My Favorite Holiday – Sage Telling Your Story

February 10, 2016February 26, 2019

My Favorite Holiday, by

Every year about this time when the
days get cold and the nights longer, I wake up one morning, stretch my arms wide
open, and say to the world: Let the eating begin!

The Olympics
of Food is about to start. Never mind the big torch, light the ovens. Watch the
parade of dishes fill the tables. All those colorful displays of food you never
see any other time of the year—and thank god for that. I mean you could eat
cherries in brandy anytime but, for me, it’s only at Christmas that it fits.

There will be medals for best
nibbles, best entrée, best salad, best sweet potato, best cookies, best pies,
best favorite whatever, most outlandish French pastry that looks like something
you’d never consider eating, best wine before dinner, best wine with dinner,
best wine after dinner, best wine anytime, best eggnog with rum, best eggnog with brandy, best brandy never mind the nog, and the list goes on. Instead of
the 12 days of Christmas, somebody should write a song about the 75,000
calories and the 100 or so meals of Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Solstice.
Thanksgiving is really just the warm up, the first course, you might say, in a
month long binge of eating. And I love it.

Alright, I exaggerate. Not every
morsel I consume in December is an elaborate culinary production. And not
everything to do with “The Holidays” has to do with food. But the food is the
key part. You go to work this month and you eat. You go to parties and you eat.
You have friends over and you eat. You decorate the tree and you eat. You open
presents and you eat. Maybe it’s the fright of winter. It’s cold and dark, we’d
better stock up, gird our loins, put on protective layers of fat, nourish
ourselves for the coming bleak days. We could end up starving as the winds of
winter howl. This really is a time of primal urges.

For me, these holidays are the
antidote for darkness. I hate the short days, the early nights. I love the
lights and the decorations, the busy bustling about, the gift giving, the
visiting, the sharing of special traditional foods. I love the sense that for this
one month normal rules don’t apply. It’s a month of light and sharing, sharing
around the table.

I guess that all stems from the fact
that food was a central part of everything in my family as I grew up. Mom loved
to bake and made special Christmas cookies that I loved as a kid and still do.
But now instead of sneaking around searching out her hiding places for these
treats and secretly eating a cookie or two, I use her recipes to make my own.
And I get pretty close to mom’s triumphs. Of course, it’s hard to screw up any
combination of sugar, butter, nuts and chocolate. And I still hide them from
myself and still sneakily snitch one before company gets them.

Jamie and I have also established
some of our own Christmas traditions like decorating the house with lights and
garlands, filling the house with friends and—it always gets back to food—sharing
a Christmas Eve dinner of prime rib and all the trimmings, maybe even some
French pastry.

Christmas, they say, is really about
anticipation and the birth of new life. It’s about nourishment. It’s a time to be
with people and shake off the darkness while looking forward to when the days will
lengthen. The dark of December is, after all, always followed by the brightness
of January’s new year. Break out the champagne!

About the Author

Nicholas grew up in Cleveland,
then grew up in San Francisco, and is now growing up in Denver. He retired from
work with non-profits in 2009 and now bicycles, gardens, cooks, does yoga,
writes stories, and loves to go out for coffee.

January 1, 2016February 26, 2019

My Favorite Holiday, by Nicholas

Every year about this time when the days get cold and the nights longer, I wake up one morning, stretch my arms wide open, and say to the world: Let the eating begin!

The Olympics of Food is about to start. Never mind the big torch, light the ovens. Watch the parade of dishes fill the tables. All those colorful displays of food you never see any other time of the year—and thank god for that. I mean you could eat cherries in brandy anytime but, for me, it’s only at Christmas that it fits.

There will be medals for best nibbles, best entrée, best salad, best sweet potato, best cookies, best pies, best favorite whatever, most outlandish French pastry that looks like something you’d never consider eating, best wine before dinner, best wine with dinner, best wine after dinner, best wine anytime, best egg nog with rum, best egg nog with brandy, best brandy never mind the nog, and the list goes on. Instead of the 12 days of Christmas, somebody should write a song about the 75,000 calories and the 100 or so meals of Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa/Solstice. Thanksgiving is really just the warm up, the first course, you might say, in a month long binge of eating. And I love it.

