Confession: once upon a time I wore a dickie.

Not ironically, not alone as a sexy costume, and not out of losing a bet.

(For the young of heart, mind, and body who may not know, a dickie is just the collar of a button-up shirt or turtleneck and a few inches of the surrounding fabric, designed to go under a sweater of something else to give the illusion of another layer without wearing the full shirt or turtleneck.)

It was the holiday season of 1995 and I was working the nightmarish shopping rush at Structure (today people may know it as Express Men, or just Express, if either is even still in existence). From my mall-eyed inexperience at the time, it felt like a dream job, but even I got bogged down in the insanity of the holidays, and working retail in December is not for the faint of heart. Dealing with the mad rush of customers is one thing, trying to keep the floor stocked and filled with merchandise was another – and both had to be done in quick and voluminous fashion. This could be sweaty and uncomfortable work.

We were supposed to wear Structure sweaters, which were hot enough on their own, but I had to be extra-festive, wanting to add the look of a red turtleneck to accent whatever red was in my sweater. The solution, without having to sweat like Whitney Houston, was to be found in the dickie. Where I managed to locate a dickie at that time evades memory – was it Jordan Marsh? Filene’s Basement? Woolworth’s? All these places date me, as if the dickie didn’t already, and all were in Downtown Crossing in Boston at the time. Whatever wayward place had it, I fell for the antiquated style idea and got my hands on not one but two (one red as mentioned, and one in a gold lamé for even extra-extra-festivity).

Look, this was a dark time. I was only just learning the basics of fashion, a little of what worked for me, and a lot of what didn’t. Like clip-on ties and costume jewelry, it was a novice’s foray into something that never should have existed in the first place.

I wore it only once, at the store, because I felt like a fraud. And I was paranoid that someone would notice and point out that I was wearing a dickie. Couldn’t get one in my mouth but had one around my neck – the irony and shame of that was enough. (The one in gold never saw the light of day, and I think that was for the best. Much to my eternal disappointment, gold lamé didn’t suit me.)

PS – It wasn’t until this year, 2023, that I finally noticed that Eddie was wearing a dickie in ‘Christmas Vacation’. I had been too obsessed with the eggnog glasses in that scene to notice, but upon seeing that, I knew I had to come clean. 

Wow – dickies and coming clean. It really is almost Christmas. 

Whenever the holiday season threatens to overwhelm, and at some point – or points – it always does, I find it helpful to pause and examine the smaller moments, the simpler moments. Toward that purpose, I look to nature, which can be found almost anywhere, even in the deepest of downtown areas. At this time of the year, particularly in a year as warm as this one has been, there are still berries and fruit and even a few flowers left, such as seen on these cotoneaster shrubs. 

Adorning herself in scarlet berries, Nature betrays her own form of seasonal celebration. Pockets of landscaping and corners of hidden yards reveal these treats if one bothers to look. I seek them out, searching for the tiny breaks in the day that they provide. It’s worrisome that it hasn’t been cold enough to move along the scene, and though that speaks to a greater danger, I’m going to be grateful for the sight, in the same way I was once happy to see roses in December. 

Feliz Navidad! As an homage to the dramatic telenovelas in which characters find themselves in ridiculously-over-the-top situations and love entanglements, Kira and I did our best to keep straight faces (even harder for me) through this nonsensical series of photos. We’ve been play-acting our way through a scandalous series of blog posts for years now, and it’s always fun to get dramatic when real-life has shitted on us drastically enough for the year. This is an escape – as so much of my time with Kira has been – and a very welcome one. There’s also a very important lesson here, one which took me entirely too many years to learn: the lesson of being a completely-ridiculous ass-hat and being ok with it, because there is no such thing as being perfect.

That lesson always proves painfully elusive as we try to make every holiday season the best holiday season, competing with childhood nostalgia, impossible-to-recreate days of the past, and a world that no longer seems to hold the most basic tenets of compassion and empathy the least bit dear. There’s a little more to that than I care to explore in this post, so I’ll focus on the acceptance of imperfection, as that’s where I need the most work. 

Every Christmas, I set out to finish my gift-shopping early, to devise a decorating system and scheme which allows for maximum enjoyment and minimum work, and to have meaningful connections at some point with the people that matter the most to me. And every Christmas, I falter and come up short. 

Every Christmas I also intend to strip things back to basics and return to the original meaning of the season, and every season I largely fail at that too. This year, I’m doing a bit better, mostly because I’ve given up on making it perfect. I’ve limited decorating to my Mom’s new home and the condo for our Holiday Stroll and Boston Children’s Holiday Hour. I banged out this Holiday Card in a quick one-stop-shot with Suzie. My shopping’s still a bit of a mess, but I just need to organize what I already have and figure out the rest. 

There’s always going to be some unexpected drama that pops up – usually on the day of an office holiday party or on the eve of Christmas that leaves someone sore – and there’s always going to be the unavoidable let-down and post-Christmas-morning depression that reminds us the past is almost always best left in the past. Rather than fight it, which often only leads to more upset, I’m going to do my best to embrace all the quirks and set-backs of the season, to go with the flow and endeavor to be flexible and easygoing instead of digging in and being obstinate, even and especially at those times when principle and truth seem to matter. At Christmas, none of that shit matters. Eat the cookies, drink the egg nog, and tomorrow we may diet. 

When the tumult and stress of the holidays begins rearing its unwanted twin-head, I seek out little pockets of respite. A glimpse of chartreuse lemon cypress reminds of spring in hue and scent, and a scarlet stretch of poinsettias provides thrilling contrast. Despite the fiery holiday tableaux, the beauty acts as a balm the way beauty usually does. It calms and comforts the heart, even as the craziness of Christmas approaches with all its noise and might. 

If you enjoy navigating labyrinths of links, this week’s blog posts should have given you oodles upon oodles of rabbit holes and choose-your-own-adventure-style antics. Celebrating the 20th anniversary of this site continues for the rest of the month, so more revisiting of the past will undoubtedly occur before we close the book on 2023. For now, a weekly recap to whet your Monday morning appetites…

The unexpected delight of the Thanksgiving season was this reunion with our favorite babysitter – I was out visiting my brother at the bowing alley before he went on with his band, when a blast from the past brought us back almost four decades.

Thanksgiving was adorned by this appropriately-named cactus. 

All about the nog.(And someone just sent me an egg nog ice cream recipe – stay tuned… I’m like my own worst witch, fattening me up for the fire.)

A full moon fills the heart.

Walk a mile in my shoes. I dare you.

Dispelling bleakness by any means necessary.

Something comes over people the moment they start driving through a Trader Joe’s parking lot. Something really bad. Something really stupid. Something really annoying as fuck.

One of those linkalicious labyrinths I spoke of earlier in the post – this is a look back at Decembers of the past. Don’t get lost. You’ve been warned.

It’s coming on Christmas – rock out with your cock out!

Another linky, labyrinthine experience may be found here, where the holiday strolls of the past are remembered out of sheer laziness instead of writing something new. 

Time plays a part as we enter the last bit of the calendar year.

Without fanfare or hoopla or hype, I present this year’s Holiday Card.

The argument of his book.

Ben Cohen got naked for a good cause.

There were no new Dazzlers of the Day this past week, so send me some ideas of people who might thrill me, chill me, and fill me like a milkshake. ‘Tis the damn season.