Some Thoughts As We Enter the Holidays

The Essay I'd Want to Read if I Was Stuck in an Airport, or Avoiding Family in the Bathroom

Well hello there!

Last week, I said that I was going to take the week off and share some quotes from past essays. Surprise, surprise - I changed my mind.

I’ve been trying to take a week off for quite a while. The timing never feels right. I always end up having something to say.

And with today being Thanksgiving Eve, you better believe I have some things to say.

This is not a post about gratitude or the joy of being with loved ones. Both of those things are wonderful. But that’s not what this essay is about. 

These are my meandering, authentic, wild cozy free thoughts as we enter the holiday season and spring towards 2024. This is what I would want to read if my flight was delayed, or if I was hiding from distant relatives in the bathroom.

Some Phrases to Employ

“That’s such a strange thing to say to me.”

Another phrase I saw somewhere and now can’t find the link for  - “Why did you say to me?”

And some of my favorites from the comment section for the video above:

• “Did you mean to say that out loud?

• “Was that meant to be helpful or hurtful?”

• “I wonder why you felt the need to say that to me.” 

What if this was a reality TV episode? 

I recommend saying that one to yourself, no out loud.

On this Tuesday’s episode of We Can Do Hard Things, Roxane Gay talked about her love of reality TV. Yes, THE Roxane Gay loves reality TV! It makes me feel better about myself too. Here’s an excerpt from the episode.

GLENNON DOYLE: adrienne maree brown just told me this thing that blew my mind. She was trying to make me feel better about it, and she said, “I think people who try really hard to be good all the time love reality TV because it’s just a bunch of people just not trying to be good.” It’s just freedom from being good.

ROXANE GAY: Yes. That’s part of the appeal, for sure. And also I just love the messiness of it all. People who always say what they want, exactly when they want. Now we know now of course it’s all edited and orchestrated, but whatever, give me my illusion. And it’s just pretty people behaving badly. Yes, give me more. Or if it’s competitions, yes, I want to see people race around the world and try to win $1 million, or yes, put a bunch of fairly attractive people on a deserted island in the South Pacific, and let’s see what happens. Hijinks ensue. I just love it. I love sort of feeling like I’m on the fly of a wall and I get to see all of these conversations I would not be ordinarily privy to. It’s really a lot of fun.

I was at a spa yesterday and people were being very loud in areas where one would expect quiet. I was like, “Why can’t these people relax?!” Which is kind of rich coming from someone who is a workaholic and perfectionist. But at least I know how to be stressed out at the spa quietly. 

After being annoyed at these loud people for quite a while, I thought about what Roxane Gay said, about being a fly on the wall and seeing “all of these conversations I would not be ordinarily privy to.” Do I still wish these people had been more quiet? Yes. Did this little perspective shift make my day better? Yes. Maybe it can be a holiday strategy too, if you find yourself in a situation where people are behaving badly.

P.S. I also read the New York Times Style Magazine, “The Greats” edition, cover to cover and it was thoroughly lovely. I might write more about this soon. 

"3 Ways to Calm Yourself Down When You’re Hiding In The Bathroom Wondering How You’re Related to These People"

I’m obsessed with this video. The message, the delivery, all of it. Just pure perfection. Thank you, Therapy Jeff.

My favorite takeaways:

• You don’t have to want closeness with all of your family members.

• You can always take a minute to ground yourself. You can enter the day with intentions of peace and harmony, AND believe that everyone is doing their best, and hold your boundaries. 

What I’ll Be Watching After Thanksgiving Dinner

Gossip Girl, Friends, and Gilmore Girls Thanksgiving episodes. Maybe a Christmas movie. I started watching Christmas movies in August though, so I can probably give Thanksgiving just one day to itself. 

