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December 2019

“I felt overstuffed and dull and disappointed, the way I always do the day after Christmas, as if whatever it was the pine boughs and the candles and the silver and gilt-ribboned presents and the birch log fires and the Christmas turkey and the carols at the piano promised never came to pass.” ~ Sylvia Plath

When Suzie asked me how Christmas had gone, I responded that I went through it like a stunned mullet. I’m not entirely sure what a stunned mullet is, but in what I believe was a ‘New Yorker’ profile on her, Liza Minelli once described coming off stage feeling like one, so I’ve always used that phrase whenever I feel shell-shocked. Not entirely sure what that means either. But when you spend a heightened holiday around people with whom you’ve shared a complex and primal relationship for twenty to forty-four years, you sometimes feel like a stunned mullet. I take it to mean someone or something that’s been shot with a stun gun or hit with some other method of blunt force trauma, and who’s just beginning to come to consciousness again.

The simile fits. The fog is lifting. The heart is heavy. And I’m tired.

Here are a few photos of Christmas 2019. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, and when you’re channeling a Dickensian state of existence, you know you’re in trouble. 

What do most people do on the day after Christmas? 

I’m not an expert on most people so I have no idea. 

For me, it’s back to work, and I’m neither mad nor thrilled about it.

This holiday season has been one of transition. Not only in holiday traditions, but in life traditions. Shaken to the core with memories of the past looked at in a new light, I’m learning that change is vital and necessary, if painful and terrifying too. That’s taken precedence over any celebratory aspect of the season, so I’m happy to see Christmas and Thanksgiving and all the rest of it complete their long trajectories this year and slink into the past. Get this show over so I can begin again. 

Christmas has always been anti-climactic. Nothing ever measures up to expectations. That lesson was learned long ago, but every now and then I forget and slip into a hopeful mode of childish wonder, when I think this year might be magical, this year might be better. 

It never is.

Oh there are happy holidays, and some Christmases are better than others, but all that goodwill and getting along lasts a night, maybe two. Then it’s over. Then the winter begins in earnest. Then it’s dark and cold and real and all the demons from the past return with a vengeance because you’ve tried to silence them with a false balm of peace and cheer. 

Having said that, there are ways to deal with the holidays, and this year I taught myself a few of them. Largely removing parties and big (and even little) get-togethers has markedly removed a great deal of stress from this busy time of the year. Next year I may pare it down even further. (For instance, I dragged out and put up all the Christmas decorations shortly after Thanksgiving, and no one besides Andy and me has seen any of them, so why even bother?) Next Christmas I may forego the decorating altogether. I may take a trip somewhere far away and get my time in with loved ones when we might actually be able to talk and connect. The hustle and bustle of the holidays makes authentic connection almost impossible. 

These are just ideas now, abstract notions likely dreamed up in the bitterness and disappointment of all that’s happened this season. Perhaps I’ll find a shred of Christmas hope when the fall rolls around again, when I’ve had some sun and summer to warm the heart from the outside in. Or perhaps this is it for Christmas. 

I won’t be sorry if that is so. 

Near the end of a decade, Christmas 2019 will be remembered for its themes of change, growth, and letting go. With such seismic tremors comes certain unease and trepidation. May this Christmas Day be a moment of quelling such doubts and fears, and may it offer comfort and succor for anyone looking for peace. I know a number of people who have lost loved ones this year, some very close to the holidays, and for anyone missing someone, there are no words or exercises that will ease such pain. All we can do is honor and remember those we have lost, taking the lessons they taught and living in the way they would want us to live. 

For anyone else who may need a little Christmas spirit, for anyone who may be having a hard time finding their Christmas cheer (and I count myself among both those unhappy camps) I’m going to make a long list of holiday links  to remind us of the good and the bad and the beautiful of the holiday season. If we keep on painting Christmas as something pretty, perhaps it will one day turn true. Merry Christmas everyone. See you on the other side…

A Holiday Party ten years in the making. 

