December 2021
For those of us who miss attending Mass tonight, here is a video to remind you of the magic and magnificence, coupled with the simplicity and power of the reason for the season. Christmas is no longer as much about religion as it once was – it’s about something so much more.
That expansive idea, of spirituality and a universal love, is sparked by Christmas only when we take the time to push aside the commercial circus and return to a place of purity and humanity.
We need a little break in the solemn Christmas processional and the unrelenting march to this most sacred Christian tradition. We need a little air and space in the claustrophobic rush and cramped crush of the season. Most of all, we need a little Christmas cheek to counteract all the seriousness of the world at the moment. And that is something I can provide – perhaps the only thing I can provide these days – so let me turn on my cheeky charm, turn around and pose by the Charlie Brown Christmas tree, and post a Christmas bop by the Jackson Five.
Levity and brevity – that’s the aim for what remains of our holiday season. Whether that’s in clothing or gatherings or just making it through the damn day. Drop the seat, kick the beat, all-you-can-eat. ‘Tis the damn season. Make it merry.
The older we grow, the darker our holidays seem to get. But even at the ripe old age of 46, I still find moments of magic and wonder, especially on this most magical night of the year. While the world anxiously awaits the explosion of gifts and wrapping and mayhem on Christmas Day, it is the supreme calm of Christmas Eve that I’ve always enjoyed more, even as a boy.
A sense of serenity imbues the calm before the storm, and in many ways there’s no greater storm than Christmas morn. Christmas Eve is that pocket of time that suddenly feels hushed, not rushed – a break in the relentless lead-up to the main event, as if the world is slowly taking a deep breath before letting all hell break loose again.
In that quiet space and solemn time, my parents always took us to Christmas Mass, where I usually served as an altar boy. The packed crowd and their winter clothes darkened the cavernous place, lending a cozier atmosphere, one charged with the reminder of why we were all celebrating: the simple story of the birth of Jesus. A straw-laden manger, topped with evergreen boughs and twinkling lights, was populated by statues of the characters of the story – and for Christmas mass the baby Jesus finally made his miraculous appearance.
The message of this silent evening – the appearance of the miracle of hope and goodness, of light in the darkest night – always struck through all the wish lists and frantic running around that otherwise signaled the season. It grounded me, even as a child who could have been forgiven for flying off on childish fancies. Over the years, Christmas Eve retained that stillness and silence, even if it was fleeting, even if it came saddled with the growing pains of family and life and a world that felt increasingly hostile. For this one night, everything could be peaceful, everything calm.
‘Twas on this evening twenty-five years ago that I held a Christmas Graduation Ball at my parents’ home to celebrate my early graduation from Brandeis University. (Wanting out as soon as possible, I had taken a few summer courses that enabled me to finish off my college career in December of 1996 rather than May of 1997.) I was looking ahead to several months of freedom while my contemporaries drudged through their last semester, and planned to travel the world in The Royal Rainbow World Tour, which actually happened, even if the tour itself was largely delusional.
The evening was magical, even if the lead-up was worrisome. On the 22nd, I’d come down with a flu-like sickness that landed me in my childhood bed through the next day, and for the first time in a long period of throwing parties it was a serious possibility that I’d miss out on this most important one. I was too sick to move until about three hours before the party was scheduled to begin, and then, as if by magic and sheer force of will, I got up, felt fine, took a shower, donned a tuxedo, and headed downstairs to greet the guests.
It was a glorious party, filled with my favorite people decked out in festive and fine fashion, though the freedom from so many years of schooling and education would take a few more months for me to feel. Years of habit didn’t die out so easily, and the unease of every fall still rocks me though it’s been twenty five years to accustom myself to not having it be so. Back then, at the start of young adulthood, finally done with my finite stint in college, I let loose and enjoyed the moment. I couldn’t see what was ahead – I couldn’t even envision what I wanted to see – and all the not-knowing may have saved me. In certain extreme situations, ignorance can be bliss.
Christmas is a strange time to begin a new stage of life, coming too conveniently near the end of the year and the start time of so many other resolutions, most of which come to no fruition. The giddiness which I felt at that Christmas Graduation Ball, bound up in a checkered bow tie and matching cummerbund, with a calla lily in my pocket, proved an auspicious springboard for my launch into the world of adulthood. It was a launch based on sparkle and whimsy, a life planned through dreamy delusions, and a graduation from the protected worries of school to the unprotected worries of adult living.
On a tree spun from silver tinsel, a shiny ornament hangs.
There, in that small space, a simple sliver of perfection sparkles and shines.
An encapsulation of Christmas, and all its purity and falseness laid bare.
