a little meaningful, because it will finally be the death of 2016. Hasta la vista, baby. Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.) There is no particular reason to think of the first day of January as the beginning of the year: it has utterly no significance in the solar calendar, it is not the anniversary of a momentous occasion in history; it is the day we arbitrarily decided was first. It’s like someone having eight kids and deciding the third from the last is Kid #1. It makes no sense. And because it makes no sense, any feeling of renewal or a fresh start is entirely fabricated. Now, that isn’t a bad thing: I think it is good to decide that this day, this hour, is where it begins, whatever it is; but the only power in that is the act of deciding. And part of that is deciding that it is exactly, precisely, now. So I think when we base that decision on someone else’s arbitrary choice of starting point, it has only as much power as we think other people have over us – which, when it comes to breaking old habits or starting new ones, is not very freaking much. I did manage to quit smoking, almost exactly nine years ago – and I started on December 28th. Because I knew I was going to quit; why wait three more days and do it when the calendar says I should?

So: resolutions are fine and good. I have several myself, including blogging more regularly and getting back to the gym. But I’ll start them whenever I decide to. I recommend the same for everyone else.

#7: Decorate. But do it your way.

We all want to feather our nests, want to make the place where we spend the most time as comfortable and attractive as possible. So do it. The holidays offer a unique opportunity, because I think Christmas lights are beautiful. One of my favorite things is trying out new ways to hang the lights. Try new designs, new colors, hang them in different patterns or in different places, inside and outside. Along with that, the tree indoors is a splendid thing. Try for a living tree, maybe; the smell of pine is available through a wreath or cut branches, and living trees are often cheaper and reusable. While you’re at it, buy some knick-knacks that make you laugh; we have a Chris-Moose that always makes me smile. And a pair of holiday toads that hang on a doorknob that makes me laugh.

Now: if you have too many knick-knacks already, maybe the way you should decorate is by getting rid of them. At least some of them. Empty out one box, or one room – and I mean give them away or throw them out – and then thin the others to fill it back up again. But first, try sitting in a room with no knick-knacks at all; see how it feels. Whatever you do, if you have or want knick-knacks, don’t tell other people about it. If you tell people that you enjoy ceramic narwhals, you will never get anything else for birthdays or Christmas, and your house will look like a narwhal knick-knack museum within three years. Come look at my mother-in-law’s frog collection and you’ll see what I mean.

Along the same lines: a lovely way to decorate is to clean. Or to organize. Or both. Don’t try to do the whole house; pick one task that matters but is rarely or never done, and do it. Make it an accomplishment.

#8: Wear good socks.

New socks. Comfortable socks: ones that are the right size, that aren’t too stretched out to hold to your ankles and calves, but aren’t so tight they leave red lines on your skin. If you don’t have good socks: buy some. Don’t hold onto old socks. Don’t skimp on cheap socks. Nothing feels better than good socks. You want both thin and thick varieties to go with the weather, and if you can find ones that you think are funny or pretty, all the better. But wear them. And throw out the old ones.

I don’t know if these are comfy, but they’re awesome.

#9: Change razor blades

Similar to the socks, but this one is even more important. Don’t cut yourself on Christmas. Use new blades. If they feel too expensive, then get a safety-razor; the blades are cheap and the handle isn’t disposable, so you’re adding little to the landfills – and no plastic. But if you like a nine-bladed cartridge, great, use that. Use a fresh one. Have a good shave.

Mine’s about a 1950.

#10: Go out and take a walk.

One of the loveliest things about the holidays is that, on the actual day itself, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, most people stay inside, stay home, don’t work. That means the world is quiet. Go out and take a walk in it. Go someplace that is normally busy and crowded and chaotic, and enjoy the peace and quiet. Move your feet, breathe the air, listen to the silence. Take someone with you if they can be quiet while they walk. Don’t listen to music: listen to the world. It’s a nice place.

I got sunshine, here in Tucson; but even on a cloudy day, a quiet walk is lovely.

#11: Ask yourself why you don’t do these things every day.

On The First Day of Christmas, Dusty Blogged For Me . . .

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Merry Christmas!

(I really like this one, too: )

No, really: Merry Christmas. And Happy Hanukkah. And Heri za Kwanzaa. And a joyous Milad un Nabi. And a blessed Solstice. Happy Holidays to everyone, for whatever reason you have to celebrate. (A special happy birthday to people born around the holiday season, since you normally get left in the cold. You rule the Yule.)

