This is something I love. New York at Christmas.

Growing up, I had a strange relationship with Christmas because I spent all my childhood from age 3 to emancipation (at age 17) leaving my mother (in NYC) to go be with my dad (in Pennsylvania). I knew I was abandoning my mother to whatever fate befalls women whose children leave on Christmas. (For all I know she was having an annual torrid two-week affair with the doorman or bar hopping with elves, but I imagined her drinking coffee and reading endless Agatha Christie novels.)

All that is ancient history at this point. As a grown woman, one of my favorite treats as a mother has been doing the whole Christmas thing.

I do not accept that the holiday is fundamentally bad because #commercialism #greed #crappytoys. There is love to be shared, and family to loll around with in PJs, and great food that has no calories because it is a holiday, and even when you find yourself alone (as I am for several hours this Christmas late afternoon), the lessons to be learned are the kind that heal and make us grow. This I believe.

But I will not under any circumstances sanction the following….

1. Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving. I know I share this pet peeve with many others who also bemoan the jingling of bells that nowadays occurs in SEPTEMBER in some stores. And I would add, the premature yard/house decorating that also takes place. There are rules. Santa comes waltzing down from the North Pole ON THANKSGIVING during a certain parade that happens in New York, courtesy of Macy’s. Yes, yes I know. Commercialism. But not really. The parade is a gift from Macy’s to the city of New York as well as every town and borough and country lane where it is televised. They go to all the trouble of getting Santa to make an appearance at the beginning of the holiday season. (There are a few other parades that day, like one in Detroit, but the real Santa is in NYC, obviously.) After that, you can put up your lights, your tree, and start piping in the music.
2. The island of misfit toys. This is very personal for me. I grew up watching Rudolph and was scarred for life (over and over again) by the unutterable sadness of rejected toys living out their lives, banished on some cartoon equivalent of the gulag archipelago. When I was raising my kids, we NEVER watched that movie. If my children saw it, believe me it was without my knowledge.
3. Shitty desserts. Fruit cake. Plum pudding. Panettone (okay that one might not be a dessert, I’m not sure). Springerle cookies. Mincemeat pie. WHY?
4. Christmas songs that are just not right. To name a few…. “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” is about a ubiquitous stalker who threatens all children with barely veiled horrid outcomes. I mean, he sees you when you’re sleeping and knows when you are awake. Does he have a nannycam in every house? Creeper! Every sexist holiday song ever written. Here are two. “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” is gender stereotyping boys as killers and girls as baby-machines. But worst of all: “Baby It’s Cold Outside” = date rape. The whole song is about how he talks over her. And then: no consent. Then: roofie. It sucks.
5. Fake trees. As a toddler, when I first saw a live tree brought inexplicably into the house, I questioned my parents’ sanity (apparently this did happen). But that experience never scarred me for life. The first time I saw a fake tree—now that was just wrong. I now know that fake trees are terrible for the environment, so I can be a little self-righteous about this. But regardless—artificial greenery of any kind is a holiday NO. And when the “greenery” is pink, blue, purple, or silver, with glitter? There is evil afoot.
6. Blue Christmas lights. While we are talking about crimes against the holiday, let’s put it out there. A tree all lit with blue lights is a very very very sad tree. A house with blue candles in the window, or blue strings draping the arbor vitae is a house I do not want to visit. Sorry if you are that blue-light person. I am not.
7. People who celebrate Christmas but don’t understand it. I am not a Christian, but I am all about Christmas. I recognize the many pagan roots of the holiday and I also honor the Christ-like spirit that imbues Christmas with its modern-day meaning. So when people shove you aside to get to the on-sale stocking stuffer aisle at CVS or mutter ugly comments under their breath at a harassed café worker or the holier than thou characters who live their entire lives waging war against the underserved in our society and then make up a non-existent “war on Christmas” because some people don’t happen to celebrate that particular holiday… all I can say is, “Hypocrisy much?” 

2016 was one of the worst years in recent memory if you have a fondness for Prince, David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Leonard Cohen, Patty Duke, George Michael, the environment, human rights, the first amendment, or the US Constitution in general. So at this holiday season, I really have focused on love. And food, I admit, but only because I love food. All the love in the world can cure, or at least mitigate the effects of, shitty desserts, blue tree lights, elections interfered with by foreign powers, dangerous songs, and lots of other things, that matter a little, not at all, or lots and lots. So, love love love to you and thanks for reading.