Category Archives: christmas

Let’s Figure This One Out Together

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In the Bleak Midwinter

Oftentimes, this column starts as a handful of tips I’ve gleaned over a month, via reading and conversations. I cobble a column together for Dear Reader around those tips, tying them together with an emerging theme. The theme becomes the title. It’s not an intellectual process; it just unfolds. Let us see, together, where this one goes, shall we? I’m curious myself.

This December, for many, was a month of x-treme holiday busy-ness (performances, volunteering, religious services, gift-getting and making, and decorating—which always unearths some cry-worthy old family ornament or photo or child’s art). Many felt the holiday prep time too compressed this year, a full weekend shorter than usual. I think this is why people kept saying, “It doesn’t feel like Christmas.” Or maybe that’s just the age of the crowd I run with. 

With all the socializing, there was much discussion of the Current State of Things, at home and abroad. There was some hopefulness, a lot of apprehension, and less faith in governing bodies and corporations (and people) than I’ve ever heard in my lifetime. Maybe that blasted pandemic rocketed us into not just a new direction, but a new dimension entirely. In 10 years it’ll all make more sense. Like when a presidency or marriage is later re-evaluated in the longer scheme of history. Too soon to tell.

For now: some tips. Then let’s see if we can extract the columnular Theme, which so far remains unclear.

Hang Out with Others if it Kills You
You may have over-mingled last month. But while allowing less time for solitude and wintry deep thots, spending time with the right people is a sane-making distraction at the least, and a whale of a good time at the most. Get in the habit of getting together, no matter the temperature, before that nasty Cabin Fever kicks in.

Jar of Thanks
There is a free magazine available in churches (stay with me here). “The Upper Room,” written by ordinary folks worldwide, has a daily Bible quote with an uplifting personal story from the “ordinary” author. The one for New Year’s Eve was by an American who writes on a slip of paper every day something he’s thankful for, and puts it in a jar. On New Year’s Day, he empties the jar and reads them all. I started mine, in a funky vase that catches the light. Dear Reader can start one late, who cares? It’s proves a lovely way to end the day. I bet it’ll make New Year’s Day a real bawlfest. “Oh, remember that? How dear! Boo hoo hoo.” Can’t wait.

Make Goals, Not Resolutions
Attainable goals. Not, “I’ll go to the gym every day for 5 years.” (Or: making a list of your accomplishments in the prior year can be more fun.) My main goal, if I may reveal: to feel cheery in the face of all manner of reasons not to be. Despite terrible things happening, it does no one any good to feel hopeless or lousy. Acknowledge the event, do something about it if you can, then shift gears. Wish me luck, I’m not good at this. Others are. I’m open to advice.

Lie to Yourself
…in the mirror and say, “Damn, I look better already!” Maybe you do.

Spread Reasons to be Cheerful 
The New York Times, which keeps stats separate from the FBI, calculated in 2024 an actually far lower rate of murder than in recent years, along with other violent crimes. It’s not often you see “violent crimes” or “murder rate” in a piece meant to be uplifting, but there you have it. Now go look at NASA’s Image of the Day. Exquisite or weird, each is mindblowing and broadens your perspective.

Share Helpful Tips
Here’s how to glue different materials together, suggested by a techie whiz kid I know.

How to fix your own devices: Nearly every appliance and electronics device, large or small, bears a plate or panel with the model# and serial#. Take a photo of it. Then go to www.partselect.com, where you can search by brand, model/part, or symptom.

Good Deeds
… are as strong a medicine as laughter. Focusing on others, not yourself, and ameliorating someone else’s situation, well, what’s better than that? It’s even in The Wizard of Oz: “Back where I come from there are men who do nothing all day but good deeds. They are called phila… er, phila… er, yes, er, Good Deed Doers.”  They must be very happy people, Mr. Wizard!

Have and Cause Laffs
Years ago, a colleague’s son visited his grandmother at Christmas time and saw her miniature nativity scene. Upon returning home he remarked, “Grandma’s Jesus dollhouse is really cool.” 