I’m saying this because I had trouble finding a reason to celebrate this year. No, that’s not true: I have a dozen reasons to celebrate; but none of them are related to Christmas. (My reasons: my wife, my dog, my bird, my tortoise; my family and friends; my house, my books, my favorite things; my health and the continued existence of this reality and this planet and this country; art and words and truth and beauty. Oh – and coffee. Always coffee.) So I had trouble getting into the holiday spirit this year. I didn’t want to sing along with the Christmas carols; I didn’t help decorate the tree; I didn’t wrap presents until Christmas Eve. I wore my holiday stuff and I put up lights on the outside of the house, but it didn’t really excite me. I wasn’t feeling it.

A little bit of that is that Christmas is not a particularly beloved holiday for my wife Toni, and so walking around belting out “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” is not the joyeaux occasion around here that it might be in other homes. But even if she was Santa’s favorite elf (Back off, Kringle – she’s mine), I wouldn’t have felt much like doing that.

Because it’s 2016. And John Glenn just died. And Trump will be president in less than a month. And civilians are being killed in Aleppo.

And for me personally, it’s been hard because I had school up until the 22nd, and was still fiercely grading and doing schoolwork on the 23rd, when grades were due. It’s hard to feel Christmas-y when you’re reading bad essays. It’s not much easier when you’re reading good essays, when you have to grade those essays.

Here’s my Christmas wish: I wish that I was permitted to write, on the papers of students who clearly didn’t read Fahrenheit 451 with the class but still write on the test that Bradbury’s dystopia won’t come to pass because people in our society still read, “You stink of lies.” Or maybe, “It’ll be your fault when it happens.”

See? Feelings like that have no place in Christmas.

But you know what I realized? They kinda do.

I’m not a religious man. I don’t actually care about the birth of Christ. Oh, I have no problem with it: Jesus was a good dude, as I understand it; he’s in a couple of my favorite books (Lamb and Kevin Hearne’s Iron Druid series – though his big one is not one of my favorites. Never read that. I hate it when they number paragraphs. Feels like a reading comprehension test.), and I like what I know about what he had to say. But it doesn’t put rum in my eggnog, if you follow me. Nor does the birth of the Prophet Mohammed matter to me, nor the miracle of the lamp, nor the longest night and the shortest day of the year. Though that last one is pretty cool. And I do like the idea behind Kwanzaa, namely community and cultural celebrations. But it’s pretty generic for me, not being African-American: my culture has never been threatened, other than by our own cynicism and sarcasm. And our exceptionalism and arrogance. And by – but we’re not talking about America here, we’re talking about the holidays. The holidays – including New Year’s, by the by, which annoys me much more than it pleases me – are not terribly meaningful occasions for me.

So the only thing the holidays really mean to me is: there is stuff in there that I like. More than anything, I like my vacation. So very, very much. I actually finished a book yesterday, for the first time in more than a month. Me. I haven’t been reading books. What does that say about my job? My time management? My choices in life?

No: we’re not talking about that crap, either. We’re talking about things I like about the holidays. I like singing along with the songs. I like knowing all the words. I like decorating my house, especially with lights. My neighborhood is very dark – no streetlights – and the Christmas lights really shine. I actually really like having a tree inside. I love giving presents, and I like sending greeting cards, though I’d rather be more selective and intentional with it (And I’m annoyed that all of my relatives sent my Christmas cards to the wrong address.), because sending a card with a canned comment about the holidays doesn’t make me happy; I’d rather send cards that I know people will like, with thoughts inside about that person, just because that person will like the card and I might have been thinking about them; whether it’s actually a holiday card or not is pretty irrelevant. I would like it more if it wasn’t, actually; if the person and the card were the only occasion necessary for the sending. I like wearing goofy holiday-themed clothes, though I kind of always wear goofy themed clothes, because I don’t really own any t-shirts that aren’t printed with either a pop culture reference, a bad pun, or something about books and reading and imagination.

Do you see what I see?

Here it is.

It doesn’t matter that it’s Christmas. I mean, Merry Christmas, especially if that is a day of great meaning and symbolism for you; but you know what? Happy December 26th, too. And March 9th: my very best wishes for that day. Oh – and the eleventh of June. That’s a good date. The 21st, too; of every month. It doesn’t matter that today is Christmas because it doesn’t matter what day it is. What matters is that this is a time of year when we stop our usual grind and do things that make us happy. People who love seeing their families make time to do it around now. We give presents, and cards, and wish people well. We actually use the mail, and get excited about things arriving in the box. We decorate, especially with bright colors and lights. We take vacations: we take time off from work and do things that we like to do, like bake, and sing, and watch favorite movies.

