happy hollydays

I’m a Christmas baby.

It has not always been a holly jolly good time. Most years, December 17 lines up with all of my friends’ family holiday parties. Other years, everyone was at their separate homes for winter break. I went through a Very Rebellious phase in my mid- to late-teens, where I was like, “Fuck this red and green Funfetti I want the rainbow SPRINKLES like EVERYONE ELSE.” It’s always cold, or sleeting, or a level one snow emergency and too dangerous for even the DD to drive back from a night of drinking in downtown Cincinnati. Most of my birthdays in college were spent with a joint birthday party at my best friend’s apartment, because her roommate’s birthday was two days before mine and I spent most weekend nights in Athens, Ohio sleeping soundly* on their red leather couch, anyway.

And this year, my fucking 30th I can’t even, is probably going to be spent in my HOUSE because THERE IS STILL A GLOBAL PANDEMIC. CAN I START DRINKING ABOUT IT TODAY.

Anyway, at some point in my life, maybe around like, 23, I stopped being such a Grinch and realized… I actually love Christmas? And so I started calling the whole season The HOLLYdays.

Now I am out here reminding people on October 14 that it is basically going to be the hollydays soon, are you ready? I’m out here breaking the turtlenecks out when that temp drops to 59 because I am THRIVING. I’m out here blocking calendars for festive happy hours. I’m out here giving my fiancé two separate gift lists and some budget anxiety, I am sure.

I am out here absolutely being that person buying too many candles at Target because they have holly berries (me) on them.

Listen. (Or should I say GLISTEN.)

Give me your VELVET. Give me your BURGUNDY-COLORED SCARVES. Give me your $16 SPIKED HOT COCOA AT ZOO LIGHTS. Give me your STAR WARS PREMIERES (ALSO WITH DRINKS). Give me your CHRISTMAS POP-UP AT A FANCY BAR CAN YOU TELL I LIKE COCKTAILS.

And, hell yeah, give me your “Santa Tell Me” by Ariana Grande on REPEAT until December 26.

This post doesn’t have a whole lot of structure, admittedly, because I just felt like writing and have been thinking about putting up our Christmas decorations this weekend? I know things are weird, and hard, and the holidays will be something different BUT LIKE I WARNED YOU IN POST #1, I’m not trying to write a New Yorker piece about (Literally Trapped at) Home for the Holidays. At least not today… it’s only beginning to look a lot like the hollydays.

That said — here are a few things that are the best about the this time of year no matter what Miss Corona says.

CHRISTMAS MUSIC

As Justin Bieber says in the jingle bell bop “Mistletoe” — “It’s the most beautiful time of the year.”

I love holiday music. Specifically modern Christmas party pop.** The Mariah, the Ariana, the Kelly, the Britney, the Sia.

“All I Want for Christmas” is an obvious choice, but have you ever picked up your cat and made her dance around with you to the “Christmaaaaas” parts of “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”? See also: the similarly titled but totally different “Please Come Home for Christmas” by Grace Potter & the Nocturnals? Have you ever been the only person to know all the words to “Snow in California”? Have you ever had to defend the aforementioned Biebs because, okay, actually the “Shawty with you” parts of “Mistletoe” are ENDEARINGLY terrible you guys?

Aly & AJ are having a well-deserved renaissance with the youths on the TikTok, have you listened to “Greatest Time of Year” lately? Or emo classic “Not This Year”?!

One time, I had a drink and a half and sang the key change in “Where Are You Christmas” and Ryan was like, “Wait that wasn’t bad.”

And you know what? Fuck it, I DO know there are some Glee Christmas albums out there, okay, damn, yes.

CHRISTMAS MOVIES

HAPPY CHRISTMAS, HARRY.

But actually, no—can we agree as collective human beings that the Harry Potter series is NOT a Christmas series even though there are Christmas moments and/or snowy scenes in all the movies and Hermione said, “bring me the satin AND the tulle” for the Yule Ball?

