The Racket #25: HOLIDAYS
Poster by Kelly Malka
December 11 - adobe books - 7pm
It would be so nice.
We just blinked our one, giant collective eye and poof, the holiday season is upon us, the 330 day build up to the universal daze of December suddenly compressed into a long, singular emotional line drifting behind us. The lights, the trees, the glowing aura of consumerism that stretches down from the heavens and rests uncomfortably on all of our shoulders, the mystical red-nosed harbingers of childhood dreams crammed feet first down a hole in our roofs - all have arrived.
And it isn't to say that we aren't holiday people, that we don't love a good cup of boozy nog and a deciduous fir twinkling next to a roaring fire, but in the past we've had our reasons to be less inclined towards a celebratory feeling in these final months of the year. We've ridden the wave of holiday cheer and we've succumbed to the fine tradition of bah humbug type Scroogery and we've gritted our teeth and toed the thin line of tinsel that runs between them both.
It isn't our intention to cram holiday cheer down your throats. Hell, we're a conglomerate of writers, cheer in general isn't really our ball park. That said, we would like to acknowledge that even in the grimmest of years (2018 fighting hard to top the list) that these sweater clad days bring a certain feeling along with them. Sure, it may be an emotional spectrum manufactured by years and years and years of static holiday glee slipped subconsciously into our potent cocktail of television, family and friends. But regardless, there is a warm crackle in the air these days, a fleeting glimpse of humanity leaning slightly in and reaching slightly out.
The holidays can be brutal, can mean nothing, can be the dot on your emotional map that unleashes all the pain of a year unraveling. We understand this, wholeheartedly. It is only our opinion that for a brief thirty-one days, as we stuff the hours with family (whatever that might mean), celebration, garish decoration and emotional explosions, that amongst it all, a glittering thread of connection - to strangers, to comrades, to the greater universe - is ours, yours and everyone else's to reach out and grab.
Whatever that might mean to you, to us it means happy holidays.
So, happy holidays. To you and to yours.