My God, we need those things more in our lives. Especially because it’s still 2016, and Carrie Fisher had a heart attack, and there’s a typhoon hitting the Philippines. And Trump’s going to be president in less than a month.

There’s an important thing that I have to say. Are you listening? Okay, here it is: I wish people happiness because happiness is good. But sadness is good, too. (I know this because I paid attention when I read Fahrenheit 451. You bunch of tools. My students are the tools, not people who are reading this. If you’re reading this, then you rock. You really are the reason we will hopefully avoid Bradbury’s dystopia, where the books are banned and the people don’t care.) Sadness is important. And not just because you need to feel sadness in order to understand happiness; I suppose that’s true, but I can’t say that I have any experience with being happy without being sad, so who knows? No: sadness is important because sadness is a genuine human emotion. When you are feeling sad, then that’s you, and that’s you feeling. Those are important. You have to be yourself. You have to feel. You have to experience all of your feelings, even the dark ones.

Christmas is a time of sadness. First just because it’s winter, and it’s cold, and it’s dark. Sometimes because we can’t do the things we want to do, because of job or money or circumstance. Sometimes because it reminds us of people who are gone. That last is a genuine feeling, and an important one. Don’t belittle grief just because everyone around you is wearing a light-up tie. It may be difficult to live with sorrow in the face of so much ostentatious cheer, but it’s better to do it than try to ignore what you feel or block it out. And your sorrow is not wrong, nor is it less important than someone else’s joy.

Here’s another reason why Christmas makes people sad: because of Christmas traditions. Because traditions become obligations, and then when we don’t keep them, we feel like we have failed. That’s why people risk their lives to drive through blizzards to be in a specific place on a specific day; because that’s their tradition. People put themselves deep into debt, and then spend the rest of the year fretting about it; because that’s their tradition. People whose traditions include things that are gone, and people that are gone, get to both grieve and feel like failures.

Bullshit. Traditions should only be maintained if it pleases you to do so. If it doesn’t, make up new traditions. Or screw tradition: do whatever the hell you want. That’s what the holiday spirit should be about: do whatever the hell you want, just because it makes you genuinely happy. Start with being nice to people. Every year, we all see the news stories about someone getting robbed, or mugged, or assaulted, and we all say, “You shouldn’t do that to someone during Christmas.” And then we all think, and maybe say, “Well, really, you shouldn’t do that to someone any time.” That’s right. The holiday season should be a time when we think about, and act with, kindness and generosity, more than any particular religious observance; and every day should be the same.

Because it doesn’t matter that it’s Christmas. A day for giving and for cherishing those that you love can be – should be – any day. Every day. And if today is a day when you feel sad, do that. Feel it. Go through it. And then make some cookies, and read a book, or call someone you haven’t talked to in a while. Feel better for having felt bad.

Have a happy today, everyone. I wish you all the very best.

And the same again, tomorrow.

Happy Holidays

Dusty Leave a comment

Merry Christmas, everyone!

I love that about this time of year — the most wonderful one, according to song (though honestly, that song doesn’t have a whole lot of the most wonderful things in it: sure, it’s got the “gay happy meetings and holiday greetings,” but what’s with the “scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long long ago?” I suppose it’s talking about A Christmas Carol, which is an excellent movie; but otherwise, who tells ghost stories on Christmas? What kind of bizarre family did that songwriter grow up in? And you know what that song doesn’t have? Eggnog.) — because I like when people wish each other well. I am not a Christian, don’t believe in the Messiah; but I still want people to be merry, and so I wish them happiness for the holidays. And other people, who don’t even know me, say the same thing: after the usual “Thanks for shopping at ____ and have a nice day!” that people recite by rote without any particular meaning behind it (Because what cashier really cares if you shop at Wal-Mart or Safeway? This is a good reason to shop small: because they mean it when they say it. Though still, I wonder how many people think about what they’re saying when they say that. I know I don’t think about it when I say “Thanks, you too.”), now they add, “And Merry Christmas!” it adds a second, more intentional level of goodwill: people actually think about it (Hopefully not only because they worry about offending people; I am generally against political correctness, as it leads to censorship; but I think we can all agree that there’s no political correctness stupider than the reaction against the “War on Christmas.” And if you don’t agree, you may not want to keep reading this blog, as I am not going to say a lot of things that make you happy. But you know what? Have a Merry Christmas, anyway. Thanks for stopping by my blog and upping my Visitor Counter. I actually appreciate it: because I have so few visitors that every one matters to me.), and they actually mean that wish: they want you to have a merry Christmas. They want you to have some happy holidays. There is kindness, during this season, in even the simplest of social interactions — pass by someone on the street, and they might smile and say Merry Christmas, too, particularly on the day itself.