As an elder millennial, I grew up watching the Rankin-Bass stop-motion masterpieces and the regularly animated “Frosty the Snowman.” (Please do not come at me with that “Frosty Returns” bullshit.)

My favorite is “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town” because ORIGIN STORY and I have a weird fascination with watching how the characters age and also love a good “bad guy but he’s actually not that bad in the end” moment.***

“Rudolph,” though, is an undisputed classic. What gives the lil squirrels the right to be so cute?? And Clarice, my lashes queen! There’s also that sleeper hit where the heat guy and the ice guy fight? Good stuff.

A few years ago, I sat through “The Santa Clause” for some reason and must report that although I will never not be here for the premise of regular dude gets Santa powers, it did not hold up. Aside from Tim Allen being a Trump supporter, there’s a lot of misogynistic undertones of making the ex-wife seem like the bad person vs. literally Tim Allen and lots of typical 90s manspeak. (Bernard, though… IYKYK.)

I also somehow managed to sit through the Jim Carrey live-action Grinch and let me tell you … put it in the Louvre, or wherever you put movies that are works of HIGH ART. It is so weird? And so strange? And the fuck is George Bluth Sr. doing there? And also it is so funny?

I had forgotten how much of it my sister and I used to (and could still) repeat—Hate, hate, hate, hate, double hate, LOATHE ENTIRELY.

Man, 2000 was a TIME.

Obviously, some ABC Family (RIP) 25 Days of Christmas classics are missing here. “A Christmas Story” is so shoved down your throat from the second you are a conscious human being, Jesus fucking Christ, that is it hard to “like” it. The JTT movie is meh. On “Elf,” I’ll say that I am lukewarm at best toward Will Ferrell’s existence, and that I absolutely cannot stand Zooey Deschanel, so, pass. There’s a movie where Michael Keaton turns into a snowman? Did I dream that? I think I am here for that.

I don’t watch the Lifetime things. I haven’t seen the Netflix stuff everyone is nuts over? I like to hate things other people with assumed bad taste love, so ….

Adjacently, last year, or the year before, what is time, I reread “A Christmas Carol” because I’m a literary bitch who wants to own at the Jeopardy! Dickens category, but … woof. What a snooze. Can we redo this with a feminist antihero? Does someone need to write that? I will write that, are you listening Disney+?

Anyway, maybe this year, of all years, when I am probably going to be STUCK IN MY FESTIVELY DECORATED HOUSE, I will expand my hollyday movie horizons. And actually this is all reminding me that isn’t Bill Hader in a recent Christmas movie? BRB.

CHRISTMAS SHIT

If I could decorate my house in white, gold, red, green and sparkle all year…I 100% would. (Ryan hates glitter.)

Like, imagine an Anthropologie in mid-November as your year-long aesthetic. Omg.

Even I can agree that the mall during the months of November and December even without an airborne virus is a nightmare, but that upper level of Macy’s??? Can I live here???

We have more snow globes than we have tables (and yes, a few of them have caroling cats in them), and Ryan is also Nutcracker people so there are a bunch of those, too. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten increasingly annoying in that anything with holly berries on it I must have. I appreciate a gold golden candle, a cute advent calendar from World Market, a little tinsel wrapped around the curtain rods that don’t actually have curtains I don’t want to talk about it.

There’s a whole section of the tree dedicated to rose gold-colored balls, as I am fancy, and then sometimes I let Ryan put his pizza things on the bottom.

We can’t decorate the outside of our house because the outlet is closer to the neighbors’ side and we hate them, but once we have our own place and/or kick them out of pink house… it’s over for you hoes. (This is where I get vulnerable and admit I only saw “Christmas Vacation” for the first time last year.)

CHRISTMAS OUTFITS

I used to think tights were terrible and dresses were itchy, it’s true. But now? Now I LOVE this shit.

