#79 - Don't Take Down Your Decorations, Please

Christmas should be moved to the end of January. There’s tonnage in the holiday season and events in the final months of the year. Halloween → (US optional) Thanksgiving → Christmas → New Year’s creates a whirlwind of movement in terms of activating customers, securing flights/buses/trains, and everything else that the mad dash to the end of a year entails.

And besides the flagrant consumerism that Charlie Brown spoke so eloquently about, there’s a lot I love about the traditions that go along with making those months special.

It really comes down to this: I enjoy the permissive whimsy of holiday decorations and I abhor the idea that they should be struck down immediately upon the season being “over”. What season? Because we’re certainly not talking about winter, a season that has barely begun!

The loveliness of walking through a twinkle-lit neighborhood should not be understated. Sure, net lighting on bushes isn’t the most attractive and for some reason most of my neighbors this year decided to go for flashing colorful lights, but I love seeing people’s tastes on display! Gimme more maximalism babyyyy! The dreariness of short days and early sunsets is belied by the soft glow of a wrapped banister, a classy candle in every window, or even the chaotic sparks of luminescence set to a soundtrack that we cannot hear.

I just think it’s exquisite that we decide to decorate the world for a while.

The Pagan tradition that Christmas Trees are derived from makes so much sense—it’s imperative to remind ourselves that there is life on earth when nature is forced to hibernate under a blanket of snow and shocking temperatures.

I lived without seasons for four years on the west coast, and it really fucked with my sense of time passing. It’s the only chunk of my life in which I cannot tell you what year something happened. Time just kind of ran together in this bizarre damp way. And the weather is one of those extremely important things to our rhythms as humans.

(My time out west did make me much less grumpy about the inconveniences of winter. It was kind of shocking to me that whenever I would speak to folks still on the east coast they would relay the wind chill and immediately follow it with almost violent jealousy that I was not experiencing the cold. It was like I temporarily became the scapegoat they could foist their troubles upon, regardless of how I responded.) (I will also admit that my warmth towards winter has been helped by no longer having a daily commute. Weather in general is so much easier for me to deal with, I only have to leave the house when I want to and you betcha on those -10 degree days last week I stayed firmly indoors!)

Weather is also the most connective experience we have.

When I worked in retail I would say I spent about 75% of my conversations with people talking about the weather. It unites us in ways that I don’t think are easy to appreciate now that I’m not required to pleasantly fill the silence with strangers—especially because the weather is often viewed as an obstacle that we’re collectively shielding against/overcoming.

But I loved the days when seeing my iced coffee inspired someone else to get one.

There is nothing more romantic than dashing to find an awning to hide under during a rain storm.

Seeing people strewn throughout a park, collectively taking in a sweeping skyline.

One of my fondest memories during a time when I had such little hope for the future (this was like June of 2020 and one of my first real trips outside of the 200sq-ft studio that two of us were crammed into for months on end) happened in the rain. I had just come back from Grand Central (where Apple informed me that despite having paid to have my laptop fixed only six months prior, I would, in fact, have to pay over $1000 to get it fixed again) and came above ground to sheets of rain. Absolute downpour. I pressed myself under a half-awning right against the wall of the bodega, attempting to shield the laptop from even more damage. A passerby handed me his umbrella. This dude didn’t know anything about my day, he was unaware that my partner at the time was ignoring my phone calls—all he saw was a drenched stranger and handed over the random Elizabeth Arden branded brolly before heading underground.

I still have the umbrella.

There’s nothing that makes us feel helpless like the natural world and our unique inability to always be prepared.

Any time between seasons in New York City leads to folks schlepping three completely different outfits around with them lest they be caught unaware. Layer monsters trying to subtly remove a sweater, but requiring seven extra hands to do it lest a jacket brush the floor of the subway.

Can you hold my bag? And my coffee? And my jacket? And this sweater?

Morning walks have been helpful in reshaping my relationship with the weather. It’s information about the world and a chance for me to understand my reactions to things that I have absolutely no control over.

This weather only exists here. On earth. And our patterns are so specific to our individual spaces. I love thinking about the perimeter of rain. Somewhere there is a line demarcating where the dampness ends.

There is wonder in the wind and creativity in the clouds.

(Don’t even get me started on sunrises and sunsets! Can't get enough of ‘em!)

Even in the rain, with our little forcefield perimeters, we’re suffering collectively. Bound to the earth. Primal in our sense. (Oh I so wish that Lush still made their Grass soap, there’s truly nothing I would love to get a whiff of more right now than grass-after-rain scent!)

If I ever run for office my platform will include a giant wind-capturing sail that keeps the wind from wrecking us in the cold months. Look, I just…there's gotta be something we can do about the wind! We can even harness its energy! I feel like there is no downside here! The lack of green energy policy is appalling—especially in this city where every skyscraper has thousands of windows that could be solar retrofitted. (Remember that Kickstarter that would make all roads solar? That was a nice lil’ pipedream we all collectively were on board with despite very little evidence!) I know that the reason we don't have a push for it is that the current energy companies don't know how to monetize it but like I will pay whatever I do now just call it a solar panel rental fee or whatever! My gas bill is like 20 cents for the actual gas and a $20 delivery fee. It's all a racket, why not make it one that isn’t actively harming the earth?

And maybe it we did that, I wouldn't have gotten frantic texts and emails on Christmas Eve begging me to use less gas because the pipes all froze during the low temps. The system is broken and its broken for all of us! (I still haven’t forgiven or forgotten that ConEd forced rolling blackouts throughout the poorest neighborhoods in Brooklyn while Times Square stayed lit.)

Our shared reality is all we have and I think it's very possible that most of our societal ills come from how disparate all of our realities have become. Life has become such an individualistic experience that we can no longer understand each other. We don't even have context for the actions of others. We don’t assume stupidity as the reason for wrongness, it’s so easy now to declare someone evil. And it makes us afraid. And some of that comes from how self-consciousness creates a barrier. But some of it is just a fundamental difference in how we engage with the world around us.

But when it’s raining it’s raining.

We live in the world still. We move through it with similar goals to stay dry & warm (but not sweaty, never sweaty). We are here and part of it all. The world is beyond explanation. We can understand the how, but that never answers the why. But isn't that freeing in a way?

It's a beautiful day somewhere.

Here it's a light misty rain and totally grey skies.

My neighborhood has some icicle lights adorning the overhangs and I hope they stay up for months. I get sad whenever I see the trees on the curb. Can’t they have a home for a little longer? What’s the rush in taking down all the decor?

I can understand removing the Santa motif but the snowflakes can stay, right?

Please, for me, won’t you leave the lights on?