Opinions

Inevitably, there comes a Christmas when “holly, jolly” just doesn’t seem to capture the mood. This is particularly difficult for me to acknowledge because I’ve always been a big advocate of Christmas—the sacred observance and the secular one, too. I like them both.

My Facebook feed reminded me that, exactly 12 years ago, I was considering buying palazzo pants. I found this astonishing because just that day I had been looking at palazzo pants, and I had not mentioned it to Facebook -- or anyone else, except my husband, Peter. Peter did not even know what palazzo pants are.

Before venturing to our community’s Downtown Christmas Celebration, I halfway decorated the Christmas tree in our family room.

Your beloved writer is at a loss for making sense of the asylums in the air, the crazies who come unglued the moment the captain gives permission to move about the cabin. Methinks it must happen only on a full-moon or from those who are off-their-meds.

I have always liked Thanksgiving. I know its origins are dubious. I cringe a little when I think about the construction paper American Indian costumes and the happy story I learned as a child about that first Thanksgiving. I cringe a little more when I read about people missing their holiday meal so they can work at retail jobs where customers trample one another at the store’s entrance to get in and buy things. I don’t understand this, I have to confess. I have never been in such a hurry to buy anything in my life.

We just celebrated Veterans Day and are so thankful for being able to live in a country where we are not being held under the terror of a dictator. Our son is a Marine and we have always been very proud of him. He was injured in the service and has suffered every day since, but he keeps pressing forward and does the best he can. My family has personally suffered loss from war and has a deep appreciation for the sacrifice these men and women have made to protect our country.

When I look back at photographs of Thanksgivings Past, I always laugh at the line-up. There we are on Aunt Hazel’s porch, standing like majorettes in a row. We’ve turned to the left to look slim, with interlocking arms to look familiar. It’s the aunts, the girl cousins, and me, in my teenage years. Everybody has on something brown, green or orange.

In the 1984 movie, Ghostbusters, a supernatural comedy in which a team of scientists, who lose their well-paying jobs at a university in New York City, choose to fight paranormal beings for pay. Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd star with others who discover a dimension that will release evil upon the city, and they decide to save the people from destruction.

It’s important to have a good coffee cup. My husband, Peter, makes the coffee, and has since we were married. We will be celebrating nine years of marriage this spring, so you might not be surprised to hear that I no longer remember how to make coffee. This is called “learned helplessness” in psychology circles, and is certainly true in my case. Peter makes the coffee, and I drink it. This seems to me like a fair division of labor. And having the proper cup is essential. I am reminded of this every time I return to Mexico, because I do not pack a coffee cup. Our little furnished apartment has a perfectly fine selection of matching white ceramic coffee cups sitting on the shelf. But none of these cups is my cup. And so, usually on the first day, I will head out to the market where handcrafted items are sold in search of a perfect cup. Walking through the market, it is surprising how relatively few coffee cups I see. I suppose most people do not have a cup sitting beside them all day, or at least for the first six hours of every day. I don’t think this is nearly as common in Mexico as it is in the U.S. But still, there are a lot of nice cups and, eventually, I find my new cup. “What do you think?” I ask Peter when I triumphantly return with my new perfect cup. “Isn’t that the same cup you had before?” he asks.