happy day to all who celebrate the return of spring
in their own very fine way.
“i still believe in santa, the easter bunny, the tooth fairy and true love. don’t even try to tell me different.”
-dolly parton
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art credits: vicky sawyer
not me, nor anyone in my family, but i love the spirit of ‘pocket pancaking’
all families are unique, with their own quirks, traditions, and ways of communicating – and the holiday season often serves as the perfect showcase for these interconnected elements. so when tonight show host, jimmy fallon asked his viewers to tweet funny examples using hashtag #myfamilyisweird, the responses did not disappoint. one person shared their relatives’ tradition of hiding leftover pancakes in each other’s pockets, while another posted a photo of a ‘hideous hand-me-down elf ornament their mother keeps trying to throw away each year, but hilariously ends up back on the tree. customs we cultivate with our kin can do more than just make us laugh, studies have long shown that establishing family routines and rituals positively benefits our health, relationships and well-being.
does your family have any unusual traditions? in my family we had a super creepy automotron mange-y looking furry toy cat that kept coming back. we bought it for a visiting grandie and just thought it was an ordinary stuffed animal, but what we soon discovered was that it would move or make noise at random times. people who received this gift ending up reporting that they kept in their garage or basement or closet, because it creeped them out so much. even with all that, they housed if for a full year, just for the opportunity to ‘gift it’ to someone else in family at the next christmas gathering. people went to great lengths to disguise it when wrapping, so the recipient would let down their guard and open it. we gifted it back and forth to each other for many years, until one year it just disappeared….
“remember as far as anyone knows we’re a nice, normal family.”
— homer Ssmpson
this is someone else (who is not me)
goofing off to celebrate one holiday,
while actively ignoring the clutter of the other holiday.
—
how incredibly lucky
that right after i realized it is
‘clutter awareness week’
i found out it is also
‘international goof off week’
so i decided to go all in on the goof off celebration.
i’ve never been one to shy away from honoring a holiday
but i can only spread myself so thin.
happy holidays to those of you who celebrate one or both.
—
“but i love to feel events overlapping each other, crawling over one another like wet crabs in a basket.”
lawrence durrell
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image credit: animal rescue site news
4 of the 6-pack taking their turn in group charades.
6 of the 6-pack will have different memories of thanksgiving.
—
“it’s like your children talking about holidays,
you find they have quite a different memory of it from you.
perhaps everything is not how it is,
but how it is remembered.”
-denis norden
“one ox, two oxen. one fox, two foxen.”
jenny lawson
Happy Chinese New Year in the year of the Ox- 2021!
Celebrated at the second new moon following the Winter Solstice,
Chinese New Year is also known as the Lunar New Year or Spring Festival.
According to the Chinese Lunar Calendar,
this festival marks the end of winter and the beginning of a long-awaited spring!
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image credit: fairycake fair, tokyo station, japantimes.com
“It is very frustrating not to be understood in this world. If you say one thing and keep being told that you mean something else, it can make you want to scream. But somewhere in the world there is a place for all of us, whether you are an electric form of decoration, peppermint-scented sweet, a source of timber, or a potato pancake. On a cold, snowy night, everyone and everything should be welcomed somewhere, and the latke was welcomed into a home full of people who understood what a latke is, and how it fits into its particular holiday.”
And then they ate it. AAAHHHH!!
-Lemony Snicket, The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming
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Happy Hanukah to all who celebrate
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credits: Daniel Handler, Lisa Brown, McSweeney’s Publishing