holidays Archives - Starshine Roshell

O Come, All Ye Frenzied

Published by Starshine Roshell on January 13, 2019

It’s Ho-Ho-Horrid When the Mind Cedes to Seasonal Bedlam

I wanted to write a column this week. I swear I did. I yearned to slowly, inconspicuously crawl away from the taxing tumult of the Most Wonderful Time of the Year™ and dive into a wistful disquisition on Oregon’s potential legalization of psychedelic mushrooms — or whether “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” is really the date-rapey jingle we’ve long suspected.

But my head was having none of it, occupied as it is with visions of sugar plums. And shipping deadlines. And parade parking. Each time I sat down to my keyboard, cracked the ole knuckles, and tried to channel witty & erudite, but what came lurching out instead was spacey & lunatic. In gushy, paroxysmal spurts and sloppy, involuntary dribbles of language. Like this:

Safe Table Talk for the Holiday Season

Published by Starshine Roshell on January 21, 2018

Conversing Peacefully with Your Family at Thanksgiving

It’s been quite a year, folks. Hell, it’s been quite a week. In the last few days alone, our exalted leader tweeted a tweeny tantrum about the height and weight of a cranky and well-armed foreign leader. (Dear Diary, Rocketman hurt my feelings today, but I put a nuke in his locker, so we’ll see who’s laughing after fourth period…)

That’s only the very latest jaw-dropping moment, though, in a stunning string of horrors since we last sat down to Thanksgiving with our families. There was the Election That Enlighted Us All About Our Racist, Terrified Neighbors. That was followed by the daily matinees from the White House circus, including incompetent appointments to crucial government posts. There were hurricanes, floods, and fires. Domestic and foreign terrorism. Revelations of high-profile sexual harassment and abuse. And all of these things, miraculously, were politically charged.

Alert! This Won’t Depress You

Published by Starshine Roshell on December 24, 2015

I know, you guys; it’s bad out there. Just blowfish-ugly in every direction. Terrorism and police brutality. Rising sea levels and E. coli outbreaks. The words “President Trump.”

Here in our dusty California hometown, we can’t get the skies to rain — and yet we’re drowning in bad news. We skulk away from headlines, afraid to learn of yet another calamity. The other day, I attended a holiday parade and quietly wondered if the van on the street corner, the one whimsically arrayed in holiday lights, might just be packed with explosives.

But enough. Refusing to hand over my seasonal smiles to dread, I begged my fantastic friends for some reasons to feel hopeful about humankind — just a few tiny toeholds to help me clamber up on top of the Awful for some much-needed perspective. They delivered, as fantastic friends do. And I’m regifting their 20 gems to you. Happy holidays.

Don't Bogart Christmas

Published by Starshine Roshell on December 20, 2012

Most Californians don’t know from snow. We have no idea what it’s like to shovel a driveway, or awake to white-blanketed landscapes, or bundle up and stroll through frosty flurries (See? Frosty flurries — are those even a thing?). But we sing about it all just the same. Come December, we croon about sleigh bells and winter wonderlands and glistening treetops with all the enthusiasm of people who know what the flake they’re warbling about.

What I love best about this lyrical-geographical incongruity is that no one seems to care. People in nippy climes don’t ask us West Coasters to pipe down and stop singing about something we don’t — and frankly can’t — fully appreciate.

“Hey!” they don’t say. “Quit your convivial yodeling, and do some personal precipitation research!” It matters not to folks in icy Buffalo, New York, or glacial Grand Rapids, Michigan, whether our musical merriment is based in experience or willful ignorance. Whatever jingles your bells, man!

Why then — and you knew I was going somewhere with this, right? — should sourpuss religious zealots give a holly heck how the rest of us celebrate Christmas?

Faux Ho Ho

Published by Starshine Roshell on December 9, 2010

One word comes to mind as I watch my husband and sons scramble over our extremely pitched roof, stringing lights over the precarious edge of our home: balance.

It’s hard to find during the holidays, isn’t it? I’ve yet to master the balance between magic and madness, that elusive equilibrium between what the season should be about (family, friends, and gratitude) and what it actually, quickly becomes about (overspending, overeating, and buttoning up your coat for yet another bothersome obligation).

Heres one that no longer jingles my bells: I cannot bring myself to haul the family to a bustling parking lot, scout for the least-mangled tree, curse its $80 price tag, wrestle it into a stand, curse its asymmetry, argue about which unsightly side should face the wall, curse it for tilting, crawl underneath it to add daily water, live in fear of its flammability, and ultimately drag it, browned and battered, to the curb before vacuuming pine needles from the abused rug below.

I can’t do it. You can’t make me.

As a child, it was enchanting to have a huge, live tree in the house — no less astounding than if we’d dug a pond in the middle of the living room: How can this be? It’s magic!

Tag: holidays