Xmas

Xmas 2017 Mix

2017/12/19

For the first time in maybe two or three years, I am listening to more than just a couple of Xmas songs. I haven’t been feeling it the last couple of Xmases (I’m still not, if I’m to be completely honest), so watching my usual batch of Xmas movies (It’s a Wonderful Life, Scrooged, The Ref, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, A Christmas Story, Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, 1941, and especially Bad Santa (the director’s cut, of course) has been about as much as I have been willing to do.

Now and then I have made Xmas mixtapes or mixdiscs, but have not really made an effort in that direction for a few years now. A couple of days ago, I did make a mix that I could dub to cassette and play in the car (the CD player hasn’t worked for a couple of years now, so I listen to cassettes instead), but did not put together a proper mix this year until today.

Here it is: Continue reading

Re-post: The year without Xmas (a poem)

2017/11/25

I originally wrote and posted this in 2016—after the election, but before we’d had a chance to see exactly how horrible the current administration would be. Here is the finished version included in This Is Not the Book That Will Save Your Life. (Note that the ‘six ghosts’ reference below is intentional. Although Scrooged is a re-telling of A Christmas Carol, the ghosts are unique enough that it did not feel right to consolidate them into just the three original ghosts.)

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My Complicated Relationship with Xmas

2014/12/23

As I write this, Xmas is nearly upon us. The stores have had their displays up for as long as two months already, it’s been nearly four weeks since Black Friday, and grocery store lines are longer as folks finish their holiday dinner grocery shopping. Everywhere you go, Xmas songs are playing while shoppers shop, diners dine, and coffee drinkers wait in lines for their overly complicated coffee drinks. Some folks completed their Xmas gift shopping weeks ago, some folks have waited until the last minute, and some folks have either made handmade presents or skipped the whole thing altogether.

I am one of those folks who will basically be skipping Xmas altogether. Continue reading