A friend who’s half Jewish/half Catholic celebrates both holidays. When her kids were young, the rabbi from Chabad House arrived unexpectedly. They couldn’t not invite him in, so they all maneuvered him to keep him from seeing their Christmas tree. “Check out our new painting!” or, “Oh look, a bird!” Still cracks me up.

I highly recommend hanging around people who have contagious laughs (Anderson Cooper?), and listening to the recent “Fiasco!” episode of the This American Life (now on podcast). These true stories of fiascos are hilarious. I was laughing so hard I almost drove off the road.  People who drove past me then also snickered. It made me feel we were all in this together, which we of course are.

So, what does Dear Reader think these ingredients create thematically? The pieces seem to be this: help others, and spread good cheer, hot tips, and big laffs. Which we will definitely need in 2025, which promises to be a weird one. How we start the New Year is important; start early on establishing new habits this year. (I began my year with a snowy walk and a nap. Not bad!) Adversity has been and will always be there, as will wrenching stories of ills befalling others.  Our good spirits and good deeds are the best antidote. We are indeed all in this together.  

I have absolutely no idea how this can coalesce into a succinct columnular title. Wait:  I think it’s the one I already wrote; just make it about the year ahead instead of about this humble column.

Tell me about your first good deed of 2025. How was it, exciting? I’m certain it was. Good year, Dear Reader, good good-deed doing, and good day.

Ann Aikens is an author, columnist, speaker, and blogger. Her darkly comical book of advice, A Young Woman’s Guide to Life: A Cautionary Tale, was published in 2023, her Upper Valley Girl column since 1996. Find contact info and bookshops at annaikens.com; her blog is uppervalleygirl.com.

Good Time of Year for Repairs

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As we’ve been snowed in, and will (hopefully) continue to be early and often, it’s a great time of year for puttering. This pony’s leg broke off above the fetlock … 10 years ago? It’s in a Baggie that I trot out with all my ornaments every year — and never deal with — before putting it away in January.

This is the year. With advice from This to That, a website tip from a whiz-bang smarty colleague of mine. “Because people have a need to glue things to other things.”

‘Tis The Season to be Gifty (and Thrifty!)

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For me, gift shopping has to do with the experience. I rarely buy gifts online. I much prefer holiday craft bazaars and going to magical shops like New Moon and Royal Towne Gifts in Randolph, Free Verse Farm Shop in Chelsea, Althea’s Attic Boutique in Montpelier, Yankee Bookshop in Woodstock, a dozen others. Go see the lights in Bethel one night! Lovely.

Books make great presents because they can be re-gifted to friends or donated to charities. I’m currently digging a book by local publisher, Inner Traditions in Rochester, “The Culinary Pharmacy: Intuitive Eating, Ancestral Healing, and your Personal Nutrition Plan.” For the health conscious, crunchy people, and self-improvers on your list, it’s ideal.

For those being tormented one way or another at work, school, or home, let them Snark in the New Year with “The Snark Handbook.” This will arm them with witty zingers. Hilarious. The GIFT of laffs – and verbal self-defense. Sample: “Gee what a terrific party. Later on we’ll get some fluid and embalm each other.” – Neil Simon.

Instead of gift cards to big box stores, try gift certificates at local stores. Even auto parts stores sell them! Your beloveds may want art or art supplies or a haircut or movie tickets or dining … almost any place you can think of sells gift certificates, at the amount you want. It keeps your local economy going and your gifting off the internet, which has sadly destroyed independent shops worldwide. I’ve had stores invent a gift certificate for me on the spot.

I particularly like gifting something to do. Show tickets, a season’s pass or gym membership, or a class such as ceramics, stained glass, or any of the many offerings at the White River Craft Center. Piano lessons, horseback riding, Reiki … any class at all. What about a blank book you give to a retired person, in which they can chronicle their life? Gifts of fun! And really, what’s more fun that reading your local newspaper? A subscription to the Herald … perfect.