My favorite Christmas decoration, all humble simplicity. 

Put a Christmas record on. 

Twisted sleigh-ride.

A shocking holiday card. No way!

Little drummer disappointment. 

Holiday pants & revelry.

Christmas sundaes and brotherly love. 

Portals of magic.

Christmas massacre. There was blood. 

A Christmas rose.

A beautiful sight.

The 2nd Holiday Stroll!

Run Rudolph, run!

Victorian virgin.

Christmas for the children.

Into the fog.

The Cock & Bull.

Oh Christmas tree.

Sing out, Kris Kringle. 

An office Christmas party, the worst kind of party. 

A quick Christmas quote.

Sitting on Santa’s lap.

Back when we kept Christmas traditions alive. 

Christmas Eve test outfit.

My days as a Christmas child. 

A simple wish.

Don we now our gay apparel. {Now?}

Christmas Eve 2012.

In service of the holiday, a pomegranate sparkler. 

The Holiday Stroll: Part One and Part Two.

Tiffany’s does Christmas.

Shirtless Santas.

Light it up.

Classic Mariah Carey Christmas.

Another shirtless Santa.

Ghosts of Holiday Cards past.

Holiday Card 2013.

A Madonna holiday Masterpiece.

Cozy cock tradition.

Rose memories on a banister with pearls.

Family fun for the holidays. 

My favorite Christmas song.

In my arms, a Christmas bear.

Christmas Eve 2013.

Xmas Wizards.

Deco-world.

Silent snow, secret snow.

Holiday card countdown.

Holiday Card 2014: Let it snow, let it blow!

A funny Christmas tree adventure with my brother.

When Christmas goes dark and memories turn sorrowful.

The Holiday Stroll 2014.

Oh Holy Night.

A Christmas candle in the night. 

Bringing decorations back to Boston.

An early festive gathering.

This is OUTRAGEOUS!

Holiday Card 2015: Bring me the ax.

The Holiday Stroll 2015: Part One, Part Two and Part Three.

Steve Grand does Christmas.

The very first Boston Children’s Holiday Hour. 

If I gave you diamonds and pearls…

Cute Christmas packages.

Christmas by Annie Lennox.

In the Santa hour, I can feel your power.

When Christmas turns quiet.

The Holiday Stroll 2016.

Holiday tableaux. 

Silver and gold without all the silver.

Golden-hued holiday riches.

A holiday dinner mainstay: the famous Jello-mold.

The world is run by Mrs. Claus. 

The Holiday Card 2016: Trigger Warning (for real).

A Christmas carpool with James Corden and Mariah Carey.

The Ilagan Christmas tree tradition, intact in 2016.

The Ilagan twins have always been hams.

Christmas carolers of questionable taste.

Butt-flap booty suit, in red.

Winter river.

How Madonna ties into my holidays.

The 2nd Boston Children’s Holiday Hour.

In the bleak Christmas aftermath.

Naked but for my Christmas balls.

A happier Christmas Eve.

A happier Christmas Day.

A Christmas song, some might say The Christmas Song.

One of my favorite Christmas memories: a highball with Andy’s Mom. 

Here we come a strollin’…

The Holiday Stroll 2017.

The Holiday Card 2017: elegance & simplicity.

We didn’t know it then, but this would be our last fully-intact Christmas tree tradition. 

A retro holiday punch with extra pizzazz.

The 3rd Boston Children’s Holiday Hour: Part One and Part Two.

In the wake of Christmas children.

Dreams of retail Christmases past.

Tom Daley under the mistletoe.

All the world in a single ornament.

Christmas Eve 2017.

A Holiday Card Recap: Part One and Part Two.

The Holiday Card 2018: PVRTD.

Holiday Structure.

A refined holiday libation.

The Holiday Stroll 2018: Part One, Part Two and Part Three.

Preparing for a tree cutting.

All I wanted for Christmas last year was a fruitcake. (I’m done with them now.)