A thing of beauty, purposeless but for its prettiness, as if being pretty was ever enough unto itself.
As if it wasn’t.
Christmas divines such magic, while putting faith and trust in so few words grants them greater import than were they to get lost in a longer post.
The somewhat-misnomered title of this post references the actual title of the song featured below, which is ‘One Winter’s Night’ – a beautiful and calm reflection on a night in winter. This early into the season it is something to be celebrated and revered, and I only hope I can keep this attitude for the remaining three months.
There is a stark simplicity to winter, exemplified by the barren branches and bare bones of the garden. A coating of snow obscures this for only so long. We forget how much space leaves and flowers and life take up until they’re gone.
Now, the colors come from the sky – reflected in the clouds and carried on any snowfall. Fleeting and ephemeral, they exist only in ungraspable form – elusive and furtive, and tempestuous as a winter wind. You cannot hold or capture them – merely acknowledge and marvel at their wonder. Just like winter.
After a pizza dinner with Andy and my parents, we returned home when my Mom texted that ‘The Sound of Music’ and the Charlie Brown Christmas Special were about to be broadcast. When everything else feels wrong and worrisome, something like ‘The Sound of Music’ is an escape to a place and time that somehow feels more innocent. How terrifying that the days leading up to World War II were captured in a movie that now feels innocent.
As the Von Trapp family sang with the Nazi world closing in around them, it felt eerily not that far from where the current world may one day be headed. But once again I was reminded that there are good people here, that goodness and love will triumph, and that light will always drive out darkness.
And a song about one little flower can change one little family who could change our little world.
We break the week with a view of my childhood home, and the Christmas tree that Mom finally decided to put up this year. It’s a happy scene, and lends light to a corner of the living room that is normally hidden in shadow during the winter months, blocking a door that is only open when the warmer weather allows for access to the backyard. This is happy substitute until such time we can go comfortably outside again, and given its faux nature, they can keep it up for far longer than usual. Andy keeps ours going until January 6 at least, and many years a week or two beyond that. Light, even in the form of a Christmas tree, is most valuable at this time of the year. It lifts the soul and combats the darkness and seasonal depression that sometimes result from these shorter days.
On this second day of winter, the anticipation of Christmas is strong. That alone raises spirits for the moment, and living in the moment is important when winter has only just begun.
Someone posted this cute illustration on one of the social media sites this week, and it was perfect for the Winter Solstice, when the time is ripe for warmth and comfort and cuteness. Staving off the winter is best done through such sentiments, no matter how the weather rages or the wind burns. It brings to mind scenes of forest coziness, tales from childhood of animals that find their own homes and havens in the branches and boughs of crowded pines, or in the underground labyrinth of leaves and roots, where warmth is generated far beneath the fall of snow. Such scenes, in such close proximity to the wilds of winter, feel especially cozy because of their very nearness to the brutality of the season.
Nestling into the start of winter, we look to the stars for guidance, for hope, for the reminder that our closest star will begin her glorious ascent to the height of summer starting now.
Today marks his birthday, so there’s no better time to crown Sean McLaughlin as Dazzler of the Day. He’s one of Albany’s most active community supporters and organizers, and I’ve long held that he should run for local office given his love for the area and his tireless efforts at making it a better place. His networking prowess knows no equal, and if you want something done he’s the first person many people seek to help make it happen. Above and beyond these testaments, however, he’s simply a good guy and friend – and good guys are getting harder and harder to come by these days. Happy birthday Sean – and many happy returns of the day!
Today marks the Winter Solstice, and from this day forward the days get longer and lighter until summer arrives. While the first day of winter may not feel like cause for celebration, that fact alone makes this day one of hope and majesty. It begins here – and if winter never started it would never finish.
Last winter passed in peaceful form thanks to a newly-found focus on hygge, and the continuing quest for meditative peace and calm. Through the process comes the result, and to trust in that journey is to be made happy in the moment – even if the moment comes on the first day of winter, with all the days yet to follow.
There is magic to the winter as well, something I ignored and dismissed for most of my life, so chagrined with the weather and darkness that I failed to see all the lights that we make at this time of the year. Candles and lamps and fairy lights all conspire to lift the darkness, even at its heaviest and most impenetrable. The glow of a single candle is enough to fell a roomful of shadow. And when taken outside into a night filled with snow, it can feel like one is carrying a small sun in their hand.
On this day, we make our winter wishes – writing them down and signaling to the universe our intents and hopes, before burning them and letting them drift into the sky to be carried off to where they might begin their work. It is our seasonal tradition, one taught to me by Andy when we first met, and the winter wishes were always some of the most important ones made. Especially this year, when we need all the help we can get.