If you’ve written a book or are thinking of it, or know someone who did and want to give them a monumental gift … might I suggest the audio book recording maven in Shelburne: Voice Over Vermont. She’s super relaxed, nice, and smart, with the coziest setup (or she can direct you from your home or local studio). Not only is she affordable compared to other, less-excellent companies, she is a fantastic director. Which I promise you need. It’s far harder to read out loud than you think.

And at the pinnacle, there’s the most precious gift, the gift you made yourself.  Pen a song or poem or cartoon for someone. You can gift food, knits, cuttings from your favorite plants, bathtub gin, art, or anything else you’ve created. I’ve concocted uneven pot holders, crooked scarves, sketchy pillow cases, sorry-looking hats, childlike tree ornaments, lopsided ceramics — and exquisite deodorant. Each was well received. For the person who has everything, a calendar with meaningful photos is fantastic. You can now order them easily online (and in some pharmacies), but for years I made mine with actual photos glued carefully into a calendar sold for this purpose at the Pink Smock Shop at Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospital. When you come across these years later, they blow your bean, pleasantly. Tip: hospital gift shops can always use your money.

Broke? Gift a service you will provide with a homemade, redeemable coupon. Surely I read this in a women’s magazine in 1982. It can be a massage, errand, snow shoveling, planting in the spring, or, if you’ve completely lost your mind, oven cleaning. Maybe you could teach someone how to do something. Show them how to make a Manhattan? You can use a low-end whiskey like The Famous Grouse as long as you use top shelf cherries, like Luxardo Italian. Boom.

Honestly, I think the most enchanted part of winter in my childhood was quietly shoveling people’s driveways in the dark while they were still at work, so they’d come home to a nice surprise. Heavily influenced in youth by the “Brownie Scout Handbook,” wherein at some point elves called Brownies did tasks for people (cobbling shoes?) anonymously at night without asking for any thanks (a true mitsvah!), I felt my secret shoveling a kind of sacred mischief. I relished every pass with the shovel, every sweep of the steps. It used to snow more back then, the big white fluffy kind I call “Hollywood snow” falling gently on my eyelashes and cheeks as I did my good deed. I shoveled out a Danish widow who worked long hours at the United Nations. A woman who’d fallen and had her jaw wired shut to heal. An elderly couple. A woman who championed, way ahead of her time, the rights of – and employment opportunities for – her intellectually disabled daughter and others like her. For these kindhearted and hardworking neighbors, it was the least I could do. I hope that today kids get off screens long enough to experience the unspeakable joy that comes from doing a good deed. And knowing their neighbors.

Funny, I’d forgotten entirely about all that. Also this: a decade ago I was panicking on my way back to Vermont on Amtrak. A massive storm had struck the east coast and I had to roll my luggage from the Randolph train station to my house in snow that the plows could not keep up with, a good quarter mile. The train had arrived late. It was dark and the snow was really coming down. I dreaded the final lap of wading through two feet of accumulated driveway snow with my suitcase in my arms like a giant baby … until, sweating, I approached my dimly lit home, stopped to catch my breath, and looked up. What had happened here? What was going on? Why, someone had snow-blown my driveway! I was exclaiming out loud, crying with thankfulness at this great kindness. I don’t generally believe at all that what goes around comes around, but in this case it did.

Well, Dear Reader and your Humble Columnist better get a move on. As you approach the clubhouse turn of holiday shopping, I do hope this has been of some use, or at the least entertaining. Because sometimes in the midst of all the holiday prep and partying, it’s best to don your gay apparel and just … sit down and read the paper. Good prep, good holidays, and good new year to all.

Ann Aikens is an author, columnist, speaker, and blogger. Her darkly comical book of advice, A Young Woman’s Guide to Life: A Cautionary Tale, was published in 2023, her Upper Valley Girl column since 1996. Find events and bookshops at annaikens.com; her blog is uppervalleygirl.com.

