Don't forget, my reason to be happy #60 was "making lists" and #61 was "marking items off lists." New Year's Resolutions are the mother of all lists. A resolution must be possible but challenging. And it has to be measurable! One of my New Year's traditions is digging out my journal from January 1 the previous year to look over that day's goals and plans and aspirations. It's a nice reflective exercise.
The happiest of alcohols, champagne is the drink of celebrations: babies, weddings, promotions, accomplishments, New Year's Eve. Everything about it is cheery—its bubbles, its effervescence, its cold sparkling in your throat. (One of my favorite drinks: champagne with a splash Chambord black raspberry liqueur with a long, curling lemon peel)."Come quickly, I am tasting the stars!"
~ Dom Perignon, at the moment he discovered champagne
I thought that after what was most likely a day of excess for many of us, it might be nice to return to some basic reasons to be happy. Like the idea that we have clean, safe drinking water whenever we want it—all we have to do is turn on a tap. Heck, we can have hot or cold water just by turning a faucet. We can drink, wash our bodies, wash our clothes, prepare our food, flush toilets. This is not true for many, many folks on the planet, so don't take it for granted.
I don't mean the traditions pretty much everyone follows, like putting up a Christmas tree or hanging stockings. Not stuff like that. But the traditions that are more unique to your family. Like, my family traditionally has Christmas pizza (which started one year the pre-ordered ham turned out to be rotten, all the grocery stores were already closed, and my mom just happened to have all the ingredients on hand to make a homemade pizza. We liked it so much we stuck with it). My mom and I always make candy together every year, too—specifically turtles (complete with homemade caramel) and chocolate-covered cherries. Christmas day typically involves a game of Trivial Pursuit (slowly being replaced with Bananagrams), and a movie. Every Christmas morning, my mother bakes a delicious yeast cinnamon-orange coffee cake she twists into the shape of a giant candy cane. My sister and I slather it with pink and white icing. Last Christmas my niece helped with the icing. What are your family's quirky traditions?
Since friends often tease me about my "dark" taste in books and movies, it should be no surprise that my favorite Christmas special of all time begins with a suicide attempt. I. Love. This. Movie. It never fails to make me cry, and I mean cry—like back shaking, real tears crying, not just mere sniffles. I don't know if the final scene will be as meaningful if you haven't seen the full film, but any given line from it can trigger my emotions. Its message is so valuable, especially in these tough economic times. This is a movie that can remind us of what truly has value in our lives."No man is a failure who has friends."
—Clarence Oddbody
Angel, First Class
Happy Hanukkah! I'm not sure which of my friends makes the best latkes. It's a toss up between Ted and Sarah. I think it would be delicious to challenge them to a latke cook-off. How do you like yours? With sour cream or apple sauce? I can never decide and have to have both.
These photos are actually all of my tree. It's impossible to take a photo of my mother's tree that does it justice. Instead, I'm going to repeat a blog I wrote for Book Club Girl in 2009 in which I celebrate my mom's amazing tree.
My mother is the Queen of Christmas Tree Decorations. Seriously, her tree strikes people dumb. When guests see it for the first time, I can count on approximately ten minutes of awe and examination before any other conversation continues. The seven foot, artificial tree itself is no big deal—what's extraordinary is the 1,027 ornaments adorning it.
You know the one, from the funny, old stop-motion animated movie version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer? I love that snowman. I was never afraid of him (but I was terrified of the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz!). I thought he was adorable. I always knew he'd turn out to be okay. Just seeing pictures of him—or of Kirby the Dentist, or any of those characters from the Island of Misfit Toys—makes me smile.
Perhaps my favorite series ever. Which is saying a lot, given my fierce loyalty and my selective but addictive personality when it comes to television viewing. If you've watched The Wire, you already know what I mean. If you haven't, do yourself a favor and settle in for a perfect winter project. Entertainment Weekly called The Wire, "The smartest, deepest, and most resonant drama on TV." Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that The Wire "has tackled the drug war in this country as it simultaneously explores race, poverty and 'the death of the American working class,' the failure of political systems to help the people they serve, and the tyranny of lost hope. Few series in the history of television have explored the plight of inner-city African Americans and none—not one—has done it as well."
Dreams are so amazing. It's so fun when you remember long, weird ones. I have three favorites from last year. In one, Dexter was living in my garden shed, only he was always wearing pink sparkly boots. He told me, "I'm gonna use your shed for a while, okay?" and I said, "Sure. I love the show," and he said, "What are you talking about?" In the dream I got nervous and said, "Nothing," thinking, "He doesn't know we know!" Another dream had to do with my garden. I dreamed that Chris Hemsworth as Thor and an animated Nancy Drew were stealing zucchini from my garden in the middle of the night. When I caught them, Nancy locked herself in my shed, but Chris ran around my yard and couldn't figure out how to get out of the privacy fence. (Really? Thor couldn't get over a fence? The Avengers are in trouble!). He started to cry and begged me not to call the police. He offered to write me a poem. I'm disappointed with my dream self for rejecting his offer.
My third favorite dream was of Erica, on my marketing team at HarperCollins. I showed up at her office and she was wearing a full body kitten suit, complete with whiskers drawn on her face. She said she wore it when she was sad and it always cheered her up. She offered to let me borrow it.