You know what? We should have more days like this. More days when people think about their greetings, and mean what they say when they wish people well.

I got up this morning at about 6:15, because I went to bed late last night because I had a nap yesterday afternoon. None of these things are normal for me: I generally get home from work too late to have a nap, and so I am frequently exhausted by about 9:30 and asleep by 10:00, and that means that I wake up around 4am (I generally sleep about six hours a night. Don’t judge me. It’s Christmas.), and, more often than not, I start thinking about school and my students and the work I have to do. That means I don’t really go back to sleep, though I do sometimes, which is nice; but when I don’t, that means I’m already tired when I get up about 5:00, and through my entire day; this makes me cranky with my students and angry at my job, when neither of those things are at fault: it’s only because I’m an early-morning insomniac, which I inherited from my father. Who would also rather not wake up at 4am and fret. And, of course, since I am tired from the get-go, I am exhausted about 9:30, 10:00, and I go to bed early and sleep for about six hours.

But yesterday, Toni and I took a nap in the afternoon, for a good hour, hour and a half. So I was able to stay awake and enjoy Love Actually last night, even though we didn’t start it until 9:00 or so. Then we went to bed, I read for a little while, and then went to sleep, and slept until 6:15. And when I woke up, the most anxious thought I had was, “Oh — I have to remember to get the cinnamon rolls out of the fridge.”

You know what? We should have more days like this. Days when people can sleep in a little, and wake up thinking happy thoughts. Days when we wake up without stress, without fear.

This morning, I opened up my new container of eggnog — because the first one I bought was terrible; it was either poorly made or it was going bad when I got it, because it had that sour aftertaste that eggnog can get, a little like drinking gasoline — and took a swig to make sure it was good (No, I didn’t drink from the container; I poured it in a cup. What am I, a savage?), and it was delicious. That was a wonderful first taste for the morning. Then my coffee got finished brewing (And my coffeemaker kindly decided to get it right this morning; it has been struggling with the workload in this house, where no morning goes by without two or three pots of coffee, with another frequently brewing later in the day [On days when there isn’t a nap, that is.], and has been giving up the brew before all the water is gone from the reservoir, beeping its little beep to tell me there is coffee — until I pick up the pot, and it’s light, because it’s mostly empty, because most of the water is still in the machine, unheated, unbrewed: unacceptable. But today, that beep meant “Coffee’s ready! And Merry Christmas!”) and I poured a tall cupful into the mug I got as a gift from one of my students, added sweetener and honey and a splash of eggnog, and: perfect. Ambrosia. And I did remember to get the cinnamon rolls out of the fridge: the cinnamon rolls which Toni made from scratch yesterday, the which we enjoyed after our morning walk with Sammy. They were incredible: gooey and warm and rich and delicious. The perfect first meal of the day. Fresh cinnamon rolls, and good coffee, and eggnog.

You know what? We should have more days like this. Days when we enjoy our morning sustenance, when breakfast is a meal, rather than a fueling stop; when the coffee is enjoyable, rather than a necessary bulwark against narcolepsy. Not that I expect my wife to make cinnamon rolls every morning, far from it; I want to be able to stand and walk, in the future, and cinnamon rolls every morning would quickly turn me into one of the hoverchair-bound blobs from Wall-E. But I actually like the cereal I eat, and Toni loves toast; we both enjoy a good bagel on a weekend. The point I’m going for here is that food should be tasted, and the taste should be good; breakfast most days is neither of those things, for most people. And we should change that. Breakfast should feel like it does on Christmas.