Don We Now Our Gay Apparel 

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I remember when there was no VHS, no DVDs, no streaming. It was a very big deal when “The Wizard of Oz” came on TV. If you didn’t catch it, you had to wait another year. There was no way in heck you were going to miss out.

The same went for “Monty Python,” “Benny Hill,” and “Saturday Night Live.” Those shows, aired late at night, forced you to stay up because if a brilliant skit happened at the end and you’d already gone to bed, you were out of the loop at school while absolutely everyone discussed it. 

Point is, much as I enjoy the convenience of watching a holiday movie at a convenient time with my peeps, the devils of video, cable, satellite, and streaming have largely thrown a fire blanket over the magic of broadcast television. Which everyone had been enjoying simultaneously, at least with viewers within their time zone. There was something special in knowing that people were out there laughing or crying right as you were.

Sadly, the changes in TV program delivery meant also the death of one of my favorite publications ever, “TV Guide,” with its crossword, vital information, and wry synopses (e.g., “A light romp starring the unlikely romantic duo of…” or “A whimsical if entirely forgettable yarn about…” or “A frisky reporter teams with a hardboiled gumshoe to solve a…”). Such notables as Joyce Carol Oates, John Updike, Margaret Mead, and William F. Buckley, Jr. actually wrote articles for “TV Guide.” It was necessary for us commoners, God knows, but also taken seriously by the literati.

Similarly, home screening rooms, Tivo, then streaming, demolished the beautiful magic of the shared experience at movie theaters. It became harder and harder to find a cinema, where an audience of friends and strangers sit in front of a big ole screen together, riding a rollercoaster of emotions (“Rosemary’s Baby,” “The Exorcist,” “Sophie’s Choice,” “Jaws,” “Gran Torino,” “Milk,” “Memoir of a Geisha”, “Philomena,” “Hidden Figures,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Moonlight,” “Forrest Gump,” “Shawshank,” “Silence of the Lambs,” “Doubt,” “A Man Called Ove”). Let’s not forget our collective gasps at hair-raising visuals (aerial heart-pounders in “Star Wars,” “Top Gun,” “Crouching Tiger,” “Avatar,” “Polar Express”; James Bond’s hilarious evasive skiing antics; creepy trike rides in “The Shining”; and stunning vehicular scenes (“French Connection,” Bourne Identity, “Stuber,” “Christmas Vacation”—the sled). Nothing competes with the shared experience. Nothing, people! Watching a story unfold in a roomful of guffaws and sobbing … there’s nothing like it.

That Rutland’s Flagship Cinemas has become a gym (oof!) breaks my heart. So many theaters have become magicless businesses — or parking lots. Movie enchantment turned by evil sorcerers into a bunch of bench presses or, worse, pavement. 

If you’re having a blue Christmas, or your Solstice or Chanukah was lonely or just “entirely forgettable,” you are in good company. One in four adults reports suffering from loneliness in the U.S. I, like many, have endured terrible disappointments and losses in recent years. Those are hard to shake off. The holidays launch a tsunami of memories and feelings that we don’t always welcome, particularly if we are already down to begin with.

It helps to remember that it will soon be over, to wear clothes that make you feel snappy, and to make a list for the new year — not a list of behaviors or qualities that you should change in yourself, but a list of actions that might make you or others happy. Or: nice things you did for others, or that others did for you, like a woman in I met at a holiday craft sale who, unprompted, mailed me sewing instructions for a pillowcase. Or things you accomplished last year. Or things you’d like to accomplish, places you’d like to go, in 2024. Ways you can make a difference in this crazy world. A list just might remind you that last year held more wonder than you recall. A list might give you something to reach for, reinvigorate your good will towards men, and make you realize, “It is a new year. It is new. I ain’t dead yet.” 

Never a fan of the term “self-care,” I’ve been seeking an alternative. Maybe “self-sanity” or perhaps “making it nice.” This from the Italian proprietor of Caffé Reggio in New York City, who would say, when he saw that you needed it: “Come. Sit down. Have a cappuccino. We’ll make it nice.” 

