Merry Christmas. How Are You?
It’s the day of imagination and hope, so I hope you imagine something good.
Merry Christmas, folks. How are you?
It’s been a while since I’ve updated this Substack. Part of the reason I didn’t want to charge for this whole thing was knowing that sometimes I’d be bad at this. I hope to get better at it, but I also hope a lot of things, of which “making content” should be one of the least important. Let’s not kid ourselves though; I wish I had the energy! While I have friends who are dynamos of constant creation, I have to settle for being a rechargeable USB battery from 2010 still trying to do its best.
But it’s Christmas. How are you holding up?
This year hasn’t been easy for anyone, so complaining feels odd and pointless. Of the billions of people on this Earth, I exist within an extraordinarily lucky percentage. Even if I were to die today in some horrible way, most of my life will have been lived with more ease and comfort than most people alive today or in human history have ever experienced. I’ve seen more boobs and butts and dicks than royalty did in ancient times. Not in person, but I’m pretty sure the overall quality is better. If you fed Alexander the Great a burrito from Chipotle, he may have wept for he had no more food to conquer.
Christmas has always meant a lot to me. It means a lot to a lot of people. I’m not unique. For my family, Christmas felt like the climax of the year. All of the emotions - good and bad - came to the surface. Thanksgiving was never big for my family. It was a nice holiday, but the big one - the one where relatives you hadn’t seen in months or years show up to eat your food and tell you to stop playing video games so they can watch basketball - was Christmas. Both the Catholic and Jewish sides of my family decided to narrow it down to one big day of gifts and grievances. I think my mom likes Christmas because she didn’t grow up with much money. I think my dad likes Christmas because he didn’t grow up with much warmth.
By the way, I’m still curious how you’re doing and how your year’s been?
As the climax of the year, Christmas has always occupied the territory of “just make it there” in my heart. Not that Christmas was an easier day for us. There are even more fights fraught with decades of underlying animosity. People are disappointed in their gifts. People are disappointed that you didn’t like their gifts. Relatives are disappointed you didn’t make a complex cookie that only they want to eat. Younger relatives want to play Mario Kart. Older relatives want you to turn off that goddamn Mario Kart. Even the most joyous moments of unwrapping gifts was and is moved along for fear that guests will show up too early. Or too late. Or right on time.
This has been the year of “just make it there.” Even as one of the lucky ones. I’ve had good, close friends die. I’ve had friends I’ve lost contact with over the years die. I’ve had professional acquaintances I respect die. People I’d loved and that loved me. Some of these are people you know. Others aren’t. People from high school. People I’d watched on stage. People I knew growing up who couldn’t escape a rough orbit of misfortune and sickness. Their deaths don’t somehow give Christmas or my life any more meaning - they just leave another gap. A hole. When someone I know dies, I tend to take a long shower in the dark and pretend to talk to them. To apologize for not knowing what I knew now or not doing more or just to say goodbye. I’ve done this since I was a little child. It’s morbid to put words in the mouths of those you miss, but it’s hard not to create just one more moment with them. Especially the close ones. It’s a combination of a prayer and a ritual and a goodbye and I’ve had to do it more and more recently.
I’m sorry I’ve been making this about me. Are you alright, though?
Along with all this has been the backdrop of a world that is neither fair nor caring to others far more than myself. The world is always ending, the world is always on fire, but that doesn’t make seeing it and knowing it more comforting for anyone - especially those caught in the middle. It’s hard to want to post jokes when the biggest story in the news is suffering and when the places you liked to tell jokes have become the headquarters of rage, hate, and complete morons. Even when you’re lucky, it’s hard not to try to just make it there. Just get across the finish line. Crawl through the mud of everyday existence as others crawl through literal mud for survival. Nothing seems fair, nothing seems good to talk about.
But it is Christmas. The world continues to turn even as the world continues to burn. And despite my general demeanor, embracing nihilism doesn’t work well for me. Or, at least, cosmic nihilism. I can be nihilistic about my own existence, but it’s harder for me to be nihilistic about others. I can hate myself for ignoring the world and spending money on a Steam sale that could go to friends, family, and strangers. I can’t hate children for wanting to have magic in their lives and families wanting to see each other for good or ill. I can’t judge a species for holding more than one idea in its head at a time, for searching for joy while mourning, for feeling pangs of guilt while celebrating, for hoping calories don’t count if the cookie is vegan.
Is there anything good you’re hoping for this year? Anything you want?
Perhaps what I like about Christmas - and Halloween for that matter - is that they are holidays of imagination. It’s ironic both are solidly rooted in religion, because both have evolved into days when we openly put a premium on believing something we know isn’t unreal. Yes, yes, gifts and candy. But Valentine’s Day doesn’t come with signs that urge you to close your eyes and believe that Cupid is a real flying baby. New Year’s is largely about the actual, tangible things you want from life, even if you’re lying to yourself about them happening. Christmas and Halloween are - to be even cornier - when the veil between what we know is true and what we wish was true becomes thinner. I’m not spiritual, but maybe that level of imagination is the closest I get without going over like it’s the Price Is Right.
