It happened again. The holidays hijacked my time and energy and it has been over a month since I posted anything...or made anything...or finished a book. I realize that this happens to most Americans. Thanksgiving arrives and suddenly there are too many events to plan for, too many folks to shop for, too many visits to make and receive. Yes, I realize many Americans' lives go on hold for the month of December, but I have not talked to so many who seem to resent it as much as I do.
I know a large part of my resentment has to do with Christmas marketing, with the expectation to get a certain amount of gifts, of a certain amount of money, for a certain amount of people. Even while I don't play that game, the consumerism of this holiday disturbs me profoundly and pressures me indirectly. It is everywhere.
Then there is the Christmas expectation that you should see as many people as you possibly can and go to as many parties as there are...and everyone has a Christmas party. I love my friends and my family and I am never sorry to see or spend time with them, but I would be a damned liar if I did not admit that I find all of that visiting and socializing crammed into one month extremely taxing. I am an introvert who requires a certain amount of time to myself simply not to feel a little crazy. This year I started to feel a little crazy. My bill-payer job had functions galore, from two holiday parties (TWO) to our yearly retreat. One friend had a sweet swap, where we all got together and traded homemade desserts. I helped another friend decorate her tree (and drink her martinis). Nick and I drove to Houston to visit my brother and his lovely family over Christmas proper. We flew to Chicago and then drove to St. Paul, Minnesota to attend the wedding of a college friend of Nick's. An extremely good friend of ours flew into New Orleans from Amsterdam and, naturally, we spent as much time with him as we could. As fantastic as it was to see all of these individuals and spend time with them stands in direct proportion to how stressed out I gradually became as the month wore on and we still had event after event lined up. Still, if my greatest problem is that I have an abundance of loved ones in my life, well...I remind myself to shut up, Sara.
That said, I have one more Christmas beef. I feel uncomfortable about the common assumption that there is something universal about celebrating the birth of a messianic figure specific to one religion. I suppose one could say I am Christian by culture, having been raised in the United States by white anglo-saxon Protestants, but by no stretch of the imagination am I Christian by belief. I think of the whole holiday as more of a winter festival...the same pagan festival that was coopted by Christians all those centuries ago. The evergreen, the warm spicy flavors of the season, cold-weather vegetables abounding. I can definitely get into a celebration of making it through the winter (especially this winter..brrrrr!) and looking forward to the renewal of spring. And of course I begrudge no Christian the religious aspect of their celebration. Celebrate away! But know that I will, too. And that not believing in the divinity of Jesus does not make me a bad person or a hater of anybody. Of course, I realize many Christians don't look that way on non-Christians, but it's alarming how many do.
So, being non-combative and living in the oh-so-Christian south, I generally keep my mouth shut on this point, and instead take the opportunity to give gifts to the people I care about most, to visit with friends and family, and, this year for the first time, to bake and bake and bake some more.
My mother baked all the time - pies, cookies, cakes, cinnamon rolls. My brother, very scientific and precise, inherited this talent. I did not. Until very recently, I primarily had only misadventures in baking. But this year that all changed. This year, despite past baking failures, I was determined to make some sweets Nicholas could eat. It can be difficult enough to buy prepared vegan food in south Louisiana, but finding vegan baked goods down here is near impossible. So Nick, who has quite a sweet tooth, tends to be omitted from goodies like birthday cake, holiday cookies, etc. I couldn't let this injustice go on any longer! So I consulted the all-knowing Isa Chandra Moskowitz and attempted several batches of cupcakes - lemon, coconut and almond are the ones I've tried so far - and they have, without exception, turned out moist and delicious. I found these results so heartening, I also made batches of chocolate chip cookies and even gingerbread men.
And come to think of it, in the realm of savory baked goods, through many trials and errors I developed a vegan biscuit recipe that I think makes fabulous biscuits. It turns out all I had to do in order to bake well, is get rid of dairy-based ingredients! The chemistry gets much simpler and I never have anything fall or turn out too dense or dry. Like magic.
So I suppose all of this baking has provided a pretty good creative outlet for me over the past month. Not much else has, and the introvert/creator in me has been feeling very lazy indeed. But now it is the new year with nothing to distract me from my small pursuit of making things and feeling productive...at least until Mardi Gras.
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