Category: Nostalgia

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Today I learned: Ded Moroz

This afternoon one of my friends started talking about Ded Moroz and Ukrainian tree traditions and anyway my mind is blown.

My Jewish Family Always Had a Christmas Tree — But Not for Christmas

I had no idea about ANY of this.

We just had Santa/Saint Nicholas, and another one…Black Piet, I think? Not the weird Dutch blackface one, but just a second Santa Claus figure who followed along dressed in black robes (not red) and had the job of handing out the coal to the bad kids (presumably so that Santa wouldn’t have to get his hands dirty, literally or metaphorically).

(Side note: Stardew Valley has made me see coal as a good present.)

I’m not sure if this was just my family’s adaptation of Krampus or what. But anyway, just wanted to share!

Have an amusing meme

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Grief

I am missing my friend who passed in 2023 today. She was a support to me during my divorce, and I guess it’s that season again.

To old friends, absent lovers, and the Season of Mists.

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A bittersweet discovery

I’ve been playing Expedition 33, an excellent video game. (This post does not contain spoilers.)

After I discovered a certain character, and recognized his voice actor, I hollered “IS THAT JEAN DE FUCKING FLORETTE” or thereabouts.

The voice actor was, indeed, Gerard Depardieu.

But I discovered very quickly that he had allegedly Me Too’d some people.

And I am very tired of all this. Depardieu was the voice of my early adolescence. I watched SO MANY French films that he starred in. (If you don’t speak French, think Kenneth Branagh, but less conventionally attractive.)

But with all that said: I’m not going to let it ruin my enjoyment of the game. He may be a bad person, but the game is bigger than just that one fact about him. (And if you draw your line someplace other than where I did, that is your prerogative and that is okay.)

Wheeeeeeee

Edit: My friend informs me this is not true, and I cannot find the thing that confirmed he was, so I will chalk this up to either (a) having dreamed it, or (b) finding an incorrect AI summary and not realizing that’s what it was. But who knows! A

Anyway, sorry for the misinformation!

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Words of wisdom

Many years ago, a college frenemy said the wisest thing I have ever heard. I’ve shared it with a lot of people and I’m sharing it with you all now today. Hold it in your hearts.

This, too, shall pass.

Like a motherfucking kidney stone.

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Unexpected joys

You know, there’s a lot of discourse right now about Facebook and how ugly everything is and the Dead Internet and all of that.

And I definitely feel the pull to leave all the social media tools and stick to nothing but this geocities upgrade I find myself on right now. But I still stay on Facebook, because I genuinely *like* keeping in touch with people from high school.

And then today, one of them sends me this in the mail.

The most beautiful flame-colored scarf.

This is why I don’t leave. The people in my life make me who I am. And I’ll be sending them Christmas cards long after Facebook is consigned to the dust-heap of history; but I’m grateful to the thing Facebook briefly was, that let us get back in touch with each other.

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Traditions

Most years since I had my kid, I try to put together a Christmas/holiday card to send to people so they can see how she’s grown, etc.

I try to also include photos of myself (and, when it was relevant, my husband) because of something Hax said a while ago about “orphans on the mantelpiece” that stuck with me. (See also: “Mom stays in the picture.”)

Some years, I have the wherewithal to put sealing wax on the envelopes. This is one of those years. I’m using a gnome stamp, because garden gnomes are A Thing for me, even though they’re now tinged with sadness.

Started out with the vegan wax, but honestly I don’t think it’s very good and won’t buy any more. I don’t know what makes it vegan; none of this is beeswax.

I stamp the envelopes from the back, so I don’t know who’s getting what color wax. The first wave are all green/vegan wax; after those I switched to purple with mix-ins.

I have a third type of wax, that I got from my mom. She had it in college, and her two stamps are (I think) associated with her sorority. (I did not join it myself, though I did consider it; but it was just not my thing. I joined a different one my junior year.)  You can’t use that wax on envelopes that go through the postal system; it’s too brittle and will jam the machines. Modern wax is made differently; it’s safe for postal machines but it doesn’t give that satisfying snapping sound, or really break at all. It only seals and decorates.

I’m also listening to Christmas music. Started out with Mannheim Steamroller, which I love unironically, and then switched to the Robert Shaw Chorale. We Three Kings and Good King Wenceslas both go HARD. When my TKD teacher died, I listened to the bit about “mark my footsteps, good my page; tread thou in them boldly” and BAWLED. In a way, losing him was a preview of losing my father. Same thing when my closest uncle passed away. So because of that, and because of the general mood when it’s dark and cold, I think a lot about death this time of year.

But I also think of renewal. The dead are gone; but we remember them. My little wax sealing candle in 2024 is an echo of all the fires my ancestors have ever burned. I remember them now as others will remember me, down the long centuries. Listen!

  • The Shortest Day, Susan Cooper
  • The Turning of the Year, Herdman Hills Mangsen
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Surrendering to hope

Tonight I went looking for the thing Sam says in the books, and I found this:

Far above the Ephel Dúath in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master’s, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo’s side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep.

But then I also found this:

https://xkcd.com/847/

The duality of man.

Get some sleep, friends.

Of note:

https://www.tumblr.com/hachama/766361087361875968/theres-also-states-being-called-with-0-or

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The Achilles Cantaloupe

When I was a teenager, I was a total weirdo.

I mean, I still am. But I was then, too. (Apologies to…Mitch Hedberg, I think?)

One year at our big family beach vacation, I announced at dinner that our cantaloupe was just like Achilles.

Everyone stared at me.

Sensing the fact that they did not understand my Galaxy Brain (we did not have memes when I was a teenager, so I am making up for lost time now), I explained.

Earlier in the week, the cantaloupe we had bought was large, but very bland. But the cantaloupe we were eating that night was small and very sweet! So it’s like Achilles, who was offered a long life in obscurity or a short life of glory, and chose the short life of glory.

Short life? Small cantaloupe. Glory? Sweetness.

It made sense to me.