I just finished Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel.

It’s post-apocalypic fiction, and I really liked everything about it. I liked how she shifted around, in time and between characters, and the way the shifts felt more like a relief than like a distraction or gimmick. I liked the way she built the story, and I liked the connections that were gradually revealed. I liked the particular assortment of story lines. I liked the omniscient stuff, when she’d suddenly tell us that character x would die two days later on the road out of town or whatever. I thought about it whenever I wasn’t reading it. I wanted MORE; I was very sad when it ended.

I can’t even tell you how touched I was by your answers to today’s Christmas polls. Oh, wait, I can totally tell you and it isn’t even difficult: I WAS VERY TOUCHED. I can’t explain why, and actually I can’t. It was just very touching, especially when other people’s answers matched mine, and also I think more of us need Christmas pajamas, don’t you? I mean, what is the deal? I seriously no-kidding thought to myself, “Well, it makes sense that the kids would have them and not us, because WE might change size from year to year.” The children are GUARANTEED TO CHANGE SIZE AND YET THEY HAVE THE CUTE CHRISTMAS PAJAMAS. SOMETHING IS SERIOUSLY WRONG HERE. FOR NEXT YEAR WE WILL FIX IT.

I have a half-developed thought, but it isn’t getting more developed by just sitting around waiting, so I’m putting it here. It started when I was finding myself disappointed by my reaction to Christmas songs on the radio. I think of Christmas songs on the radio as SO SIGNIFICANT and SO PLEASING. So why was it that this year I kind of wanted to see if another station was playing Taylor Swift’s Blank Space instead?

I was mulling this and I thought about how special Christmas Radio was to me, that Christmas when Paul was out of work and I was working, and I would drive home from work in the pitch dark, and the Christmas songs would be playing on the car radio, and the Christmas lights were so beautiful. That is a great memory. The songs and lights were so beautiful.

But they feel different this year, and that’s just how it is. They felt different last year, too, and the year before that, and can we be mathematical and realize that the year I’m thinking of as Christmas Songs Are Transcendentally Wonderful is 2003, before I was even pregnant with the twins, and the twins are now 9? Things change. The year 2003 is the year I Really Felt the Christmas songs on the radio, but that doesn’t mean I’ll feel the same about them in 2014. And indeed I don’t.

This is my basic gist: that the things that feel Important and Memorable about Christmas vary from year to year. I remember another year when the Christmas cards hit peak importance: Paul and baby Rob and I were living with my parents for a few months after moving, and my parents had other plans for Thanksgiving and left us there by ourselves in their house, and we tried to pull things together with deli turkey and bakery buns and a can of cranberry sauce, and it fell really flat. After dinner we put baby Rob to bed in the crib upstairs, and we sat in the living room and watched Cirque du Soleil on TV, and I started on the Christmas cards and felt happy in a way I have NEVER FELT SINCE about working on Christmas cards. But every year I wait for that same feeling.

There was another year that a Christmas Light Drive felt So Awesome. The first year we did a Christmas Light Drive, it was the same year Christmas Cards felt so good. We were living with my parents, and they wanted to go to a Christmas Eve church service, and Paul and I weren’t going to go to that and yet I wanted SOMETHING between “dinner” and “presents.” (My family opens presents on Christmas Eve night. When I was a child, it was “Christmas Eve service” and then “PRESENTS.”) So we decided, on what seems in retrospect like something more important and special than Whim, to go on a drive to see the Christmas lights, just to pass the time and make baby Rob drowsy and have something to do until my parents returned. We’ve done it ever since, but there was a year somewhere in there, after the first year but before now, when it felt a word I don’t feel comfortable using (“magical”). It was so wonderful. I thought, “This, THIS is my favorite part of Christmas.” Every year, I wait for it to feel the same, and it doesn’t. It feels NICE! I’m so glad we do it! But it doesn’t match that one year, whenever it was. Just like nothing matches that year when my whole shift at the pharmacy was improved by knowing soon I would be driving home in the dark listening to Christmas songs.