Really, no one’s going to dump a big plate of happiness into our laps if we wallow in nostalgia and loneliness. And decency is not going to be thrust upon us. It’s up to is to gather together, make lists, and do something for someone else, perhaps a total stranger. What I noticed this year about “The Wizard of Oz” is that it is ultimately out of their love for each other that Dorothy’s companions become courageous, smart, and full of heart. Love of any kind brings out the best in us.

Sometimes you have to go a few miles to get with people you feel that kind of love for. Make the trip. Or make a new friend. It may not be your holiday tradition, but: home is where the heart is, and family is whomever you choose it to be. Feeling love for each other makes us better people, and tranquil. Go give, and get for yourself, a big serving of THAT.

So at this overwhelming time of year, make a happy list, don your gayest apparel, express your love for your chosen family, and — even if alone — go to the movies. Go. Sit down. Have the popcorn. Make it nice. Good New Year to you and yours.

All Aboard the Holiday Express – Feel Good or go Sleeper Car

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My Thanksgiving column had to be re-written because it didn’t make it into the paper. This starts differently and has minor improvements IMHO. Posted for posterity!

The Holiday Express pulled out of the station in September (Labor Day, Yom Kippur, International Talk Like a Pirate Day, World Beard Day), then chugged through October (Halloween, Samhain, National Name Your Car Day – I’m not making these up), and has now pulled out of the November station (Veterans Day, National Vinegar Day, Thanksgiving).

While some of us have had low-key Thanksgivings in recent years, some enjoyed wild ones. I envy your big-group noise and merrymaking and even the fighting. It makes me wicked nostalgic. A quiet Christmas I don’t mind, but Thanksgiving is supposed to be full of joyful hoots as people walk through the door, with lots of chaos and exploding casseroles.

A friend lamented when his daughter left for college, “Where did 20 years go?” For me it is, at this time of year: where did those beloved people go, those sacred homes, those raucous laughs of holidays past? Those kids all growed up. We all growed up. Sigh. Do you ever wish you were a kid again? Our elders, so many of them now frail or gone, back in charge? 

I looked up “nostalgia” and found the craziest assortment of definitions, ranging from “a sad longing” to, for real, “mental illness.” The latter does make sense. Because if you wallow in a sad longing for the past long enough, you are probably 1. Ignoring the bad things about those times, 2. Experiencing mental anguish, and 3. No longer living your life.

An odd detour in an alleged humor column, I realize. Stay with me.

Alas, many best-loved beings have left the building. Favorite musicians, actors, friends, lovers, pets, family, neighbors. The world seems a giant mess. While nostalgia implies a glossing over of history, I feel that my own generation’s past was, in fact, lovelier – before the major disasters (you know the names) that imperiled our overall sense of safety and trust in humans, no matter where we live. At least in the US, by and large, life was easier back then. We just didn’t know it. The oceans, lands, air, and wildlife now at risk. Homeless tent cities common. And there is so much hate now. Or else we see more hate, due to the devil that is 24-hour news on TV and other screens. I say, some nostalgia is legit.

In our messed-up powder keg of a world, it’s difficult to remain hopeful or sane. Especially as it seems there’s little be done about much of it, by us ordinary people anyway, aside from writing checks and voting. It’s distressing.

But I have discovered this: that making an effort to feel good can actually pay off. It’s not easy sometimes, but worth the attempt. I went to see a magical band at Chandler, helped collect gifts for kids, and baked for a dear friend. I went back to choir. Do you know that singing in groups (even small) increases your oxytocin and other good brain chemicals? Head to a tiled bathroom for some doo-wop harmonizing with your housemate(s).