If I liked the Nutcracker enough I would totally go every year just so Ryan could take pictures of me holding a $10 plastic cup of Chardonnay with my pinky out and my best shaping hose on.

I will happily buy a sparkly bodycon skirt from H&M two months in advance.

I love satin and velvet so much I’m making my bridesmaids wear it.

I would LOVE to build out my winter coat collection but IDK I might still be paying off the one from J.Crew.

Sweater dresses, sequin bodysuits, shiny shoes, champagne… all of this forever, please.

I mean, a red lip just hits different on December 25.

CHRISTMAS DRINKS

One of my favorite things about this questionably enjoyable existence is themed cocktails. ***

So, you can imagine that I literally turned into a poof of sparkly snow stardust when I learned that an entire MENU dedicated to fancy-ass Christmas-themed overpriced cocktails was coming to a swanky bar near-ish me.

Ryan and I went for the first time for my birthday (I wore a green velvet skirt, obviously), during which Mariah Carey played at least twice, the bartenders looked miserable in their ugly Christmas sweaters, and I gulped down a Christmaspolitan (vodka, something something, vodka, and a fir branch decoration) before following with a “Nice” shot while Ryan did the “Naughty” one.

Fuck the mall I want to live HERE.

As resident mandatory happy hour enforcer in the beforetimes, I took my co-workers there the following year, where we all had a respectable two drinks but later found out that we actually liked hanging out with each other so much we would have had more??

Anyway — I KNOW you can drink tea any time of the damn year, but something is more special about it when it is a hot toddy in a mug shaped like Santa’s head.

A cup of good cheer, indeed, who wants to do sleigh bell shots or whatever?

CHRISTMAS CATS

And by this I just mean that Caitlin is OBSESSED with tissue paper and string, so unwrapping presents that aren’t even for her is nothing short of a Catmas miracle.

CHRISTMAS

Not ready to make this blog a place for my real feelings, but I totally get in them this time of the year.

It makes me think about being a kid, bleh, and getting so excited to unwrap a bunch of stuff even though I basically knew what it was because I always gave my mom specific lists. I think about the year Emily and I found the presents in the basement and I read a quarter of The Princess Diaries before getting it on Christmas day*****. I think a lot about being on winter break as a kid and as a slightly older college kid (shoutout to Ohio University for that sweet, sweet six-week break), making buckeyes with my sisters and helping pass out presents on Christmas morning and trying to help my dad keep up with the tissue paper trash.

We are all grown now, and it’s hard to be in one place for the holidays, and we’re also on our way to making our own new traditions—Emily lives in DC with her BF. Kayley just moved into her first apartment. Ryan and I will be married by next Christmas, so we get to decide what that looks like for just us (Baileys and hot chocolate). Luckily, Ryan loves Christmas as much as a June baby could, so he never complains about me basically swapping out the fake flowers for fake pinecones the day after Halloween.

Ugh, here it comes, the heart growing three sizes or whatever—I like making the “hollydays” a whole THING, because it makes me feel like there’s more time to celebrate, just more time, now that the people I love are scattered about.

And, sometimes, the best way to do that is to say being in Columbus for your 30th birthday in some sort of sparkly attire is non-negotiable.

P.S. No, you can NOT give me one present for my birthday and Christmas, you absolute monsters.

____________________________________________________

*Drunk

**Let’s not forget the reason for the season—the Jesus jams. Please keep your “O Holy Night” but “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” SLAPS.

***Can we… talk about how apparently Mrs. Claus’ first name is JESSICA? LMFAOOOO.

****My favorite place on planet earth, Grandview Theatre and Drafthouse, does this with almost all the movies they release. Infinity stone Jell-O shots. BABY YODA SPICY MARGARITA WITH LITTLE PEPPERS AS EARS. I shit you not. Can you tell what kind of movies we usually go see? Lol.

*****What is this “making out” that is supposed to be so fun??? = me in fourth grade