Another year, the special/important/sentimental element was Christmas TV. I taped (TAPED) on the VCR (VCR) a bunch of children’s TV channel Christmas specials, and I could just weep thinking of them now: Blue’s Clues, with Steve! Little Bill! PB&J Otter! Maisy! That show with a kid named Stanley who liked animals and had some sort of animals book he could travel to other countries with! But do I watch that tape now—or rather WOULD I, if we had a VCR? Well…no. It’s not the same.

One year it was baking. I remember sipping a Cool Proofy Drink in the kitchen while making little plates of assorted treats to hand out. It was so free and improvised! I did what I wanted! I acted on whims! I baked some brownies, and then I made some fudge, and then I dipped some Oreos in melted mint-chocolate chips, and then I made some pretzel-M&M things. It was fun! I was doing my thing! I would do it every year!! …I’ve never done it since.

The most recent example of this is the movie Love Actually. The first year I watched it, I was a little less than fully impressed: I’d heard so much about it, and it was fine, but I had trouble keeping track of the characters. The next Christmas, I watched it again and liked it better now that I knew better who was who. I don’t know which Christmas it was that I felt almost TRANSPORTED by it: third? fourth? But I know it’s never quite been like that again. That was the year I thought, “I will watch this EVERY CHRISTMAS.” And I have. But not to the same effect.

Just as there are highs, there are lows. Last year I watched Love Actually and I was bothered way more than other years by the weird political scene where Hugh Grant stands up to a seedy, molesty American president played by Billy Bob Thornton, and we’re supposed to think less of Natalie because she’s…caught standing close to him. Why is that in a romantic Christmas comedy? And the many, many fatness slams! Beautiful Emma Thompson is the fat wife, even though she’s thinner than most of us. Aurelia has a fat sister (thinner than many of us), who is of course also unpleasant and rude and unmarriageable and acceptable to mock, unlike thin Aurelia: if we saw Aurelia’s fat sister, we’d understand why Aurelia turns down sweets. Eating and not being skinny, GROSS. Aurelia also tells her employer COLIN FIRTH that he’s getting fat. Beautiful wonderful Natalie is three times referred to as fat and/or as having fat thighs. “The chubby one?,” the thin assistant asks, when Natalie’s name is mentioned. Oh, but Keira Knightley, BEAUTIFUL Keira Knightley whose jaw is like a jutting sharpened blade, who looks as if she could and would tear the flesh from your bones! SHE is the obvious feminine ideal!

I wasn’t even going to watch it this year, then. I’d come to terms with Christmas cards being less fun than that one year. I was actively coming to terms with Christmas music on the radio being less magical than it was that one year. But I thought it might be over for Love Actually, until I watched it tonight with a glass of spiked diet Coke and everyone else in the house asleep. I fast-forwarded the political parts (again, what are those doing in a light romantic holiday movie? can we not just watch him dance to Jump for My Love and call it a day, without watching someone’s lying-awake fantasy of what they should have said and how it would have left their opponent speechless?). I re-wound and re-watched the part where Emma Thompson confronts Alan Rickman, and I have more to say about their relationship later, but tonight’s relevant information is that I finally, finally figured out the words Alan Rickman says before calling himself a fool (“I am so in the wrong”). I re-wound the part at the end where everything wraps up to repeated triumphant music themes and the screen starts dividing. And I enjoyed it again, and I plan to watch it again next year.

My point is that different things are wonderful in different years. Some years are Christmas song years. Some years are Christmas movie years. Some years are Christmas card years. Some years are Christmas cooking years. Some years are Christmas shopping years. Some years are Christmas light years, or Christmas book years, or gingerbread house years, or Christmas TV show years, or Christmas family years, or Christmas sitting-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-with-a-fractious-baby-and-feeling-dreamy-about-the-lights years. Things that were wonderful one year night not be wonderful the next year, and they don’t have to be.

