Three Fun Things for December 3, 2023
A holiday essay, a baking project, and a song about risk and reward.
1. An essay about addiction and the holidays
This essay, about (among other things) the discomfort that can come with celebrating the holidays post-sobriety, really sums up the ambivalence and guilt I felt the first few Christmases after I quit drinking, and perhaps also the near-mania I feel about HOLIDAY CHEER, GODDAMNIT now, nearly nine years on.
My specific story doesn’t have a lot in common with the author’s (in fact—forgive me—I was the one telling my second-grade friends Santa wasn’t real), except for one thing: I, too, spent much of my younger life in a near-constant state of anxiety, lying in bed as everyone else drifted off to sleep. Like him, I didn’t seem to have an off switch that allowed me to unclench at the end of the day—until I started drinking, that is, and sleeping turned into passing out until I woke up to drink again, which turned into a full-time job.
I spent a lot of holidays scaring people who loved me and, as the awful year before I got sober wore on, in rehab: My birthday in September, followed almost immediately by Thanksgiving, after I relapsed for what would turn out to be the second-to-last time. The bad Christmases are the ones I remember most vividly, but I think that’s a gift—as good memories start to outnumber and overwrite the unpleasant ones, I’m grateful that the worst of it is still somewhere under all the layers, available any time I need a reminder.
My attitude toward the holidays has changed since that final, last-gasp Christmas, when I spent most of four days back home passed out in my childhood bedroom and sweating through withdrawal. These days, I buy ridiculous, unnecessary ornaments for the tree that I start lobbying to put up right after Thanksgiving. I give cookies to the neighbors. I buy my plane tickets early and get to the airport on time and visit with my family and try to be useful where I can. I am, as they say, just happy to be here.
For more of my writing on addiction, buy my book—perfect for listening on a long plane ride or drive—or check it out at your local library.
2. A challenging baking project
I’ll be honest, I thought my mom was insufficiently awed when I told her I had successfully baked a batch of dinner rolls—with yeast!—and her response was, in full: “Nice.” Your idea of “challenging” may, similarly, be more ambitious than mine (a white layer cake with peppermint frosting and a fondant candystriped bow, perhaps), but here’s what I conquered this weekend: A braided cinnamon bread—with yeast!—that fills whatever you’re baking it in to capacity and then gets dumped out, frosted, and covered in a shower of toasted pecans. It’s pretty easy and if you mess up the braids, you can just panic-dump the whole thing into a cast-iron Dutch oven like I did and hope for the best. As long as your yeast is alive, I promise it’ll turn out, and everyone will be impressed.
3. A dreamy song about living slow and dying old
I’m a latecomer to Boygenius, invariably described as an “all-woman indie supergroup,” but as they say in Texas, I got here as soon as I could. I love Lucy Dacus’ deep, plummy voice, and I love the contrarian theme of this song, which is about hope, pointless bravado, and choosing wisely: “I never rode a motorcycle/ I never smoked a cigarette/ I wanna live a vibrant life/ But I wanna die a boring death.”