When you feel good, you feel somehow … loved.  And conversely, when you feel loved, you feel good. If you’ll allow me to wax Cosmic here: feeling good allows great amounts of what some call the Life Force to flow through you. This makes you healthier physically and emotionally. This makes you better able to navigate illness and difficult situations. Energized. Motivated. Resilient. So feel good if it kills you. Hang out with people that make you feel loved and loving. Okay, maybe for now you’d rather lie around feeling like holy hell. Go right ahead, but don’t do it for long. It’ll make you sick.

Like many of you, I always dug Thanksgiving because my mommy put on such a good one and because it’s non-denominational. We’d host people who had nowhere to go, much as my loud family’s antics were no doubt technically embarrassing. The guests didn’t seem to mind. We all laughed and laughed. I miss every single person in those blurry old Instamatic photos, whether they moved away or died or just grew up. In recent years, I’m the person with nowhere to go for holidays. Someone always invites me in.

In an effort to feel good, and in so doing make others feel good, this Thanksgiving I endeavored to focus more on who’s here than on who’s not. I’m carrying that to each remaining stop on the Holiday Express. 

What I suggest this holiday season to you and me both is this: really marinate in communal happiness. No matter how small or random your group, no matter how holidays of years past appear happier in your mind, feel the love right where you are. When at the table, honoring the memory of beings we adored who are now gone, really savor those that are here. Right here. Love the one(s) you’re with. And if you just can’t deal at all this year, get into your berth solo in the Sleeper Car. It’ll be over before you know it. 

Feel good. Spread love. Bring leftovers to someone left out. Or invite them in? Good day. 

Ann Aikens’ darkly comical, uplifting book of advice, A Young Woman’s Guide to Life: A Cautionary Tale, is available at Amazon & Vermont shops. She has written her Upper Valley Girl column since 1996. Find shops at annaikens.com; sign up for her blog at lower right at uppervalleygirl.com.

The Little Engine That Could, Part Deux

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In December, 1,500 toys were collected one by one for the children of our Vermont town’s “sister city” in Ukraine. Once again, our town thought it would be a miracle if our shipment made it. Once again, we gave it a go anyway.

Thought it might be nice to remind people of the good in this crazy world. Thank you to everyone who helped make it happen. Here’s a great little video from the woman behind the sleigh. Break out the Kleenex®.

O Come, Let Us Assemble It    

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There seems to be some pushback this year, in various media, against the “Magic of Christmas.” I understand. Times have changed. It’s not Bing Crosby’s holiday so much any more. Hallmark’s cookie-cutter Christmas movies seem woefully out of touch. (The personal assistant saves the day and wins the heart of the widowed billionaire… again! The guy on the Snow Ball committee helping the down-and-out girl, able to value her quirky ways, is secretly… a prince… again! With the requisite cookie-baking scene…flour on his and her noses… adorable!). What happened to the good stories? They used to be good.

This year perhaps more than most, money is an issue, germs remain an issue, and weather, fuel costs and world events are bringing us down. Power outages have caused many people and businesses real hardship.  Perhaps a creature or person you love died. It’s hard to care much about the Perfect Gift—or even wrapping it. I, for one, used to get very, very into wrapping.

They say nostalgia glosses over the past. Makes it seem prettier or more enchanted than it was at the time. As a nostalgic, who talks to other nostalgics, I don’t buy that. We say it was in fact enchanted. The following story illustrates when Christmas was pure magic. 

I preface the tale with my own childhood proclivity for holiday snooping. Driven in part by our keen sense of smell, my siblings or I would notice something in December when we went to, say, get a towel from the closet. That smell. Sniff, sniff. Why does it smell like that in here? The unmistakable smell of… fun. 

The smell of toys. Plastics. Whatever they pumped into the air in toy stores to make you want live there. That smell was, weirdly, right in our own closet. Let us get a step stool and investigate! Dear Reader knows where I’m going with this. Snooping for presents secreted away by the parents during the weeks leading up to December 25th. Many of them mercifully already wrapped by the grandparents and aunts who’d mailed them. 

On to the story. I hope to do it justice.

