I actually like the holidays just fine. I enjoy having a tree, and lights (Hanukkah, Solstice, Xmas--all the lights), and I love cards in the mail. But after Grateful-J set up the red dinosaur mauling a kitty in a display case at work (below), I came along and added the Alien eating one of Santa's reindeer.
What I hate about the holidays is the plastic crap people buy, which we're already drowning in. We see the detritus, donated to us at the thrift store.
And it's not just plastic. Everyone ordering online means cardboard, cardboard, cardboard.
We can't even sell our cardboard (for pennies) to the recycling places anymore, because they have too much. The store has to pay a garbage company to haul away a recycling dumpster.
I doubt they can sell it either, so it goes, you know, to the landfill.
I thought a manager might take our tableau down, but none of our three managers did. Maybe they didn't look closely? Or maybe they share the sentiment?
I. Fire It Up
Across the street from the store, "our neighbors" selling holiday cheer in a needle have set up a patio umbrella to protect their fire.
I guess the police have given up, after clearing the fire camp out twice?
(This is not a homeless encampment, this is street dealers.)
When I saw their latest innovation though, I had to laugh. When I walked past, I even gave them a thumbs up. As long as they're burning wood and not garbage with toxins in it, I don't mind. Someone donates firewood to them... or they steal or buy it from outside gas stations? I don't ask. The cashier told me they buy big bottles of hand sanitizer (w alcohol) from us every morning---and use it as fire starter.
Humans are clever squirrels.
Clever squirrels with guns. The other day as I was leaving work, Big Boss said, "You might want to give it a few minutes, there was just a shooting out there."
"Oh, okay," I said, "I'll check before I leave."
I looked out and everyone had scattered, so I headed to the bus stop. Cops and emergency vehicles arrived as I was getting on the bus. (Too cold and icy to bike.)
I tell ya, you can get used to anything.
The neighbors totally drive customers away though--and, more, and more importantly, donors. The store had a good year, financially, but I know we'd do better if we weren't in a war zone. Still, we do good by serving the people who live in the 'hood and have few choices about where to shop--especially since a lot of businesses have not been rebuilt after the uprisings after the police murdered George Floyd a mile away.
I think the scene doesn't get to me too much because I'm only at the store for around 24 hours a week, not 24 hours/day.
That's why I stopped blogging the Thrifstore Diary regularly--writing about it was bringing work craziness into my home. My mood improved a lot after I stopped re-creating the energy by writing up every shift.
I've worried a bit: was I becoming numb, callous, shut down?
But, no. My coworkers and I vent a lot together––laugh, rage, remind each other to "woo-sah" (chill out), share stories and food...
It definitely can be bleak some days, but it can also be a very fun workplace.
The coming of the new cashier, Emmler, has helped. She's a rocket. She grew up in the neighborhood, so she is unphased.
Here she is imitating a duck. "I fucking hate Christmas," she says. But she took the twisted duck ornament home.
II. Christmas, Though
I set up a Winter Solstice bubble nightlight last night:
Marz really got into decorating at Christmastime when she moved here in 2011, and she showed me how fun it is to brighten up the dark.
She's decorating at the apartment building where she lives--she's become tight with the caretaker there, and some of the other tenants.
Until my mother left the family when I was thirteen, she made Christmas fantastic--candlelight Christmas Eve dinners of buttery oyster stew and champagne, and for Christmas morning, marzipan sweet rolls.
Her specialty was filling our stockings with little things.
I remember the best stocking of all, when I was about ten years old. She'd stuffed it with a wind-up metal robot, a long looping string of pearly baubles, a bottle of bubble bath, a mini wooden farm-in-a-box (made in Germany), and the tiny boxed set of Maurice Sendak's Nutshell Library (c. 1962).
When a set got donated to the store this year, I nabbed it. (The dust jackets are missing, but it's the first one that's come in since I started in 2018.)
It was sad the first year without my mother––grim––but I got used to it long ago and can't call up any emotion about it now. I haven't had an extended family that expected to gather for Christmas in more than forty years.
I tried alternatives. When I was in my late teens, early twenties, Wicca and a revival of pagan celebrations––bonfires and handmade gifts––were very much in, and Christianity and capitalism was out. For a few years, I celebrated Solstice instead of Christmas.
I eventually went back to Xmas though, because the alternative felt cranky, for my part––saying, "I don't celebrate Xmas" felt like it sent out negative vibes–– rather than being creative--like, finding a meaningful way to do Xmas, which is unavoidably present in the dominant culture all around.
bink and I celebrated happily for many years with homemade gifts and meals. Going to midnight Mass at the Basilica was great for many years too. It starts at midnight, (not like many churches that end their service at midnight), so you'd leave church around 2 a.m. into the cold and silent night.
Maybe I'll go again one year, but not this one--it's too cold!
A mainstay has been Christmas cards, which I make (usually) every year. (Though I only realized yesterday when I got cards together for my coworkers that I haven't mailed all of mine. Eek.)
I'm sad that e-communications has led to far, far less cards in the mail.
And for many years, I made pot roast on Xmas Eve, which I'm doing again this year.
Oh! That's in two days! *leaps up and pulls the roast out of the freezer*
Sister is coming over this afternoon to exchange presents. I was going to work, but it "feels like –31ºF" and there's a winter weather advisory out: "you will die outside".
So, yeah, no.
Wishing you a happy––or, not too dreadful––Holiday-time to you all!
III. Toward the Small...
Oh, let me add a passage from Michelle Obama on what to do when overwhelmed---Michael posted it on OCA, and I relate totally to it, for me it's the girlettes and toy photography, or lately, baking cakes!
"Any time your circumstances start to feel all-consuming, I suggest you try going in the other direction — toward the small.
Look for something that'll help you rearrange your thoughts, a pocket of contentedness where you can live for a while. And by this I don't mean sitting passively in front of your television or scrolling through your phone. Find something that’s active, something that asks for your mind but uses your body as well. Immerse yourself in the process. And forgive yourself for temporarily ducking out of the storm."
