christmas is a choice

From November 27th onward each year, the Christmas station remains alight on my dashboard as I drive up the 110 to the 5 to the 134 to the 210, etc. It feels outrageous and furtive, most days, to be singing along to Andy Williams or Nat King Cole crooning about roasting chestnuts or sleigh bells in the snow whilst I drive with windows down in the mid-60s on a perfectly sunny day, the freeways lined with slightly yellowed palm trees the only notable clue as to which season it is. You see, growing up in Chicago, there was no question as to the duty, the downright imperative of Christmas. After all, one’s very breath exhaled an inverted pine tree shape each slate gray December morning. The sidewalks were lined with dangerous Dickensian planes of ice, alpine slops of snow plopped atop each gate and step. School called off for snow days were play days sent from heaven - we rushed outside to compose snowmen sonatas and rushed back inside to line the bannisters with wet socks and mittens before slurping hot chocolate next to a brightly-lit tree. Christmas - or the celebration of the winter solstice - was baked in to the environment.

But here in Los Angeles? Christmas is a choice. It’s a mindset. It can be absolutely and wholly ignored, and in my December 25th birthday heart that is thoroughly unacceptable. Here in LA, I go to Christmas, whereas in, say, London, it comes to you. Now, as a mother, it’s a near-manic (and yet on the outside? absolutely chill) race to make it real. Reservations for a restaurant that invites table-side caroling trios. Tickets to the Nutcracker for a 4 year old boy that will require a Christmas Miracle for him to remain seated. Outdoor holiday singalongs on a 68-degree day with a Santa in a cumbersome suit, beads of sweat sledding across his upper lip. Finding the public park who received enough funding to have 50 tons of snow dumped into it for kids to craft snowballs. An al fresco (ugh) holiday marionette show. And most crucially, the annual Christmas trip to our local mountain range for sledding, snow tubing, and skiing (the only admissible way to Noel!!!!).

It’s now December 12th, exactly when I start feeling a (twinkle-lit) tide of anxiety of the celebrations being nigh halfway over. The most fun is yet to come in the upcoming 12 days, but I rue even being this deep, having not yet even made a SINGLE CHRISTMAS COOKIE!!!! Do I sound insane?!???!!!!????!!! I JUST BOUGHT FAKE SNOW ONLINE TO CRAFT HEAVY BOOT IMPRINTS LEADING TO THE TREE FOR MY CHILDREN TO GASP AT ON CHRISTMAS MORNING — THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!!!! I am going for a Master’s degree in WONDER!!!!!!!!!!!

The whole thing is all so delightful and fun it must never end, and of course by its nature it ends and only comes once a year, which is the actual devastation of the holiday!!!!!!! I am such a self-imposed romantic about Christmas, such an absolute Yuletide Pollyanna, I recall at around age 8 looking in my mom’s closet for something to play dress-up in and spotting a pile of wrapped presents with “LOVE, SANTA” annotations in the back corner. Wide-eyed, I pulled the string light to click the lightbulb off and backed away from the closet, shaking my head, shaking it so hard I willed the memory to unstick itself from the grooves of my hippocampus and be gone, like a one-of-a-kind and never-to-be-seen-again snowflake. My parents didn’t buy those gifts, Santa did, and I’ll be damned if I let any proof* get in the way.

*I did not go on to major in any scientific field

In other news? I booked that literal NUT JOB I wrote about in my last newsletter (the paid version, which you can sign up for here!).

Almost better than booking was booking a job that required spending the entire day sitting on a couch in a robe and a face mask. Not having to worry about sweating through my shirt or tightening my abs for hours on set?! What am I, paying you?!

(There was a perfect moment in the “WALK FOR CANCER” episode of Pen15 when Maya’s new boyfriend spoons her, his hands gently landing on her stomach which led to the most hilariously earnest split-second of television that I have never before seen represented: Maya frantically sucking her stomach in, accompanied by the belabored surround-sound of her sharply inhaling her flesh back to its acceptably concave position. Most women who have been body-insecure at some point in their love life is so ghastly familiar with this exact moment, the absolute hell of a sexual interest touching your most pendulous spot, in the position where the stomach should feel its most free (“Everything Your Crush Touches Should Be Rock Hard!!!!” -Cosmopolitan, June 2003).)

Some extremely exciting career news coming in the paid version (5 bucks a month! nbfd) of this newsletter in just a few days, plus an insanely (sry it’s just true) good last-minute capsule collection gift-guide for the harder-to-buy-for folks in your life. Plus a curated December playlist? What are you waiting for??

For my birthday, consider sharing this newsletter with the #Yuleheads you love. They deserve to feel understood.

Also, please send me pictures of you in the snow you find yourself surrounded by, ye who live in the real lands of Christmas. I am with you in snowy spirit.

Much merriment and magic to you and yours ~!