This red Thanksgiving cactus understood the assignment, and deigned to be in bloom on Thanksgiving Day. Mine is not always so disciplined.
I love how these plants act so quietly unassuming most of the year, then develop their buds (if unassisted by artificial light in the evenings/afternoons) and burst into bloom seemingly overnight. It’s always a surprise – and always a welcome one.
Mom’s holiday wreaths arrived this past week, and this one hangs in her living room. We decorated it for Christmas this weekend, transforming the space into a sparkling holiday wonderland – subdued and simple, but warm and seasonally cozy. It will form a lovely backdrop for our Sunday dinner and holiday gatherings over the next two months ~ an ideal way of making a healthy head start to the winter. On with the weekly recap…
It started with some shirtless male celebrity shenanigans.
Billy Porter’s latest masterpiece.
A Christmas wish list no more.
Kindness cookies from the Beekman Boys and Nestle.
Ahh, those fancy napkin folds.
Holiday, masturbation, come together in every nation!
My bucket is about to burst, and the holidays have only just begun.
Take off that shirt, Shawn Mendes!
Dazzlers of the Day included Barry Keoghan and Steven Sanchez.
My typical first-thing-in-the-morning action after hitting the snooze button is to groggily scroll through my phone to the blog post of the day, copy it, and send it out on my social media outlets, then go back to sleep for another ten minutes. On this morning, I realized I hadn’t even gotten around to writing the blog posts for the day, so I sent out some random memory that popped up on FaceBook then went back to sleep for another half hour since it’s Sunday.
In the spirit of such laziness, I am writing out this intro to a post that will be largely about the past, hence these photos from well over a decade ago. Having reached the point where I could basically populate this blog from photos and stories that have already happened, it seems foolish not to take advantage of that now and then. It would allow for greater presence in the moment.
To that end, here’s a brief list of some of the November 26ths that have come before – and it’s interesting to note how one’s insufferability can remain largely intact despite the tick of time. Happy Sunday to you – click the inks below at your own risk…
On November 26th in 2012, I was apparently much more put-together, as that was the date I premiered the Holiday Card of that year (these days I wait until at least December). I mean… Christ!
On November 26th in 2013, all I cared about was grooming.
On November 26th in 2014, it was all about getting bred.
On November 26th in 2015, it was Thanksgiving! (And there will likely be another one…)
On November 26th in 2016, we raised our glasses of Christmas cheer.
On November 26th in 2017, the spell of Savannah was pulling us all under.
On November 26th in 2018, there was this pre-holiday recap. And this wretched trip to Joann’s.
On November 26th in 2019, ice cracked in clay and the curtain went up on a host of new holiday traditions.
On November 26th in 2020, things got thankful and poetic.
On November 26th in 2021, we presented vibrant florals on Black Friday and Harry met Santa.
Finally, on November 26th last year, there was holly but no ivy, and this shirtless glimpse of the diabolical.
‘Tis the season for nostalgia, for memories blending into the way we might have wished things had been, with the rosy glow of hindsight and the softened edges of time blunting what may have been tinged with sadness. We are at the top of this year’s holiday hill, just getting our snow legs underneath us before plunging headfirst (if we’re daring), onto a sled we hope stays stationed beneath our bellies, careening downhill as powdery puffs of snow thrillingly seer our faces. When you’re a kid, those rides down a snow-covered hill feel endlessly long (yet still nowhere near as long as the walk back up).
There are different kinds of sleds and sleighs, and different types of holiday journeys we must make. This year, I’m trying merely to keep my head above water, or frozen water in this case, and trying to find joy and meaning in Christmas feels a tad too daunting to attempt right now. So I’m giving myself a pass, and whatever Christmas spirit I may salvage will be a bonus. To that end, here’s a fun rendition of ‘Sleigh Ride’ by the Ronettes for some Saturday night sliding.
… because I want that shirt for myself.
Also check out these other Shawn Mendes posts:
My therapist once likened one of my perplexingly over-wrought responses to a relatively minor event to a bucket that had reached its maximum fill level: a single drop would set such a bucket splitting apart. These days I feel that proverbial bucket nearing its capacity, and more, I feel the little things about to start busting all its seams open.
I’ve explained to those around me that whatever grief I’ve been feeling has shifted into a general state of agitation and annoyance, mostly funneled into the bothered brusqueness of being rude to strangers, swearing at motorists, sighing at slow check-out lines, and other signs of dissatisfaction. I’m a little bit angry at a lot of the world, and lately I’ve felt it better to be by myself, holing up in the attic, steering clear of the news, and disengaging from social media aside from the regular blog links that keep this place bookmarked lest anyone forget. Having done so for twenty years, I can do such updates in my sleep, and much of my life feels like it’s on autopilot anyway.
As for how to navigate this tricky terrain as the holidays swing into full motion, I’m torn between channeling Ebenezer Scrooge and the Grinch, and hiding entirely away until the desolation of January – and a brand new year – is at hand.
There has never been a War on Christmas.
You believe what you want to believe, and I’ll pray to keep my sense of humor.
Why do all my socks get holes at the same time? It’s like a collective effort.
PS – Lodge’s in downtown Albany has a great selection of socks are very reasonable prices. I’ll be damned if I’m going to darn socks.
So, the real line goes, ‘Holiday, celebration, come together in every nation’ and it was immortalized in Madonna’s ‘Truth or Dare’ (read: Blonde Ambition) version of ‘Holiday’, but the title of a blog post has to be more catchy than that. Now that we have officially entered the Christmas season, let’s fire up this seasonally-appropriate chestnut.
