Dream coat, Yule logs, candle pyramids, hook pillows, holiday playlist, and Gaza grief

November 2023

For me, November is about December. It’s about ordering, organizing, and dreaming. When December finally arrives it’s already ending with the pop of fireworks and full bellies.

The song “Making Christmas” from The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) repeats to me. Making Christmas is really the stewing of emotions and activities that buzz around us in November and December. We have to make it by trimming the tree and baking cookies. Otherwise, there’s nothing special about the day or the season other than the winter solstice on Dec. 21st, occurring during the holiday not so coincidentally…

Why

↔ Why Yule logs?

Yule is a festival observed historically by Germanic peoples and contemporarily by Neo-Pagans that occurs on the winter solstice, December 21-22 in the Northern Hemisphere and June 20-21 in the Southern Hemisphere.¹

Yule wasn’t the only hullabaloo happening in ancient December, the Romans celebrated the “birthday of the sun,” or the Sol Invictus, the unconquerable sun, on the 25th and the feast of Saturnalia fell Mid-December to revel in honor of the god Saturn by gift-giving, feasting, and lighting candles.²

It’s a common belief that the Christian church placed Christmas, the birth of Christ, on the 25th to baptize these celebrations. Under Pope Julius I, the church officially established Natalis Christi in the approximate year 350 AD.

In the dark of the solstice, we find cause to celebrate, in Bodhi Day, Feast of Our Lady Guadalupe, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa, we’re together. The holidays share many similarities, too. Christmas traditions like holly, mistletoe, wreaths, caroling, and decorated softwood trees originate from Yule origin, as do turkey, ham, spiced cider, and gingerbread.

Perhaps the metonymy of Yule is the Yule log. A flame meant to burn through the darkest night of the year on the solstice. Now, a delightful fluffy confectionery.

There’s more Yule in Christmas than we might think, just as every religion contains hints of the other. Humanity is more synced than we care to accept. We don’t always march to the beat of our own drums and we’re stronger for it. The dilution does us good and reminds us we all feel pain, we all feel love. Ego is the death of kindness. Sometimes in December, we head-bob to the Little Drummer Boy as one.

Eyeing

↔ Let me tell you, if I didn’t have a thought about money in the world, how quickly this coat would come into my steel grasp and live there lovingly, tenderly.

This coat is cut and sewn by hand, lightly water repellant using materials like wool and leather instead of polyester. The pockets can be pushed in for reversible wear and fits larger or smaller depending on the outward-facing side.

Okay, okay, I’ve heard enough! I’m sold! Sweet, just pay $2,392.

Milena Silvano Moon Coat Tonal 2

I should say, I respect paying a lot for a handmade garment from animals who’ve given their bodies and worn lovingly and routinely for years. This is a forever coat. But it’s not my forever right now and that’s okay.

Making

↔ I keep eyeing hook pillows and then thinking that it would be so much more impactful if I made one for myself. It’s part of my new ethos that what’s in my house should be personal, impactful, and satisfying every time I see it.

But, let’s say for a second that I didn’t care about that and NEEDED a winter-themed hook pillow, which I do not and arguably no one does, then what would I get? Thank you for asking:

• A peppermint candy

• Wobbly bear skiing

• Crossed skis

↔ Another thing I want to buy either 100% authentic German or make myself is a candle pyramid. It’s a wonderful bit of pyrotechnics that propels a whirling effect around a candleholder, used espeically for December holidays. No doubt, these are harder to make then I anticipate. SO if I WERE to buy one, I’d probably go second hand, like this or this.

Noodling on

↔ Gaza grief: Here is some written word about the conflict in Israel by those who can share and feel more deeply and accurately than I can:

Hiba Abu Nada
(trans. Huda Fakhreddine)

1.
I grant you refuge
in invocation and prayer.
I bless the neighborhood and the minaret
to guard them
from the rocket

from the moment
it is a general’s command
until it becomes
a raid.

I grant you and the little ones refuge,
the little ones who
change the rocket’s course
before it lands
with their smiles.

2.
I grant you and the little ones refuge,
the little ones now asleep like chicks in a nest.

They don’t walk in their sleep toward dreams.
They know death lurks outside the house.

Their mothers’ tears are now doves
following them, trailing behind
every coffin.

3.
I grant the father refuge,
the little ones’ father who holds the house upright
when it tilts after the bombs.
He implores the moment of death:
“Have mercy. Spare me a little while.
For their sake, I’ve learned to love my life.
Grant them a death
as beautiful as they are.”

4.
I grant you refuge
from hurt and death,
refuge in the glory of our siege,
here in the belly of the whale.

Our streets exalt God with every bomb.
They pray for the mosques and the houses.
And every time the bombing begins in the North,
our supplications rise in the South.

5.
I grant you refuge
from hurt and suffering.

With words of sacred scripture
I shield the oranges from the sting of phosphorous
and the shades of cloud from the smog.

I grant you refuge in knowing
that the dust will clear,
and they who fell in love and died together
will one day laugh.

~

Gate A-4

Naomi Shihab Nye 1952

Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning
my flight had been delayed four hours, I heard an announcement:
"If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, please
come to the gate immediately."

Well—one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there.

An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just
like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing. "Help,"
said the flight agent. "Talk to her. What is her problem? We
told her the flight was going to be late and she did this."

I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke haltingly.
"Shu-dow-a, Shu-bid-uck Habibti? Stani schway, Min fadlick, Shu-bit-
se-wee?" The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly
used, she stopped crying. She thought the flight had been cancelled
entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the
next day. I said, "No, we're fine, you'll get there, just later, who is
picking you up? Let's call him."

We called her son, I spoke with him in English. I told him I would
stay with his mother till we got on the plane and ride next to
her. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just
for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while
in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I
thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know
and let them chat with her? This all took up two hours.

She was laughing a lot by then. Telling of her life, patting my knee,
answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool
cookies—little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and
nuts—from her bag—and was offering them to all the women at the gate.
To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a
sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the
lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same powdered
sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie.

And then the airline broke out free apple juice from huge coolers and two
little girls from our flight ran around serving it and they
were covered with powdered sugar, too. And I noticed my new best friend—
by now we were holding hands—had a potted plant poking out of her bag,
some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country tradi-
tion. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and I thought, This
is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that
gate—once the crying of confusion stopped—seemed apprehensive about
any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too.

This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.

~

Both of the above were found through:

Making Art During Times of Crisis

A Definitive Guide to What is Anti-Semitic and Not Anti-Semitic

Listening to

↔ I enjoy holiday music starting promptly after Halloween. I’m sorry, my cheermeister tendencies know no bounds. I’m ready for a sexy, snowy Christmas and you should be too.

Peace in December.

xx

1. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yule-festival

2. https://insidethevatican.com/magazine/lead-story/the-25th-of-december-pagan-feast-or-patristic-tradition/