I'm a fan of tradition. I don't particularly care what the tradition is, how long it's existed, or what it represents, I just like things you can look forward to every year because I'm an anxious person who craves stability. I'm also a fan of Secular Christmas, because I don't believe in god but I look great in red. Because of those two, let me present one of my favorite Christmas Traditions, the annual viewing…
1. Spend your entire childhood and adolescence in Australia reading books from the northern hemisphere. Pretend that you understand the following things: mint jelly; tobogganing; conkers. Dream about snow. Dream about roasted chestnuts. Dream about mince pies. Dream about Christmas tree forests, the heavy scent of pine and cold. Dream about Christmas sweaters, the uglier the better. Dream about opening presents in front of an open fire. Dream of deep, long, dark nights, and the hope
Like most members of the human race, I love being told what to buy. I am also, in my heart of hearts, a snoop, so I like to know what random Internet strangers find valuable. I rarely purchase any of these recommended items, as Canadian duties and shipping costs on these largely American-crafted lists are often prohibitively expensive, but one Friday in the late fall of 2012, an item on a Jane Marie Bargain Bin…
This post is brought to you by MyEvilTwin, and is spiritually dedicated to the eternal majesty of the late Edward Gorey and also how much we don't like Elf on a Shelf.
This post brought to you by MyEvilTwin. The sixth graders were performing a hybrid version of
The Nutcracker
before Christmas break and the eighth graders, as basically the elder statesmen of the school, were going to help. Specifically, anyone with dance “training” was wanted to choreograph the various numbers. I’d had ballet lessons and wore pointe shoes, which apparently gained me enough cred to be assigned the finale - the “Waltz of the Flowers”…
Every year around this time I find myself aimlessly searching online for Christmas gift ideas. One of the sites I frequent is a notoriously trendy retailer that epitomizes the mass production of “originality.” I don’t waste my time with their overpriced fashion offerings, but proceed directly to the novelty bonanza that is their “APARTMENT” section. Mundane suburbanites need not enter. My visits to the store’s website are never without internal conflict: On the one hand,…
Christmas movies tend to be sweet little bonbons, rich with easy sentiment and warmth. But nestled among the sugarplums lie a few delicious poison apples, stories that shrug off cozy comfort and evoke all the winter bleakness lurking in our brightly-lit celebrations.
There’s nothing like
The Lion in Winter
(1968) to make your own family gatherings look harmonious. It’s Christmas of 1183 when Henry II (Peter O’Toole) calls the Plantagenets to Chinon. With his heir…
Heather Seggel's most recent contribution to The Toast was Class Navigation: On Being Poor. In December 2011 I hung lights inside and outside my trailer. They were asymmetrical and droopy, but it didn't really matter because I never plugged them in. I felt the need to decorate. My dad had died in July and this was the first holiday I'd spent completely alone so it seemed important to cast my lot with the living,…
