I haven’t listened to any Christmas carols, except when they come on the radio - and then I turn them off if they mean something I’d like to reserve them for the weekend. I haven’t done any mall shopping, so I’ve been spared the annoying “rock” songs that we still play for no reason other than the undead hand of boomer nostalgia - Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree, Jingle Bell Rock, and the rest. We expect to hear them, so they play them, but who’d miss them? Who would think “I went the entire Christmas without hearing Jingle Bell Rock, how did that happen? Just doesn’t seem the same.”
On the other hand, I did hear the entire “In the Bleak Midwinter,” played by a cellist who brought a curious and bright hope note to the melody. It’s not a Christmas song to me. It’s for the depths of January. You know, the days when you fool yourself that this is midwinter.
All the traveling took a chunk out of the usual December routines and preparations. There was nothing Decembery about Cancun, even though there were giant Christmas ornaments and a statue of Santa and a big tree. New York didn’t feel particularly Christmasy. The latter felt like a rote display of expected iconography, referencing things experienced in person by absolutely no one. Times Square had a row of booths that sold Xmas stuff, but they were all throwbacks to the small town / vintage pickup with tree / Victorian tableau tropes that have nothing to do with NYC, and probably nothing to do with the lives of anyone who was shopping, but define the Perfect Christmas in the cultural memory.
At JFK I ate at a Shake Shack -
Hold on, let me dwell on that a bit. I am done with Shake Shack. Every visit is a disappointment. They seem to hire the surliest and most indifferent people on the planet. At JFK I walked the entire length and breadth of Terminal 4 looking for a place to have lunch, and the options were either expensive, bad, or both. There was a pizza place, and I eyeballed the offerings: thin and gluey, eight bucks a slice. McDonald’s? Not an option. Ah, a clever taco stand - oh. Fourteen dollars for a taco. Hey, let’s check out the premade sandwiches at Hudson’s . . . oh. Nineteen dollars for a wrap.
My goal was to have a good hamburger at home on Saturday, so I didn’t want an airport hamburger. So . . . with shame, head bent, I admit that I went to Shake Shack for chicken. It was half-cold and assembled with evident contempt.
And this has what to do with the lack of Christmas mood in NYC? Nothing, meal-wise, but: the Shake Shack had put up "Seasonal Decorations,” which consisted of a plaque that said PEACE ON EARTH draped over the PICKUP sign.
Okay. I am now convinced we should have peace on earth and that Shake Shack is part of the solution. Or I would be if one of the employees on break wasn’t talking to her boyfriend and rattling off a profanity-infused recitation of all the things she was going to do to another woman who had disrepected her.
To be fair, JFK did have a nice tree and display.
Anyway, it all snuck up on me. All of a sudden! Christmas! It must be good - nay, PERFECT.
No, actually, it doesn’t. It just has to be Christmas. Natalie hasn’t been home since last Christmas. We’ve seen her twice. In a year. It’s not enough, of course, but that’s what happens when the kid goes away, gets a job, gets a life. There used to be an expectation that the holiday week at home would be a . . . return? Reprise? Revival? Of the old ways, and I suppose it’s natural that it will have something of that character. Everyone in the old places, doing the old things. But I know how I felt when I went home, and slept in the old bed. The Great Weight.
You also thought that time had stopped in the house, possibly because it had. When you’re young you move the furniture in your room around twice a year, maybe, for a new look, a new take - then you go home and you swear that shelf had the same items ten years ago, maybe 15, and all the furniture is the same and in the same place. Of course the inner lives of your parents have never stopped spinning and reacting, dreaming and doing. Time didn’t stop, it just shed the usual markers you share when you’re in the same house.
But! From all signs she’s excited to come home. At CUfB the other day I bought some hot chocolate mix, the type I used to make for her when she got off the bus at 3:15 and walked home (I used to sit on the radiator slab in the living room with the dog, a warm spot in the winter, and watch the bus arrive. Years. Every day. Years) and some cider, another Christmas favorite. I have the peppermint bark, and might pick up some Tom & Jerry batter except I think I’d rather take my calories in seven-layer bar form.
It will be good to have her back.
NOTE: Still troubleshooting the comments problem. I see them some days when the site goes live, and I see comments, so . . . yeah. I ripped up the 2024 redesign tonight, which I always do right before it goes live. It's a stem-t-stern rewrite, so let's hope it all works come January.
That's it! No recurring features today or next week, but there will be bleatage, as always. I'll never leave you in the lurch, wherever that is. There is no city of Lurch. It's a gambling reference:
This expression alludes to a 16th-century French dice game, lourche, where to incur a lurch meant to be far behind the other players.
Dash it all, I seem to have incurred a lurch.
Okay, one more recurring feature. The last one. OR IS IT
This year's old newspaper feature: a social no-no single-panel illustration. Can you figure out what's wrong?
I don't know how anyone could possibly figure this one out. Good luck.
That will do! Thank you for your visits, and I'll see you on Monday.
Oh - and Merry Christmas, everyone! Really. Hope you have the best you've ever had. |