The year we grew our own Christmas tree. (And why we won’t do it again.)

Beautiful boxes and a glorious gift idea.

The heart of a Christmas tree.

Christmas reality check: sometimes it sucks. Sometimes it really sucks.

Some levity.

I could not be prepared. 

A few favorite Christmas movies.

The secret Russian Christmas tea recipe at long last revealed. (Hint: Tang!)

The 4th Boston Children’s Holiday Hour, better known as ‘The Kids Who Saved Christmas’ – Part One & Part Two.

Making a Christmas entrance the only way I know how.

A most magical night.

The day after Christmas is often better than the damn day itself. 

I’m starting to experience PHSD: Post Holiday Stress Disorder.

A shimmering holiday fragrance mash-up, Tom Ford style.

A Filipino holiday feast for my father. 

Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy and Woodstock.

Holiday Go-to-Hell Pants.

The exquisite irony of sugar and booze this year.

Holiday beauty by the Beekman Boys.

The Holiday Card 2019: let’s get baked!

How to keep the holidays fresh? No, really, I’m asking.

These are but two of my favorite things.

When sadness and loss seep into the Christmas season.

Holiday melancholy.

The happy birth of our Holiday Strolls.

I held out such high hopes for this, so you can guess how it turned out. 

A mixed bag of Christmas cookies.

The newest holiday tradition: Hambone Holiday Hullabaloo.

The Holiday Stroll 2019.

Once upon the most wonderful night of the year.

And proof that the Christmas spirit is still alive in the smallest of ways, we end with this year’s Boston Children’s Holiday Hour: Part One and Part Two.

When all the build-up of the Christmas season was almost through, when the anticipation and rush of that celebratory day of birth had almost arrived, there were a few magical hours of peace, calm and stillness that constituted Christmas Eve. It held a power and sway to quell the most riotous and violent emotional upheavals, it had a way of healing and knocking some sense into us, if only for an evening. It was, in simplest terms, the most magical night of the year. For my entire recalled life, I’ve spent it in my childhood home, no matter what might be going on. We’ve had years where no one was speaking, where people were pissed, where kids got into trouble, yet we always made it through. It is the single tradition we’ve managed to keep alive in the Ilagan home, and Andy and I have come to rely on it as one of the only traditions we’ve retained over the years. He made the decision to join us a few months after we met, and hasn’t missed one since. That was nineteen years ago. I’ve been doing it for forty-three years.

What we did on all those Christmas Eves depended on the year, and over time our traditions evolved and changed as we did. My earliest memories are of leaving cookies and milk for Santa, then being carried up in our sleeper pajamas even when our minds were too excited to sleep. My brother and I would sit up in bed and look out the window, scanning the dark sky for any sign of Rudolph’s red nose, straining to hear any hooves or bells on the roof. A few years later, we would sit and watch the Melodies of Christmas, then when I ended up being in the Empire State Youth Orchestra I would duck out and upstairs so I wouldn’t have to see myself on the screen. We were teenagers at that point, and going through all the turmoil and emotional mayhem that it entails, but on Christmas Eve we suspended our surly behavior and came together for a few short hours in honor of the season.

When I went away to college, I had a few brief windows to see my old friends, so we would have our Christmas Eve dinner, open our gifts, then make the stops at various friends’ houses. Even when Andy and I had our own home, we would still make Christmas Eve at my parents’ the main priority. When the twins arrived it was a return to the wonder and magic of the season, and I still remember the year after which they first learned to walk (and run) in which they charged the length of the house, jumped off a single step into my arms, and I lifted them high into the air and they flew.

For all of those Christmas Eves, there was always a single moment in which I found myself alone, usually in the dim living room where the Christmas tree lit up the darkness but still fostered all the shadows. I would sit there and live in the magic of the moment, something I could do much easier in my younger years. I don’t know if I ever really believed in Santa, but I believed in the spirit of the season. There was magic enough in that.