November is a whiplash of holidays. We usher in the month with a candy hangover and carved pumpkins on our porches and end with twinkle lights, Santa Clauses, and all things glitter. In-between, there are earth-toned pumpkins, corn stalks, and turkeys. We rotate through eating Kit Kats and Sour Patch Kids to a feast of fourteen separate dishes to eyeing up peppermint cookies and gingerbread men.
Phew.
I feel stuck in the pumpkin-ish phase of things. We put up our tree over the weekend but I’m worried there won’t be snow for Christmas. It feels impossible, when I look out our windows to the brownish grass outside, that we’re nearly a week past Thanksgiving. The lights glimmer at me from the living room, determined to lend their cheer whatever the weather.
I know many of my friends live in places where not having snow is the norm, where Christmases consist of 70 degrees and palm trees, or at least green grass. But I’m a born-and-bred Minnesotan. To not have snow yet, not even in the extended two-week forecast, makes it feel like we’ve jumped the gun, like we’re closer to Christmas in July than December 25th.
We almost didn’t have snow last year, I remember. I remember because it felt almost unbearable, on top of everything else 2020 dumped on us, to not have snow for Christmas. A brownish Christmas felt like the ultimate insult.
It arrived, unexpectedly, on Christmas Eve. We weren’t supposed to have any snow, or maybe just a dusting, until a storm moved further south than they thought or lasted hours longer than they predicted and so we ended up with a properly white Christmas, after all. I remember how ridiculously grateful I felt for the swirling snowflakes outside. I remember making appetizers in the kitchen while playing Christmas music and it finally felt acceptable. How I felt, for really the first time last year, in any sort of Christmas spirit at all.
This year, though, I still feel like the pre-Christmas Eve me of 2020. Despite trading in our pumpkins and leaves for twinkling lights and all things red and green, I can hardly wrap my head around the month of December. Not yet. Of course the lack of snow just feels like a final insult. Again.
I was reading through Sarah Bessey’s Advent guide on Sunday where she wrote, “In these days, celebration can seem callous and uncaring, if not outright impossible. But here’s the thing, my friend: we enter into Advent now precisely because we are paying attention. It’s because everything hurts that we prepare for Advent.”
I wouldn’t say everything hurts, not exactly, not for me this year. The shock of 2020 has worn off, or at least softened around the edges. 2022 looms, even as it seems impossible that we’ve lived through not only all of 2020 but also 2021. March 2020 still feels thisclose, despite being almost two years past on the calendar. And yet the kids will be officially fully vaccinated as of New Year’s Eve, exactly two weeks past their last dose. Miracle of miracles. We’ll have much to toast to that night.
We enter into December, into Advent, because we’re paying attention. We just spent a holiday giving thanks: for family, for friends, for food, for those vaccines, and now we wait in hope. For more light in the world. For healing for our planet. For stacks of presents from pages and pages of lists and catalogues, if you’re my kids. As for me? I’ll keep hoping for that snow.
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Action Item
I think the best action item of all for December is rest. There are a million people and organizations vying for your money, time, and talent right now. You don’t need me to write up yet another one. Give what and if you can, and then rest. Breathe. It’s been a long couple of years.
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Around the Internet
This whole Twitter thread. I would listen the shit out of this album.
Why taking a vacation or even a break over the holidays is actually somewhat terrifying.
I almost didn’t read this piece (late night, tired), but I’m so glad I did. The last two paragraphs are stunning. “I have no qualms about having been vaccinated, whatever the potential risk. I have no qualms about wearing a mask. Life is full of risk and inconvenience. It is in trying to eliminate risk and inconvenience no matter the cost that we create larger problems.”
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Eating
These really are the best chocolate cookies. I halved the batch which made more than enough for us (between 15-18 fairly large cookies), but would use the amounts given to bake enough for holiday gifting.
I’m pretty sure I sang the praises of this Coconut Chicken Curry last year, but since I’ve made it twice this past month, I’m here to do it again.
This is one of my go-to pastas. I can’t eat shrimp, but sub in 1/2 lb. of Italian sausage instead. The sauce is DIVINE. Add in ALL the basil and top with shredded parm. It’s 10:32 in the morning and my mouth is watering.
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Fun Things
I’ve been loving a dab of Cloud Paint on my cheeks.
Sushi Go! has been our family game of choice lately. We are obsessed.
I wore these pants for Thanksgiving and strongly approve. They feel like sweatpants but are acceptable in public and even for holidays. Elastic waists forever.
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See you in 2022, or very close to it. Hopefully with snow.