“Should we give it one more time for the states, girls? Shall we try to have a holiday?”
This song, this video, this fucking time in my life… it all just screams for an escape, doesn’t it? And for all the fuckery that has circled wildly about me like a goddam hurricane for the past forty years or so, I remain the calm eye, even as the inside begins its own swirl. Whenever it feels like too much, I think of this song, and in my mind I dance, while rooting myself like a stone at the bottom of a river. All around me, I feel the raging, the rushing, the drowning… all the madness of a world that no longer resembles anything I once knew.
Alas, the holidays are here whether we like it or not, and acting like a stone at the bottom of a river isn’t going to make them go away (in literal terms it would likely just kill you). I won’t subject you to a lengthy list of links to all the holiday posts that have been here before (that’s what a post like this is for). I will instead leave you with all the links already highlighted in blue for you to peruse or ignore at your own time, enjoyment and peril.
PS – Do the bus-stop!
His smash hit ‘Until I Found You’ harkens to an earlier era, while maintaining the sentiment of love that spans all the ages, and that song alone is enough to earn Stephen Sanchez this Dazzler of the Day crowning. But don’t stop there – there’s a whole new album of material ripe for your listening pleasure, so check out ‘Angel Face’ and all the other offerings on his website here, including upcoming tour dates.
Note to self: stop trying those fancy napkin folds that look so simple and easy when other people post them online. They’re never going to happen for you.
This Thanksgiving post is about gathering the emotional and mental fortitude to find gratitude, as that is what will be more trying this year. Of course there is always something, often many things, to which we should offer gratitude and appreciation, and I’ve always been relatively decent about expressing that. This year, however, things feel a little off, as it’s our first holiday season without Dad, and out of our old home, and all the change is proving difficult. The holidays have, up until now, provided the one moment we usually managed to come together.
And so, a different sort of gratitude – and mostly this Thanksgiving is about giving thanks to all the years our family had in more or less intact form. It doesn’t end, it only changes and evolves. When I think about the upcoming holiday season, I expect it to be different, and sadder, and maybe all the other changes will do us some good. In many ways, I didn’t anticipate being bothered or upset by the holidays, because in truth my Dad didn’t play a big role in the mayhem of this most wonderful time of the year. I think he was sometimes more comfortable going to work or OTB than being home without those outlets being open for a few hours. Not that he didn’t enjoy his family, he simply didn’t know what to do with himself other than watch television or peruse his racing forms. In the last four or five years, his health was such that he didn’t participate much at all, which was just an exacerbated extension of the slight disengagement we all knew and accepted, and which I understand more and more the older I get.
For me, Thanksgiving hasn’t been the same since 1990, which is when our family and the Ko family spent the last holiday season with all of us still alive; Suzie’s Dad died the following spring, shifting our lives irrevocably.
In 2001, Andy’s Mom died on this day, adding another layer of loss to the holiday, and changing our lives again. The holidays grew a little sadder, a little lonelier then, especially for Andy.
But on Thanksgiving, we’d still get together, and my Dad would still carve the turkey, and it was the one thing that seemed to stay the same until a couple of years ago.
I will miss that, I will miss his perfectly-carved turkey, and I will be thankful for all those years we had, while looking for the ways our family might move forward.
Here’s wishing a Happy Thanksgiving to you – embrace your loved ones who are here, and hold tight to the memories of those who are no longer with us.
The Beekman Boys have brought a sense of peace and calm and, of course, kindness, to this blog, and to the rest of the world, since they first moved upstate and started their goat milk business. This year they posted this Kindness Cookie recipe, which I recently made on a dark Sunday afternoon and evening. It filled the house with a heavenly aroma, and looks to be one of the workhorse cookie recipes that forms the base of any Christmas cookie platter that wants to stand slightly apart from all the others.
This recipe uses only dark chocolate, but gives some extra sweetness with its diced dried cherries – a sweetness that is not cloying or too much (as sweetness tends to be at this culinarily-perilous time of the year). It’s a subtle shift into the next level of sophistication, as far as chocolate chip cookies go, and it’s a lovely treat to make in the next few weeks. Try it and see how you like it, then spread the joy among all your neighbors.
The most important post of the year is at last going up: my Christmas Wish List!
Just kidding.
After being ridiculed and lambasted for still posting a Christmas wish list this far into my forties, I’ve decided that maybe the cynical and the grown-up among us are right, and the idea of me being high-maintenance, exacting and hard-to-please needs no additional fuel. I used to think that making a list with the precise links and sizes and colors of things I wanted was the easiest way for people to figure me out, but it’s time to see how well my friends and family have been paying attention. Because gift-giving is relatively easy when one listens and engages with their loved ones.
I’m looking forward to all the pleasant surprises and unexpectedness that this season might bring, and seeing just how well people care to know me!
This evergreen stands in the yard of a neighbor, and is a focal point in our backyard view. It rises high above all fences and electrical lines, and it surpasses houses and antennae and weathervanes (yes, one of our neighbors has a weathervane). Its trunk and branches provide resting spaces and respite for all manner of creatures – squirrels, chipmunks, and birds of all kinds. I see them traveling along the wood like its some super-highway for critters.
Right now, it dangles pine cones like it’s decking itself purposefully out for Christmas, and in the early-afternoon light of a sunset (too early for my preference) they glow against a cloud-scattered sky. Nature’s own way of presenting herself will always best any tree-trimming we humans might attempt.