My Vermont friend was a little boy growing up with his older brother in the 1960s. Remarkably, their parents took seasonal nighttime jobs in addition to their already demanding day jobs in order to pull together a nice Christmas for their two sons. Which left the sons entirely to their own devices several nights per week. At which point the snooping naturally began.

They found in a closet one year a well-made and elaborate Lionel train set they had badly wanted. Overcome with excitement, they got on the step stool and brought it down. Very, very carefully, they unboxed it. And proceeded to put it together. It was complicated and took a long while. Then they played with it happily for hours. With an eye to the clock, they very, very carefully re-boxed it, got on the step stool, and put it away. Each night they went through this ritual. Each night they got faster at assembling the set, and at re-packaging it perfectly.

On Christmas day the boys could have won Oscars® for the gleeful surprise they displayed upon opening the well-made and elaborate Lionel train set they had badly wanted. They were eager to put it together, this time without fear that they might get caught. The train set was finally theirs.  

The parents were beside themselves with the Christmas Day delight they had brought to their sons. All their hours of hard work had paid off. They felt as much joy as their sons. Their joy was overtaken by astonishment. Look at them go! Our boys! How could our sons be this clever, this talented, that they could assemble the thing with such rapidity? They must be advanced, possibly even geniuses! Clearly, they must go into engineering.

I love that story. I don’t know if they ever told their parents—ask David Atkinson for the full story. For now, it stands as is: a charming, true tale told at dinner one night at a holiday party in Vermont. It brought the house down. Magical times revisited.

The story takes me back to our own childhood. When Mommy would make a huge deal about  snowfall, illuminating the outside lights and opening the curtains so we kids could gaze at the different sizes and shapes of the swirling flakes. When Dad building a fire was a thrilling and special occasion; even the dog got excited. When hot chocolate was made by us children with 50% marshmallows—the big, fat, “jet-puffed” kind—as tinsel clung to our polyester pants and dog, and the parents sloshed brandy into their eggnog. Our hearts soared at the holidays.

Now Mommy is gone and Dad can’t build a fire. But there is still something about snow falling, seeing someone drive by with a carefully selected tree atop their car, children terrified or overjoyed to meet Santa at a town gazebo, and the first few bars of pretty much any Bing Crosby carol. It legitimizes our nostalgia. There was holiday magic. There was. I was there, I felt it. As, hopefully, Dear Reader, did you. If we can’t feel it this year, for whatever reasons, let us quietly watch others feel it. It’s out there. Even if we’re taking a year off ourselves. Good (holi)day to all, with love and memories.

Tip for Parents: Hide the step stool.

Have Yourself a Sorry Little Breakdown

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The doldrums is a nautical term for the belt around Earth’s equator where sailing ships can get stuck on windless waters for days—an apt metaphor even in landlocked Vermont.

For those who get in serious doldrums after the holidays, you’re not alone. In the 70s, as the tree splintered and shed, we’d beg our mother, “One more day!” Understanding, she’d consent to leave it up. I still suffer while boxing up decorations accumulated over 50 years, many hand made by beloved people now grown—or gone. It physically hurts and I go down.

My theory on the plummet’s severity is this: a combination of most humans’ inability to make transitions easily, plus the nostalgia of where one was 5, 20 or 30 years ago—or even just pre-COVID.The holidays are an annual plunge into sentimentality that wrecks some people for a while. After all the togetherness, even if at times fighty, many have to part with beloved people we wished we still lived with, or near, now miles or oceans away. Add to the emotional soup that sometimes we can tell when these people have had enough of us, or vice versa.

There’s something about that pre-holiday hustle and year-end philanthropy. I love the craft sales and transformation of everything from garlanded gas stations to tricked-out buildings. Carols evoke a simpler time. In truth, there were untold disasters and wars and far more domestic abuse back then, fueled by widely accepted over-drinking (think: the “hilarity” of Red Skelton’s drunk character; Dean Martin crooning basted). But hear the first couple of bars of O Holy Night and smell that balsam fir and you are swept back into your own (hopefully abuse-free) childhood or a dreamy image of happier times before you were born. When the decorations left up too long start getting dusty and something—anything—to look forward to seems a long way off, it’s easy to to go into a death spiral.

