Cookies, Columns, and Carrying On
Closing out the year with a little help from Purell, Snoop, and the Ghost of Christmas Future
I'm wrapping some things up this year and others I'm sure I'll still be tinkering with between Christmas and New Years. Some have already been kicked straight to 2025.
For many years in my own career, this time of year felt overwhelming when things didn’t wrap up nicely heading into the holidays, and I know the same holds true for many others. Projects, budgets, and deadlines love a clean line in the sand—or snow. But the joyful anticipation of the holidays can quickly turn into dread over what didn’t go as planned or what’s still unfinished. And let’s not forget the perceived judgement from those who come back from their holidays expecting better news from us.
It takes time to break that mental mold, and these past weeks of holiday prep highlighted how those clear lines we crave often don’t work out as planned.
Last week I was sitting in church and admiring the Christmas trees behind the altar. These were like 20 footers in a church with tall vaulted ceilings. The kind of church that nostalgicly reminds me of where my parents grew up going to mass with my grandparents, aunts, and uncles.
Not the Mid century style one I went to as a kid with wrought iron Jesus and angles that sharply jutted from everywhere.
Then I noticed something that had been there in plain sight for a couple of years, and it stuck out even more than a carryover pagan winter solstice symbol which made converting to Christianity more palatable some centuries ago. It was a faux Doric column on the altar with a bottle of Purell.
I'm not an architect, but I still somehow remember the main 3 columns I learned in school (Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian). This church, although old, wasn’t built in a style where Doric columns made sense. Yet here they were—Home Goods columns—making the post-pandemic world a bit more palatable in a community STEEPED in tradition and ritual.
And if that analogy doesn't work for you, here's my very secular analogy of how lines blur and timing can both drag on and rapidly transform at the same time.
My father— never a baker— showed up to my house with dozens of cookies he made. One of them a Snoop Dogg recipe! My son is currently playing the video game Fortnite using the Snoop Dogg character—styled in a way reminscent of his "Gin and Juice" video. Hockey jersey, afro, chucks, and Doggystyle heavy imagery.
If the Ghost of Christmas Future showed up in 1993 to my bedside, there is no way this scenario would compute. My teachers had just confiscated a friend's copy of "Doggystyle" and the blushing and pearl clutching as they looked at the liner notes is as hilarious now as it was when I was a teenager.
Yet here is Snoop, who makes perfect sense 30 years later as a grandfather culinary icon. The same way I wore Jim Morrison and John Lennon tshirts, my son has embraced ol' Snoop.
And don't get me started on the hourlong dinner conversation between my siblings and I on whether or not Mom was finally ready for a THC infused cocktail!
Whatever we need to do in 2025 to make life more palatable and less scary, let’s blur the lines—like wiping snow with a mittened hand. And if someone else asks, just explain to them how it's a long held tradition to do things this way.
🎵 Now Streaming 🎅
Father Christmas - The Kinks
The Kinks sound like they could be on the naughty list for this one, but there's a bit of Robin Hood if you listen closely. It’s one of the great holiday songs that belongs on any list.
Appreciated the church imagery!