Alright, I exaggerate. Not every morsel I consume in December is an elaborate culinary production. And not everything to do with “The Holidays” has to do with food. But the food is the key part. You go to work this month and you eat. You go to parties and you eat. You have friends over and you eat. You decorate the tree and you eat. You open presents and you eat. Maybe it’s the fright of winter. It’s cold and dark, we’d better stock up, gird our loins, put on protective layers of fat, nourish ourselves for the coming bleak days. We could end up starving as the winds of winter howl. This really is a time of primal urges.

For me, these holidays are the antidote for darkness. I hate the short days, the early nights. I love the lights and the decorations, the busy bustling about, the gift giving, the visiting, the sharing of special traditional foods. I love the sense that for this one month normal rules don’t apply. It’s a month of light and sharing, sharing around the table.

I guess that all stems from the fact that food was a central part of everything in my family as I grew up. Mom loved to bake and made special Christmas cookies that I loved as a kid and still do. But now instead of sneaking around searching out her hiding places for these treats and secretly eating a cookie or two, I use her recipes to make my own. And I get pretty close to mom’s triumphs. Of course, it’s hard to screw up any combination of sugar, butter, nuts and chocolate. And I still hide them from myself and still sneakily snitch one before company gets them.

Jamie and I have also established some of our own Christmas traditions like decorating the house with lights and garlands, filling the house with friends and—it always gets back to food—sharing a Christmas Eve dinner of prime rib and all the trimmings, maybe even some French pastry.

Christmas, they say, is really about anticipation and the birth of new life. It’s about nourishment. It’s a time to be with people and shake off the darkness while looking forward to when the days will lengthen. The dark of December is, after all, always followed by the brightness of January’s new year. Break out the champagne!

About the Author

Nicholas grew up in Cleveland, then grew up in San Francisco, and is now growing up in Denver. He retired from work with non-profits in 2009 and now bicycles, gardens, cooks, does yoga, writes stories, and loves to go out for coffee.

October 14, 2013February 26, 2019

My Favorite Holiday by Gillian

Well, I titled my Halloween story Bah Humbug on a Broomstick, and that just about says it all. Bah Humbug on the Xmas Star and the Fireworks of the Fourth and on the End of Summer Labor Day Picnic.

Bah Humbug on Memorial Day and Veterans Day and Flag Day, not from lack of respect for those who deserve remembrance but for lack of respect for those whose only purpose on these days is to go thousands of dollars into debt to save five hundred dollars on that house-high plasma TV that nobody needs.

Bah Humbug for sure on New Year’s Ridiculous Resolutions, and Bah Humbug on the Cuddly Easter Bloody Bunny and his multicolored eggs. Has no one, incidentally, ever noticed the total disconnect between rabbits and eggs?

And one collective resounding Bah Humbug for all those additional holidays our Government (and Bah Humbug there too, while I’m at on a roll) apparently feels obligated to provide, if only to give themselves another day off.

Presidents’ Day? I don’t know about other parts of the country but in Colorado that is one of the busiest ski weekends of the year. Is one single person shushing down the slopes mulling over the significance of even one President, never mind all of them?

Columbus Day, for God’s sake. What’s that about, other than flipping a government-sanctioned bird at all our Native Peoples?

The memory of Martin Luther King, a man deserving of national reverie, would, in my never humble opinion, be better served simply by an MLK Day, as opposed to a holiday. If you look up the definition of the word holiday all the answers specify a day free from work, which in fact most U.S. holidays for most people are not, or a day set aside for leisure and recreation, even festivity; no mention of contemplation, significance, history, sacrifice, peace and love, which is what we should be involved with in reference to King.

Even if you try to remain true to the original intent of holidays, though I wonder if most of us have a clue what that would be in many cases, they always seem to be the worst example of emotions to order. On this day you will feel this, on that day that, and by the way you are religious on Christmas and Easter quite regardless of the fact that you never set foot in any House of Worship the rest of the year.

I guess I just do better with spontaneous emotions than those ordered up by calendar dates.

However, I doubt the lack of my participation is going to change anything so in the spirit of the thing I recommend our next addition should be a gay holiday for us all to celebrate our queerness.

We’ll call it Bah Hum-bugger Day.

About
the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.