So last week after a Covid exposure, for the very first time I decided to wallow. None of this Yankee toughie bootstraps crap. No health-giving exercise or efforts to cheer self or others. Just a marathon of self-isolation, sorrow, and mourning.

It was not at first intentional. After leaving family to return to Vermont, I drove and cried until distracted by old radio interviews with Desmond Tutu (an evolved human, yet strikingly down to earth). But then Christmas music came on and sunk me anew, thinking of this very drive I had taken countless times with my now-gone mommy. Once home, I carried inside only my freezable belongings, got in bed, and let it rip. I cried over everything. Loves, parents, pets, houses and friends lost forever. Strangers who got stuck home alone for the holidays by cancelled flights. Refugees. Great people who died in 2021. Awful situations endured both by people I adore and by complete strangers. Sad pieces of fiction I read that never even actually occurred. I ate nothing but old foods around the house. Slept, woke, ate garbage, cried, slept. And you know what happened?

I’d love to say something profound here. But basically….nothing. Nothing happened. I didn’t come up with a grand epiphany. I didn’t resolve to start a new career or humanity-saving nonprofit, invent a climate change solution or clever movie plot. Nothing came of it. As Yukon Cornelius says, “Nuthin’.”

If you bottle it up and never let it out, you’re in trouble. That’s called being repressed. Although I did ask a male friend how he deals with the deaths of his legendarily party-throwing, smarty parents within weeks of each other. His answer: “I keep that locked up deep, deep down inside.” Hell, maybe that’s the right approach. 

The virus and supply chain madness factored in. Due to Covid exposure, I couldn’t leave my apartment for a week upon returning home — Xtreme solitude rarely boosts mental wellness. As for the supply chain, disappointing in December was the lack in stores of favored holiday items, e.g. the annual “limited edition” cookie by Pepperidge Farms’ called Snowballs®. They were only on Amazon—for $19 a bag. A year without Snowballs® is like a year without…Snowballs®. And this year I didn’t get into preparations or meticulous wrapping the way I once did. Threw things into bags with tissue paper. No hand-drawn gift notes. No Christmas cards.  I skipped movies I watch yearly. And all of that, while freeing, ultimately felt crummy. Next year I’m going back to overdoing it. Obviously, that’s the answer. So there’s the epiphany. 

At this time of year I usually suggest one of three things. 

  1. Make a list of what you got done in 2021. You’ll be surprised.
  2. Make a list of intentions for 2022, before it gets frittered away.
  3. Books: Greenlights; A Girl’s Guide to Missiles; Life (Keith Richards); Boys in the Trees (Carly Simon); Good Habits, Bad Habits; Olive Kitteridge, Olive Again, and Oh William; Mobituaries (Mo Rocca); Dodging Energy Vampires; A Girl Named Zippy; All The Light We Cannot See; The Power of Now; How To Be Alone; Joyful; Elevation (S. King); and my personal favorite, A Man Called Ove. Email me for a personal recommendation for you. That’s my gift.

Good repression, good wallow, or good New Year with light at the end of the pandemic tunnel. 

The New York Times Finds Jesus

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Home delivery of The New York Times...to the manger. (The Times is in blue plastic on the bed of pine.) All the news that’s fit for the coming of the Lord?

A friend snapped this on her early morning walk. I can’t tell if the topmost angel is strolling down the sidewalk or suspended in mid-air.  Either is good.*

*Inside tidbit: As I was entering germane “tags” for this post into WordPress, one mysteriously autofilled when I entered the tag, “Jesus learns to read”: Advice to youth in the workplace.  Snort.

 

Life-sized creche, Pleasantville, NY, USA

©Moelino 2019.

Thank you, Jesus!