As kids, we were forced to clean the entire house before our parents allowed any family to come over. Between this and going to mass, the early hours of Christmas were always stressful. The lowest of the low-key horrors on Christmas was my parents calling up my grandparents to tell them to come two hours later so me and my sister could scrub the windows and floors a little more. You know the scramble of the family in Home Alone to leave for the airport? Imagine that, but with organizing things and hiding junk in the one bedroom that my grandpa would always search for. My parents always wanted to convince my grandparents that we were as tidy as they were. My grandparents always wanted to find evidence to the contrary.
But those that judged us have long ago gone to their final judgment. The anxiety remaining is residual. We’re stressed on Christmas morning because that’s how we know it’s Christmas morning. The idea of casually waking up with a coffee and a hot chocolate and opening gifts with ease and pleasure is a dream I’ve never dreamt. The gifts will be opened. The smiles will come. But first, there has to be something. Almost an emotional sacrifice to pay for the bounty. As I write this, we’re all milling about waiting for Christmas to start like a referee will walk in, blow a whistle, and everyone will be able to move onto the next process. There has been one argument so far.
What’s your Christmas like? Or Hanukkah? Or other holiday? Are you comfortable?
Between a five-month-long professional strike and the loss of friends, it’s been a difficult year. I’ve personally felt adrift. Again, I know I’m lucky. I have a weirdo video game book coming out soon and I’ve got another video game book coming out sometime in 2025. I’ve still got to finish that, by the way. I’ve got a regular video game column that pays for the beeps and boops. I’ve got a job that lets me write comedy for the picture radio and - no matter how long it lasts - that’s more than I ever expected and far more than I ever deserved. I get to tell jokes on stage when I’m better at being a human being.
But it’s been a difficult year. This is a strange thing to say, but it’s an odd experience to have a year where you repeatedly - and genuinely - feel relief that you don’t have children or anyone relying on you. I feel lucky that I have been given so much, but I also feel lucky that I’m not responsible for anyone having to exist in this world without their permission. It’s stupid. And it’s selfish. But this year has felt hard enough to keep myself together as one, coherent person. Even then, I have barely succeeded if one can call it a success at all. And it isn’t a success that I’d like to define my life. I’m comfortable not passing on my monstrous genetic poison, but I shouldn’t feel relieved about it.
At the very least, I disappeared beneath the waves. I couldn’t post much. I couldn’t think. I didn’t talk to friends. I didn’t talk to relatives. I forgot an entire wedding I’d RSVP’d to, which is something that does make me an asshole. Not one that I’d want to be, but one that I am nonetheless. I’m nothing if not selfish. I’m nothing if not trapped inside an imagination that prioritizes solitude over community. And I’d like that to change. I’d like this year’s climax to mean something more than just a reboot of the same problems. But now I’m sounding all New Year’s.
I’ve been talking a lot. You okay? Have I been asking that too much? Is this all too sweaty?
It’s Christmas. It’s a day of imagination. I can’t change this world with one swoop of my arm. I can’t repair friendships by ignoring them. But I can try to do it better if I imagine it. Despite my imagination, I’ve rarely cast myself as a hero so much as a battered sinner who will one day descend into the depths of Hell to be boiled in my own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through my heart. And that doesn’t always have to be the case. I don’t know if I’ll ever be “better” but I hope I can escape from the hill a lot of us are stuck under. I’ll be fine no matter what. But I’ll crawl nonetheless. I’m telling myself that. I’m putting thought into it. I’m imagining it.
So no matter who you are or why you read this spotty, splotchy collection of nothing, thank you. Thank you for being around. Thank you for letting me know you exist. Thank you for putting up with others imperfect existences. Thank you for when you reach out to me despite me being a ghost. Thank you for knowing me or being aware of me or working with me or being someone in my family. Thank you for existing in a world that often doesn’t make existing a whole lot of fun.
Merry Christmas. I hope it’s a good one.
I’m going to go clean a window for old time’s sake.
I’m back in Florida as well (normally I live in Boston) and every person I’ve seen so far on my trip since last year, when I ask how they’ve been, has said some variance of “good, all things considered.” I don’t know what happened this year to hurt so many people at once, and I’m one of them (dad died, friends died, lost love, friends’ child illness, Gaza opinions tearing the family apart, etc) but the palpability of desperation is very clear. People feel like they are glad to just be here. Merry Christmas, I’m glad you’re still here too.
Thanks, Mike. Merry Christmas! We’re lucky to have you.