Some Christmas polls, for those of us who (1) celebrate Christmas (2) and yet are not doing anything right now. [These don’t seem to come through the RSS feed—must be something to do with the nature of poll-voting.]

[yop_poll id=”7″]

 

[yop_poll id=”9″]

 

[yop_poll id=”10″]

 

[yop_poll id=”11″]

 

[yop_poll id=”12″]

 

[yop_poll id=”13″]

 

I made the mistake of looking at the comments on a YouTube video (WHY? WHY DO PEOPLE DELIBERATELY HAVE THOSE INTERACTIONS WITH EACH OTHER??), but saw something surprising. Someone made a remark, and someone else responded in a way that was quite condescending, “explaining” why the person was wrong and beginning with “Actually…” But then the first person replied to that in a very gracious way, saying she completely agreed and had just expressed herself poorly. To which the second person replied saying he was sorry he had misunderstood. And then several more people made remarks along the lines of “A civil conversation in the YouTube comments??? Is this one of the four horsemen??”

Here is what I was wondering: I wonder if it would work to SEED a comments section with FAKE civil exchanges, in order to steer the tone. I don’t mean “Would it be worth the time and effort?,” because probably not. But I mean COULD it be done? Would it WORK?

I notice, as others have pointed out, that the comments sections on this blog tend to be extremely civil/kind/friendly. I’ve wondered if they are civil because they are civil, if you see what I mean: if someone would feel weird and out of place being rude, since everyone else is being kind. Whereas in a rude, mean, unkind comment section, people feel free to jump right on in and add their proud contribution to the world.

So if someone was having trouble with rude comments, I’m wondering if it might work to put in some fake civil ones. Perhaps put a civil/kind disagreement near the top. If it were worth the effort, I wonder would it WORK? (NOT THAT I DO THAT HERE. AHEM.)

One of the best parts of having a blog, I think, is that if I get stuck on almost ANY topic, there is SOMEONE who will know the answer.

William is taking Spanish 1 this year, and he likes it. He just added “Spanish-English Dictionary” to his wish list, probably not realizing that’s the sort of thing I would have bought him for free. Ha ha, sucker.

What I am wondering is if anyone can recommend a good one. I emailed his Spanish teacher and she recommended the Merriam Webster dictionary. I tried reading the reviews on that one and a couple of alternatives, and it got exhausting: everything from “THIS IS THE ONLY DICTIONARY YOU WILL EVER NEED” to “THIS IS THE WORST POSSIBLE CHOICE,” all on the same book.

William added three clarifying remarks to his request; he wants the dictionary to have:

(1) direct translation
(2) synonyms/antonyms
(3) sample sentences

I don’t know if those are reasonable requests or not. Ack, so last-minute.

I have so many things to say.

FIRST, on the post about what to do with leftover cards, velocibadgergirl commented that she and a friend SWAPPED their leftovers, so then they both had new cards to send! Isn’t that a great idea??

SECOND, I am feeling my annual Mood Swings Before Christmas. Yesterday morning I was so high I wondered if I should perhaps be concerned. I think it was happiness after spending time with some of my favorite people this past weekend, combined with exhilaration over a couple of gift decisions and the ordering of them, combined with satisfaction about being on schedule but ALSO the slight stress of having more to do. Anyway, I felt GREAT.

