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Hi friends! Fun fact: this little section of the newsletter is almost always written last. This is the last newsletter before Christmas and so while it’s an essay I have not applied a paywall. Here’s a little reminder that you can always gift a subscription to this newsletter or to our Patreon. Your loved ones probably have enough candles, hand lotions, and mugs to last a lifetime.

Don’t forget about the most recent EEDA Pod episode! Typewriters, Tomatoes, & Travel: 2025’s Lessons Learned

Patricia and Nicole celebrate the two-year anniversary of the Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice podcast and close out the last full episode of the year by reflecting on 2025 and sharing personal growth and lessons learned. They discuss the importance of routines, delegating tasks, and finding joy in simple, screen-free activities with each other and friends.

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I used to hate Christmas and over the years I’d have myriad reasons I would give: capitalism, consumerism, the religiousness of it all, environmentalism, annoying, “one-note,” “pedestrian.” Mostly, though, I hated Christmas just to be contrary and for the love of the game (the “game” is “being a hater”). I didn’t actually have any holiday trauma—my Christmases growing up were always quirky and lovely and I loved my family. Eventually I realized that all this hating only served to make me miserable, especially given that Christmas is unavoidable here starting November 1st if not earlier.

Over the years, my friends and I have done something that queer people do really well which is, well, “queering” things. By that I mean we look at something that exists within traditional structures and we tear it apart and make it our own. For many years, some friends and I would get together on Christmas day and in the morning we’d go to the Jewish Contemporary Museum or go see a movie then we’d get dim sum. We would be at our usual karaoke bar by 3:00pm when it opened and we’d stay there for 8+ hours. We’d be the first and only people there for a few hours and the KJs knew us (and expected us). Once it got towards the evening, other regulars would trickle in, bringing desserts and potluck fare. Not a single person would sing a Christmas carol and if they did, they’d get hissed at or at the very least there would be some eyerolls.

My mother, on the other hand, absolutely loved Christmas. She loved the decor, the lights, the smell of pine, wrapping gifts, and most of all, giving gifts. She loved to sing Christmas carols and when I was a child, she loved to drive me to neighborhoods with lots of Christmas lights on the houses and we’d slowly drive around for hours until I could no longer keep my eyelids open. We’d go to the mall in the evening of Christmas Eve every year, not to shop, but to do what she would call “the mall crawl” and watch all the people desperately hoping to find that last, perfect gift. In my 20s, after my grandfather had died, it was just Mom and me. Since we were “free agents” as she would say, Christmas eve would be bananas. We would drive a strategic route to 5 to 7 homes in the East Bay and San Francisco, dropping off gifts, spending time with family and friends who were as close as family, and bringing the laughs wherever we went. One family did a talent show of the grandkids, others had kids that clung to me like sea stars from the moment I walked in the door until the moment I tucked them into bed. Sometimes there would be an outfit change for me, because I’d have matching pajamas with three different households of kids and my mother would always have her camera gear in tow. Still, I insisted I hated Christmas.

In March 2023, my mother passed away. That December, I said, “Fuck it” and we got a tree and we put it up and strung lights around the house we moved into because we had planned on caring for my mom, not knowing she would die just a few weeks after we moved in. We got stockings and hung them at the fireplace and for the first time that I know of, I deliberately put on Christmas music. Over the course of a few weeks, we made an obscene amount of homemade marshmallows and the entire kitchen was covered in a thin layer of powdered sugar and edible glitter. This year will be the second year that we turn up the air filters and host Misfit Xmas, where our friends who wouldn’t be doing anything on Christmas day will take Covid tests and come over and we eat and enjoy my absolutely batshit tree (picture below) and maybe this year, we’ll break out the karaoke machine. We are again, in our own way, queering Christmas.

Mom would have loved it.