This morning, I will be reading my new book, Zombie Spaceship Wasteland, by Patton Oswalt. My wife bought it for me at Barnes and Noble, on a whim, because though I haven’t read Patton Oswalt before, she knows that I love his standup comedy, and she knows I like reading books by comedians I like. So she bought it, I bought her a chick-lit book of the kind she likes (which I hope is good, but it’s an author I don’t know. I liked the description, though, and the fact that there is an Aunt Midge. Can’t go wrong with an Aunt Midge.), and we decided to celebrate Jolabokaflod, the Icelandic tradition of “Christmas Book Flood:” when you give each other a book on Christmas Eve, and spend the rest of the evening reading. Okay, we watched Love Actually last night instead of reading; and I have been writing this blog — and also playing Facebook games while petting my dog — instead of reading this morning, but I plan to get to it later. The point is, we looked for books for each other not working from a wish list, but just browsing, in an actual store, and picking something out that looks good based on the likes and dislikes of the intended recipient. Then we gave those gifts to each other mostly because we wanted to, not because of tradition or obligation or any attempt to impress or make up for past sins or conflicts. And they’re books.

You know what? We should have more days like this. When we find gifts for each other based on what we think the other person will like, not what they ask for. When we take our time shopping, and give the result to someone we love, just because we want to make them happy.

There are things I don’t like about Christmas. I am charging my phone, because I expect to get obligatory family phone calls today; if I don’t receive them, I will make them. And it’s not that I mind talking to my family, but I don’t like doing it only because we have to, because it’s Christmas. In a few days I will be flying to see my family, which I don’t want to do; not because I don’t want to see my family, I do, but because I am doing it largely out of obligation instead of preference, and because I don’t want to fly, and I don’t want to leave my wife and my pets for the four days I will be visiting. These sorts of things go on at Christmas. We have been having a bit of a rough month, mostly because work piled up for me and I was frustrated and resentful about it; we haven’t been feeling very Christmas-y for the last month. But because it is Christmas, and because there is such a weight of tradition around this holiday, this unfestive situation has come with a bonus: guilt. I have felt guilty for making Christmas feel melancholy, and Toni has felt guilty for not getting into the Christmas spirit and decorating and drawing her own Christmas card and sending it out early in the month to all of our friends and family. Going to visit family also reminds me of the family I will not be seeing — my mother, mainly — and that brings its own guilt. And this time of year, I feel particularly bad for the people who are down and out, and I wish I could do more to help them — and I feel guilty that I can’t. Same thing with the limited funds I have for present-buying: there are a hundred things I would buy for my wife, and for everyone I know, if I had the money. But I don’t. Because I am not wealthy. More guilt, and probably the stupidest guilt there is; but here it is, and because of Christmas.

So I’m thinking that we should have more days like Christmas, but not more Christmas.

I’ve noticed that there has been a push towards this, and away from the religious holiday season, for a while, now; that’s presumably why some folks see a war on Christmas, and fight back by getting belligerent about the “reason for the season” — you know, the Prince of Peace. But I don’t think it’s a rejection of religion so much as a common desire similar to what I’ve been talking about: we want the good stuff of the holidays, without the bad; the joy without the baggage, the presents without the wrapping, so to speak. The best thing about this day is the quiet: go outside, take a walk, and recognize how few people are driving around, how many people are at home, with their loved ones, spending some quiet time. It’s like the whole world is taking a breath. It’s lovely, and it’s rare; I think the only days of the year when this happens are Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. Only three, really — and what’s worse, they’re all piled up on one end of the calendar.

I think we should have more. And I think we should space them out. It’s good to breathe, to breathe deeply, and take a moment to pause and enjoy what we have.

So I would like to start a new tradition. I don’t want to take away from the old tradition; there is nothing that can — or should — replace Christmas. I certainly don’t want Christmas music to be played all year long, but I also don’t want a December to go by without a chance to sing along with Blue Christmas — or this one, which I think may be my new favorite, because it’s a mix of the classic and the new — well, sort of new; newer than Bing Crosby, anyway. And I like the message coming through loud and clear, but still paying respect to Christmas itself.

Same for eggnog: I love the nog, but I wouldn’t want it year-round.

Here, then, is my suggestion. We take the parts of Christmas that we all love — the kindness, the peace, the generosity, and the deep, calming breath — and do it at other times during the year. We can start small: I’m going to suggest the Solstices and Equinoxes, the old Sun and Fire festivals of the Celtic past. Because they’re nicely spaced out, and each has its own theme: the Spring Equinox is rebirth and planting; Midsummer Night is a celebration of life and love; the Autumn Equinox is a perfect time for harvest and a celebration of plenty; and then winter, the Yule, a time of gathering in, embracing old traditions and family and closeness and warmth. Start with those four, a new one every three months, and maybe we can expand it more: have a celebration of kindness and love every month — or every week. Or every day.

A time of peace, and goodwill towards men. Shouldn’t we have more of those?
Merry Christmas, everybody. Now I’m going to go drink some eggnog.