And then yesterday evening, the inevitable crash. I was working on Christmas cards, and I just…deflated. I felt like the house was falling apart while I tried to keep up with rituals that suddenly seemed pointless; I felt in advance the post-Christmas blues where suddenly nothing is special anymore AND there’s a backlog of chores. I felt like as usual I was doing EVERYTHING and Paul was doing NOTHING, AND as if that were my own fault for (1) not asking him to and (2) not really actually wanting him to, because I am happier if I feel low-level resentment, and this made me feel like I am a hard person to live with and it’s so frustrating to be halfway through life but to have made so little progress on Personal Growth. I felt responsible for the impossible task of making the children’s Christmas a happy one. I felt like no one ever listens to me and I have to constantly tell people to do even the most basic things such as taking their OWN clothes out of the bathroom after a shower, or picking up something if they knock it to the floor. I felt like I couldn’t sit at my dining room table and work on cards ON BEHALF OF THE WHOLE FAMILY without that same whole family bothering/interrupting me every 5 seconds. I felt like I was failing at doing Christmas activities with them, AND failing to keep up with the baby name blog, AND failing to do all the gift idea posts I’d intended to do on this blog. (If you click the “gift ideas” category, which I now can’t find in the margin, SIGH ANOTHER FAILURE, you can at least get PREVIOUS years’ ideas, but not sorted or anything, you’ll just have to slog through pages of them.) Also I still haven’t chosen a salt winner OR updated on the red mixer and AAAAAAAAAAAAAGH.

Well. It was not good. But I think this happens every year, because I feel like I recognize these complaints and exhilarations. Going to sleep helped a little bit last night, and this morning I have eggnog in my coffee. (The trick is to use quite a bit—like, 1/5th of the mug should be eggnog. And heat it up a little in the microwave first, so that it doesn’t cool the coffee too much.)

HERE IS MY QUESTION: What do you do with your leftover holiday cards? I mean, not if you get them custom printed with photos and the year right on it. In that case, presumably you save them forever because they are useless and yet also too good to throw out. What I mean is if you use boxed cards, where you bought 5 boxes of 10 cards but you needed 47 cards, or you bought 5 boxes of 20 cards but you needed 91 cards, or you bought one box of 16 cards but you needed 12 cards. Here is what I do with the extra cards from previous years:

1. Use them to save me when I accidentally have too FEW cards (bought 5 boxes of 10 cards but needed 53 cards)

2. Use them for teachers, mail carriers

3. Theoretically but not actually: use them for new additions to the card list

4. Actually: save them year after year in the Christmas card box, getting increasingly weird about not wanting to “use them up”

I was thinking what I OUGHT to do is periodically have a Leftover Cards Year when I send out NOTHING BUT LEFTOVERS. Most recipients would end up with cards they’d received in previous years, but (1) would they notice? and (2) would they care? If I got the same card two years in a row, I think I’d think vaguely, “Oh, that card looks familiar—I wonder if I got it from someone else?” It would have to be Quite Distinctive for me to notice. (The third year, I might notice.) And if I DID notice, I think I’d think, “Ah: the leftover card issue.”

This is my favorite post to work on of the WHOLE YEAR.

I buy five wall calendars each year: one for the kitchen (the main one where I write appointments and so forth); one for next to my desk (for all blog/computer-related stuff); and one for each of the three kid rooms.

I’ve bought one calendar already:

Pusheen the Cat calendar. I bought this back in MAY, which is completely atypical (I usually don’t even THINK of ordering anything until I’m working on this post in December), but Pusheen is so huge at our house I KNEW we’d want one and I was worried it might sell out. This might be the kitchen/family/main calendar this year, because I know it’s one we’ll all like, and because I think there might be fighting if I try to choose which kid room gets it.

Lunar calendar. This glows in the dark, which seems especially nice for a kid room—and they don’t write on their calendars, so it doesn’t matter that the background is black. (A reviewer remarked that you CAN write on it with silver Sharpie marker.)

Pocket Pigs calendar. Two strong selling points: the review I THOUGHT said “Good quality pigs” (it actually said “Good quality, lovely pigs”—meaning presumably that the calendar is of good quality, not the pigs) and the words “pocket pigs.”

Hedgehogs calendar. HEDGEHOGS.

