The Russians. I’m against war, not living in Russia, working and paying taxes elsewhere. It was hard to make peace with myself, as you have to rip the vision of your country into two pieces - the first is the culture, places where you lived, your friends. The second is an insane killing machine called “the state”. Have to learn not to associate yourself with that second half.
The support from many people, from here and from other countries, including a couple of Ukrainian friends (takes time to prove that you’re “normal”), really helped.
Sorry for everything, I hope the old man will die soon.
I’m from New Orleans and I had seen flurries before but the first time I saw snow that stuck to the ground was in Las Vegas of all places. We visited some relatives and drove to the mountains to see snow.
I eventually lived in a city that got snow regularly and learned it’s only charming for a day or two before it’s just gray mush. But I do miss that first few hours where it’s a winter wonderland.
When you wake up early after a snowstorm and nobody has gone out yet it looks so beautiful. The snow also dampens sounds, and it makes the sound of people shoveling their walks a little magical. Then six hours later it’s just dirty, and annoying.
I guess "getting into Christmas" probably means something different to everyone. For me it's about reliving good memories of friends and family. Some of my favorite memories are decorating cookies with my kids, mixing batches fudge, sipping eggnog and coffee over pie and ice cream, or dancing with my kids to Christmas music.
So for Christmas I play Christmas music, setup a tree, make cookies and fudge, and send the treats and little mementos to friends and family around the country. This year I sent Christmas muffins, fudge, drawings my daughter made, little $1 bottles of peppermint schnapps with Cocoa packets, and other things like Santa socks that I divied up from a cheap multipack. That was the presents I sent out to all our friends and family.
But if I didn't have those memories or enjoy baking, I doubt I would do much for it. So I suppose, ask yourself what getting into Christmas means to you, or take the time to define what you want it to mean to you, and then do the thing. If it's taking a little bit of extra time to show family you are thinking of them, then a little home assembled Cocoa kit and a card might do it. You don't need to go crazy with decorations or buying presents to get into Christmas, unless that is what you want it to mean to you.
definitely. i’m usually dreading the part right after opening gifts. – the whole day feels stagnant and dead, everything is shut, there’s nothing to do but wait for how shitty jan and feb will be. brutal dead awful months
I lost my dad to cancer about two week before last Christmas. And my birthday is a few days after Christmas as well. I'll be damned if I ever feel like celebrating Christmas or my birthday ever again
I lost my sister suddenly 2 days before Christmas in 2008. The joy came back — after a fair amount of therapy and contemplation — and over time, life grew around the gaping hole.
A couple of quotes that I keep near me:
Yet, in a bizarre, backwards way, death is the light by which the shadow of all of life’s meaning is measured. Without death, everything would feel inconsequential, all experience arbitrary, all metrics and values suddenly zero.
Mark Manson
When you dull pain and hide it from yourself, you dull your joys as well.
Robin Hobb, Fool’s Fate (Tawny Man #3)
All the best for this holiday season, and all the ones that follow.
Gotta have opposites, light and dark and dark and light, in painting. It’s like in life. Gotta have a little sadness once in awhile so you know when the good times come. I’m waiting on the good times now.
A bunch of my other subs have already been mentioned, so I want to add Caitlin from Ask a Mortician. She has demonstrated integrity and consistently high effort for her channel despite growing to over 2mil subscribers.
Jenny Nicholson is another that’s been around and gotten big but her videos have only gotten more weird and interesting.
Climate Town has rapidly become one of my favorite channels and consistently puts out well-researched, informative and entertaining vids
Clickspring makes some of the most beautiful, soothing, detail obsessed machining videos imaginable. Dude builds complex gear works from scratch, including a replica of the Antikythera mechanism which is still in progress after many years, though nearly finished now.
Also wrote open source software to generate those fantastic visualizations. It has been forked and is maintained, and it has therefore influenced the whole genre positively.
On the topic, Brady Haran’s channels are also putting out great educational content.
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