Christmas 2022: June is Now a Hat, “WTF, Mariah Carey” and Being the Light

Hello to my four readers! Are you still alive? Am I? Do we all still have Wi-Fi?

If you’re in any of the places which has suffered a devastating tornado or hurricane or blizzard or war or uprising,

or if you live in Milwaukee proper…

you may not now have life or internet access.

If you don’t have life, and you’re in fact dead then it’s a real honor for you to be reading this right now.

And for the rest of you, it’s so nice to talk at you again.

I hope you’ve been doing okay and are staying healthy and safe.

Christmas Can Be Tough

I don’t know about you but this Christmas season has felt especially MEH and so I didn’t even get out half the Christmas shit.

The only sentimental thing that was removed from the basement storage is an animatronic Christmas lion a now-dead friend insisted I buy a couple years ago and that’s only because the lion stared at me so sadly I couldn’t refuse it.

“Yes, crying, sad Christmas Lion, I will get you out.”

“And, yes, spooky as fuck Christmas dolls, I will also get you out because you may otherwise murder us in our sleep.”

A casual observer would think I still went all out for Christmas so it’s okay.

I also put up lights outside UNLIKE OUR SOULLESS NEIGHBORS ACROSS THE STREET IN THE BLACK_AS_VOID ZONE.

And we bought the fattest tree we could find and I decorated it on my own because it doesn’t have to be a party.

Sometimes you just have to fake it, go through the motions and get through it.

I LOVE Christmas so I hope the feeling comes back next year.

I am actively listening to The Roger Whittaker’s Christmas Album right now so I’m sure I’ll be SUPER annoying about Christmas again.

My husband David just hooked up the speaker so we can be fully “Whittakered”, as he put it.

June Is a Hat

So the dog we rescued a year ago is still broken. As I write this, she is staring at me from across the room where she is actively refusing to eat her food after David forced her to sit over there to go through the motions of trying to stay alive.

And she’s very “No.”

However, she now dominates at the dog park and seems to be a speed spaz demon. Like me, she came alive in October.

She apparently just needed a little time in Canada.

I can’t share a video from our time in the U.P. despite the amount of money I pay to maintain this site so I’m going to demonstrate our formerly paralyzed-by-trauma, anorexic dog’s transformation in a series of screenshots which also unfortunately features June’s friend Maddie defecating.

Like a traumatized teenager, June still can’t express her love through the normal communicative channels.

When she snuggles close to me on the couch, I can’t touch her or she will dramatically withdraw and glare at me like YOU JUST RUINED EVERYTHING OMG I HATE YOU.

So now I stay still and don’t react when she snuggles close.

And now she puts her head on top of my head so it looks like I’m wearing a June hat.

She is the weirdest dog I have ever known.

From her awkward place behind me as I type this, the mogwai mutters in response, “You’re weird.”

“Mariah Carey, You Will Never Be the Queen of Christmas”

Recently, I had a nice meeting with a young person who was added to my caseload. He absolutely loved the winter outfit I styled for him from my organization’s warm clothes donations donated by a local church. He is super picky so his mom had told him, “Why would you even tell this poor lady to bring you any clothes. I’ve been trying to find you a coat for 2 months.” He told me that he had responded, “I just have a good feeling about this one, Mom.”

I did not let him down, superficially.

And then we really bonded over our mutual distaste of trashy Christmas music.

He said his mom only plays Mariah Carey and Destiny’s Child Christmas albums on repeat for the entire season and it made him want to burn the CDs in a public display in an attempt to take back Christmas.

“What happened to traditional Christmas music?”

“You mean Johnny Mathis, Nat King Cole…?”

“YES. MARIAH CAREY WILL NEVER BE THE QUEEN OF CHRISTMAS.”

“Right? Seriously. what is wrong with her. She has like 2 Christmas songs that are okay. The rest is pretty shit.”

“Complete shit.”

“Yeah and 2 songs do not royalty make.”

“For sure. She’s crazy. Hey Mariah! Reality is calling. It’s been a minute, honey. Pick up.”

It’s not often a CCS coordinator, a Medicaid social worker and a kid with a TBI click as well as we clicked that day but it was great.

“Who can be queen of an entire season anyways. Girl, get over yourself.”

Hold On and Be the Light

SO.

It’s Christmas! Happy happy happy! If you’ve got violence or sickness or bodies or badness, throw some lights over it and start singing because if you don’t, those bodies sure as hell aren’t going to.

I guess that’s what Christmas is to me now. Not superficial “gloss over all” but… at the end, we’re just light.

Last week, I literally – literally – told a case that she should shoot for the stars.

Like an inspirational poster in an underfunded public school.

And it doesn’t matter if I feel sad or angry or lost, because Christmas is about putting some light into the world for others to see and feel.

So we light the lights when we can.

Even when we feel like a discounted version of ourselves.