Hyperbole and a Half calendar. I loved this book so much that when I saw there was a CALENDAR I thought “That’s it: office calendar decided.” But when I looked at the sample pages and considered having each of them up for a full month, I thought maybe I’d rather re-read the book.

The Mathematics calendar. I bought this for Paul as usual. It has a math problem on each day. He takes the calendar to work and he and his geek friends work on it.

Farmer’s Market calendar. I had this one for 2014. A very satisfying calendar. I’m thinking of framing some of the pages.

David Olenick calendar. I like it! It has the “I’m not sure I want to experience the same joke for a whole month” issue, but the kids might like that.

Treehouses of the World calendar. This one tempts me every year.

Wild Bird Woodcuts calendar. I like this one, maybe for the kitchen or maybe for my office (Elizabeth, looking at the shelf of knickknacks on my desk shelf: “What’s with all your…BIRD stuff?”).

Art of Andy Warhol calendar.

Caterpillar calendar. This makes me feel a little sentimental about Toddler Rob, who lovvvvved construction vehicles.

Zoo Portraits calendar. I love it. This is a finalist for me.

Animal Portraits calendar. This one too.

This is London calendar. This is another I consider every year, along with This is Paris, This is New York, and now This is Australia.

Lotta Jansdotter calendar. Finalist for next to my desk. The last two years I’ve had a vintage wallpaper calendar, and this seems similar.

Clueless calendar. TEMPTING.

Classic Bicycles calendar.

World Travel Vintage Poster calendar.

American Cities Vintage Posters calendar.

Things Come Apart calendar. This would be great for one of the kid rooms.

The Colors of Fashion calendar. I am not even what I’d call INTERESTED in fashion, and yet I think this would be fun to look at.

New Yorker Covers calendar. Finalist for kitchen or desk.

Rob Ryan calendar. I like the papercuts very much, but the sayings are not my style.

Flower Recipe calendar. A clever and pleasing concept.

Tiffany calendar. So pretty.

Cats in Sweaters calendar. Elizabeth will want this one, I’ll bet.

Maddie on Things calendar.

Hieronymus Bosch calendar. WHAT AM I EVEN LOOKING AT.

A Fishing Lure Every Day calendar. A fishing lure EVERY DAY.

Dena calendar. Oh, wow, that is FANCY. It doesn’t have enough writing room to be the kitchen calendar, but definitely a possibility for my desk.

Fruit Crate Labels calendar. This is the kind of decor I have in the kitchen, so it would go well. On the other hand, because this is the kind of decor I have in the kitchen, it might feel a little boring.

1950s Patterns calendar. This is so similar to the wallpaper calendar I’ve had two years in a row, I’m not sure I want to do it—but these are so exactly the kinds of patterns I like, and THIS year’s wallpaper calendar was a bit of a disappointment so I feel this would be an opportunity for a redo.

Mid-Century Modern Wallpaper calendar. Another option.

Historic San Francisco calendar. I saw these historic calendars for a BUNCH of places.

Foxes calendar. I still love foxes.

Vintage Postcards calendar. I also still love postcards.

Maisy calendar. Oh, Maisy! I miss Maisy!

Minecraft calendar. We had one last year and it was popular; if I remember correctly, we had to flip a coin to decide which kid room got to have it. Maybe this year we could do it for another kid room.

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And as always, I am interested to know what calendar YOU are choosing for 2015, if you still use a calendar and get to choose it!

My sister-in-law and my sister-in-law-in-law and I like to go to a Holiday Performance each December: a concert or a musical or a play or the Rockettes or something. Last year I saw my sister-in-law’s great holly-leaf/berry earrings and realized that I needed Christmas earrings, so over the past year I’ve been working on that. First I bought these:

It’s so hard to tell size from a picture, isn’t it? And then it’s hard to describe it: one person’s “small” earring is another person’s “large.” I consider them small/medium. The tree part (not including French hook) is almost exactly from the tip of my finger to the end of the first knuckle.