Podcasts I Love About the Holidays 

GLENNON: Every year, we as a human species, we just … we’re like the Ted Lasso thing, we have memories of a goldfish. Every holiday we go into it thinking, “This will be the Folgers commercial holiday. This will be the one where my family gets their shit together, everyone is grateful, and kind, and warm, and cozy.” Then every year, we are shocked and stunned when actually we remember that the holidays aren’t for making us feel happy, they just make us feel everything deeper. So if things are good in our family, then we feel good. But if we’ve had loss, or we have breakage, or we have whatever, then we just feel all of those things more. We are here, sister, Abby, and I, are here to help you through hard holidays.  - from Happyish Holidays

GLENNON: For God’s sake, when it comes to authenticity, family is not the starting place. Family is the final frontier.

ABBY: Yes.

GLENNON: Practicing realness with family is like practicing cat grooming in a lion’s den. If you’d like to practice being real and vulnerable on yourself, don’t start with your family. Start at the post office because being real, and relaxed, and peaceful has to do with going off script. With being a soul, instead of a role. Our families are where our roles are most deeply entrenched.

ABBY: That’s right.

GLENNON: Are you the free spirited, flighty, irresponsible one? Are you the detail oriented, boring, responsible one? Are you the hippy, the clown, the scapegoat? We all have our roles. Families are but a stage, and we are all players. Families are living, breathing ecosystems, and it takes each to do his or her part to get the job done. Notice that no matter how much progress make during the year, the second you walk into your home, you feel eight years old again.

ABBY: Ugh. Every time.

GLENNON: Yes. So does everybody else. We all do. No problem. The show must go on. The fucking family show must go on. I don’t know why it just does. So, here’s what we do today. We stop trying to be the director of the family and we just become an amused audience member. We jump on stage when it’s our line. We let everybody in the family play his or her role without being a critic. We let go of all of that. We stop trying to change our people long enough to see them for who they are and find some beauty in each of their characters. We remember that the reason there is so much food around on family holidays is so we don’t say too terribly much.

---

Make the holidays your own. Celebrate however you want to. Or don’t, if you don’t want to. A lot of authenticity is about autonomy. How you spend the day is entirely up to you. You don’t have to make choices based on other people’s expectations of you, or what you think will make them happy. 

Don’t be afraid to surprise yourself. And others.  Make decisions based on what your current self wants, not what your past self would think of you.

I was supposed to be on my first-ever solo holiday vacation in Sonoma, but I’m writing this from rainy New York instead. I backed out at the last minute. I listened to my intuition and changed course.

And yet, I was still really worried about what my friends and family would think. My kind, supportive, loyal friends who would bury a body if I needed them to*.

*in the mood for a country murder ballad as we head into the holidays? I’ve got you covered.

I’m not going to talk about why I canceled the trip. Maybe I will one day, maybe I won’t.

Julia Bedell

writes beautifully about not having to share everything at once, in a recent essay below. She also wrote an essay a while back that referenced this concept - the title is escaping me. Big fan of Julia’s work and highly recommend her work.

Viability

Another surprise - even if it’s just a surprise to me - I had red wine instead of white at dinner last night. I’m usually exclusively a white drinker. I took myself to this cute little library-themed restaurant. I’ve been trying to infuse some staycation elements into my week (like the spa referenced above), now that I’m not going away.

And one last surprise - which will make people who know me gasp - I watched almost TEN MINUTES of football on Monday night. Ten whole minutes! Taylor’s boyfriend was playing against his wonderful brother*. I knew more about the game than my best friend, who has a football-loving family. She was shocked when I told her that the Chiefs almost won but the Eagles swooped in at the last minute. It was wild.

*I LOVE the Kelce brothers, and it’s not just about Taylor.**  I love their family, I love their dynamic, and I find their stories really inspiring. Highly recommend the documentary, KELCE, about Jason’s road to the Super Bowl, when the Eagles played the Chiefs earlier this year!

**AND I lost it when she sang, “Karma is the guy on the chiefs coming straight home to me.” I may never recover.

Okay, I think that’s it from me. Be kind to yourself. Hope you have some yummy food on Thursday, whether you’re celebrating thanksgiving or not.

And if you’re watching the parade - it’s starting half an hour earlier this year! I, for one, do not want to miss the floats.

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