The shortest day of light is here, and moving forward each day from this point the light will last a little longer. Winter has just begun, but this is a journey that has been in motion since the arrival of fall. Rounding that corner brings us further along than we realize, and seasons move so quickly these days it’s only a matter of moments before talk of spring is in the air.
If everyone had just worn their masks and gotten vaccinated when it mattered, we wouldn’t be where we are today, so to anyone who hesitated and who still refuses to get a vaccine or wear a mask, I have a simple message and request: fuck off. Just fuck all the way off. The rest of us are sick of you for being so selfish and stupid.
I was in Wal-Mart the other day looking for Tang (and Wal-Mart is the only place that carries it, not any Price Chopper or Market 32 or whatever you’re calling yourselves these days) when I watched a young woman hurriedly grab two masks from the supply at the front door. She put one on herself, then brought one to her husband or boyfriend, who said he was not putting that thing on. Their child, clearly under five years old, sat in the shopping cart watching their exchange. I walked away at his second refusal before I was tempted to say what I thought out loud.
In Starbucks, I watched as a group of three girls ranging from twelve to seventeen approach the cashier without a single mask among the three of them. Their Dad followed a few minutes later, also without a mask.
At a time of the year when we are supposed to be looking out for each other more than usual, I just feel utterly let down and disappointed in people.
On the other hand, the vast majority of those actually dying of COVID are the unvaccinated assholes who refuse to get the vaccine (and no doubt who also refuse to wear a mask). Maybe the universe is weeding them out in some massive exhibition of karmic retribution. Survival of the smartest, the sanest, and the most compassionate.
{Shrugs.}
This is the week Christmas arrives, ready or not, and it’s tainted with the worries that the current condition of the world brings. I realize I can’t keep stressing out over things beyond my control, but that doesn’t mitigate the worry much. Perhaps that’s one of the tenets of adulthood, and why I’ve so vociferously avoided it for as long as possible. Let’s have a look back at those holiday moments where we trie to find some joy and peace.
The musical woman of the year celebrated her special day – Happy Birthday Taylor Swift!
Crafting a bit of Christmas calm through the use of candles (carefully).
Sometimes snow calls for jazz.
A mysterious holiday tea recipe revealed again.
Holiday cocktails & mocktails.
With a hush and a wink, I sang my little heart out.
When Andy’s favorite holiday movies became mine.
For the love of Andy’s meatballs.
This years holiday stroll was actually postponed, so this revisiting of previous strolls will have to suffice.
Justifying my love for Madonna amid all the hateful bashing.
An old-fashioned Christmas mix tape, like we used to do.
Piano tinkling for a Christmas quandary.
The unconventional Christmas song.
Dazzlers of the Day included Jake Wesley Rogers and Colin Donnell.
Browsing in Marshalls Homegoods like an idiot the other day, I heard a song where the main gist was that someone wanted an alien for Christmas. It was actually quite catchy, and I wished it wasn’t about a goddamn alien because aliens just don’t say Christmas to my crazy-ass brain. That said, I’m open enough to consider adoring more unconventional Christmas songs, such as this one titled ‘Champagne Drops’ by a group called My Bubba. It was part of a Scandinavian holiday playlist that someone put together inspired by hygge, and it’s become part of our holiday repertoire.
This joins the ranks of the Hawaiian way of saying Merry Christmas or that hippopotamus bullshit – novelty songs that take a hold in your brain and don’t let up until you find a new way of hating on Christmas for all that it’s done to our heads. (By the way, hippos are no fucking joke. Look it up. They’re dangerous.) Maybe this song is more tolerable to me because it hasn’t been force-fed upon my ears for forty-plus years. Give it time. I’ll probably hate it by next year – but not as much as I hate the one about you forgetting the cranberries too.
Christmas memories are often conjured from two of the most powerful memory triggers: scent and sound. This Christmas medley, played simply and elegantly on a piano, contains several songs that may bring to mind memories of your own.
We didn’t think there would be another holiday season like 2020, but here we are a year later, and in even more uncertainty. Christmas used to be the time when we could, however briefly, return to some of the innocence and wonder of childhood. That feels like a very long time ago, and now I wonder whether we’ve passed that point, whether that will ever again be possible. In some serious and substantial ways, I’m fairly certain we won’t be going back there, and there’s something incredibly mournful about that.
And yet… and yet…
Christmas is nothing if not the time for a last-minute chance for redemption, that eleventh-hour Ebenezer Scrooge twist of fate that allows the year, however tumultuous, to quietly start over again. I haven’t quite given up completely. And that’s enough for now.