 

Next I bought these:

At first I thought I only wanted ONE pair of decorated-Christmas-tree earrings, but (1) it turns out I don’t like many other types (so far I haven’t seen any stockings, snowmen, or Santas I want), and (2) these are quite different in style, and (3) I JUST WANTED THEM OKAY. The first pair is foil/glitter/jewel/gold; this pair is silver/enamel. They’re a little smaller than the first pair: the tree part of the earring goes from the tip of my finger to the top of the first knuckle.

 

 

After a lot of waffling, I bought these:

I’m still not even sure they’re my style. But they went on a good sale, and they DID keep catching my eye again and again, and I DID want more than just Christmas-tree-shaped earrings, so finally I bought them. They’re a little shorter than the first pair of tree earrings, but because they’re twice as wide they seem medium-sized to me rather than small/medium.

 

Then on a shopping trip with my sister-in-law and sister-in-law’s sister, I bought these:

They’re by Sienna Sky, and I hope they come back into stock soon because these are the ones I MOST wanted to recommend. I’d thought my plan was to wear Christmas earrings the whole month of December, but it turns out I still feel a little funny wearing the tree/wreath ones (not WRONG, just NOT INCLINED). But the car bringing home a Christmas tree is EXACTLY what part of the year it is now! PRE-Christmas! Christmas PREP! These are the smallest of the earrings: the tree and car together are only as big as my thumbnail. And they’re made of a very light material, if heavy earrings bother your ears: it’s like they’re laser-carved out of…curved…I don’t know. But they’re very light. Sleigh with tree are pretty cute, too. Or cardinals sitting in wreaths. Or mittens. Or Christmas moose. Or snowboarding polar bears. Or candy canes. Or Rudolph. Or, okay, I guess I DO like these snowman earrings. But I think the car/tree ones were the BEST.

 

But nothing I’d bought seemed to have the over-the-top glitz and glamor I wanted for a Christmas SHOW. I have a gold sequined tank top I’m going to see if I can make work (my money is on “no”), and not a single pair of these earrings can stand up to GOLD SEQUINS. So this weekend I tried Claire’s, and THAT is what I am talking about: I bought one set of six pairs of dangle earrings that look like big Christmas lights, and for Elizabeth one set of stud earrings that look like little shiny holiday bows:

They were supposed to be $10.50 per 6-pack, but they were having a “nothing over $5” sale so I got all 12 pairs for a total of $10 and was very very pleased. I looked for them online so I could link to them, but they weren’t on the site. Elizabeth can wear the little bows if they don’t bother her ears, and I am looking forward to mixing and matching the bulbs.

I am wondering if any of you are in possession of a KitchenAid mixer in Candy Apple Red. Not Empire Red, but Candy Apple Red. My parents are considering buying one, but they can’t see it in person anywhere, and my mother’s feelings about the color red remind me of when Jess Loolu said her florist said she’d never met anyone with such a narrow definition of purple. (“Hm,” said my mom disapprovingly, looking at a picture of the mixer, “It looks like it might be more CHERRY.”)

Adding to the problem is this sort of thing:

Notice that three of those are supposedly Empire Red and one is supposedly Candy Apple Red, but I see four different shades of red.

So I have come up with an idea, and it is an idea that will be a huge pain in the butt for someone. I think someone who has a Candy Apple Red KitchenAid mixer should go to a store that has paint chips, get all the red ones from several different major brands of paint, bring them home, hold them up to the mixer, and tell us WHICH paint colors from WHICH brands are closest to representing the color. In fact, maybe EVERYONE with a colored KitchenAid mixer should do this, and we can build a whole DIRECTORY of KitchenAid mixers compared to ALL the different brands and shades of paint! …Well, for now maybe just the Candy Apple Red.

Update: My mom found the comments very helpful, enough to make her willing to risk ordering one. So SWISTLE will do the paint-chip task, for the benefit of future shoppers!