Hello friends! Today's story is so good – it will get you in the Christmas spirit. Last month I ran into From Boise writer Amanda Patchin at Wintry Market and she told me she had a story idea about Christmas advice she has received over the years. I was interested because... honestly I don't really like Christmas. I don't like feeling super busy at the end of the year, I don't like the travel chaos, and I don't like giving or receiving "stuff" simply for the sake of feeling like you have to give someone a gift. I know I know, I sound like a Grinch, but it's just the truth haha. Also I'm just more of a Halloween gal, which is basically the opposite of Christmas, ya know?

Here's another truth: Amanda's Christmas advice got me in the Christmas spirit. I'm not kidding. I read her story and immediately felt more enthusiastic about the holidays. Her ideas for gift giving gave me ideas I'm actually excited about. We went and got a tree. We are making pecan pie and apple pie for Christmas din. She even inspired me to choose something to fast until Christmas, and to my surprise I have actually enjoyed this fast.

I hope this story leaves you with a festive feeling, too. You can listen to me read it on the podcast. Enjoy!

The best Christmas advice I’ve ever received

By Amanda Patchin

1. Woman cannot live on fudge & coffee alone

Tis the season, and I love fudge but starting a December morning with coffee and fudge is a disaster waiting to happen.

Many a year I have spent the week of Christmas having fudge or cookies for breakfast and then finding myself weirdly tired and grumpy at 11pm. Sometimes I would even compound the problem by then going back for more fudge to try and fix the situation!

Starting instead with a couple of over-easy eggs, or a sausage patty, or a warm bowl of oatmeal (cooked with blackberries from the Greenbelt saved in my freezer), means that I can enjoy the fudge and coffee but I will probably eat a bit less of it and I won’t suffer from a sugar/caffeine crash mid-morning. It’s funny that something so simple and that so obviously makes me happier as well as healthier would be hard to figure out on my own, but I did need the advice of an older friend to figure it out!

My favorite fudge is my mom’s old peanut butter recipe. It’s easy to make, delicious, and you can adjust the sweetness by reducing the powdered sugar content slightly. Two or three little pieces with a nice rich cup of coffee or English Breakfast tea hits the spot.

2. Gifts should make everything better (& are genuinely optional!)

Gift giving is often overwhelming and in most families the responsibility for making sure everyone has something typically falls on one person. While I enjoy giving gifts, I can get burned out by trying to think of something for everyone, and trying to balance the stress of budgeting and considering everyone’s unique desires.

For my husband and my sons I do take the time and put in the energy to figure out their specific desires for that year and come up with a special gift for them. However, for my extended circle I use two separate but overlapping approaches.

The first is to give most everyone on my list the same gift. I have A LOT of nieces and nephews. Sometime in December I head to a bookstore (usually Rediscovered) and buy a book for every single one of them. The babies get cute little board books, the toddlers some kind of picture book, early readers get copies of Calvin and Hobbes and older ones get various middle grade or classic novels (Anne of Green Gables is my favorite classic this year).

For the adults in the family my first approach usually involves discovering something new and exciting and then wanting to share it with everyone. One year I bought everybody a pair of Darn Tough’s wool socks (they were a huge hit). Socks may not seem all that exciting but durable, lifetime guaranteed socks kind of are. This year my husband is making wooden spoons and spatulas for everyone (shhh…don’t tell).

My second approach is to pick some consumable good I know someone likes and then get them or make them the same thing every year. My mother-in-law loves the candied almonds I make and so I give her a big jar of them every Christmas. My husband’s stocking is always filled with homemade ChexMix. My sister in law loves bubble baths and so I buy her fancy bubble bath from Mixed Greens each year. A brother-in-law loves good whiskey so I just pick out a bottle knowing he will enjoy it!

The key with both of these is that I try to never buy or make a gift for someone that is not either a durable useful thing or a consumable that I know they enjoy. If I can’t do either of those things, then there is no reason to get someone a gift at all. Nobody needs more clutter in their life. Nobody needs obligatory gift exchanges. We all need more wool socks though.

3. If you fast before Christmas, you don’t get depressed after Christmas

This one is more a cultural custom than particular advice I received. In the Christian church the feast of Christmas was preceded by a four-week fast called Advent. During the weeks preceding Christmas one was not supposed to eat meat (and in the Eastern church one had to abstain from all eggs and dairy as well). Many Christians also abstained entirely from alcohol and sweets during the four weeks as well.

Whichever particular form the fast takes it typically results in genuine excitement for Christmas Dinner and for the relaxation of the fast in the following weeks. Christmas cookies taste even better if you’ve gone four weeks without any sweets and the Beef Tenderloin I make for Christmas Dinner is extra delicious after weeks without so much as a hamburger.

In our very consumerist culture, with Christmas music, Christmas decorations, and Christmas food starting earlier and earlier, the idea of some kind of fasting or restriction before the holiday may seem odd and is sometimes quite difficult to manage, but the discipline of it does genuinely make the holiday more fun in the moment and it prevents that bloated, depressed, overloaded feeling that normally accompanies the morning of the 26th. Non-stop cookies and parties and cocktails and gift-giving before the holiday deflates it. Conscious abstention and patience allows it to be full and exciting without leaving a hangover.

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4. Everyone loves pie

This was originally a bit of advice about Thanksgiving but it applies to Christmas as well. There is no reason to negotiate over which kinds of pie to have. Everyone should have their favorite. Yes, sometimes this means that there are as many pies as people but that’s ok. If everyone makes some then everyone can take home lots of slices for leftovers in their own pie plate. Once a year it is good to have pecan pie even if you are the only one who likes it.

I love pecan pie. It has been a favorite since my great-grand-aunt used to send us a bag of unshelled pecans from her orchard in Georgia. I would crack hundreds of them to get the nice full halves that my mother would use to top the pie. I love the pecans themselves, but even more I love the flaky pastry right where it meets the sweetness of the filling.

Unfortunately, I’m the only one in my family who likes it! My husband says it is too sweet. My boys prefer apple, or mocha crunch, or huckleberry pie. For years I didn’t make one because I don’t need to eat a whole pie myself but then a friend mentioned that it was her husband’s favorite too and he never got one because he was the only one who liked it.

Well. It made no sense for us all to be pecan pie-less just because we didn’t happen to have families who enjoyed the same things. Ever since I have made a pecan pie for myself and shared it with whoever I found that wanted some. Even if there is no one else to enjoy it, you can have pecan pie with your breakfast for a week and not die (I’ve thoroughly tested this theory).

5. Christmas lasts until January 6th

This is another cultural one. Traditionally, in addition to fasting through Advent, the Christian church celebrated Christmas for twelve days. We all know the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas” but it wasn’t until I was in my twenties that I realized that it is not about the days leading up to Christmas but about twelve whole days that counted as Christmas.

It is in this tradition that we most fully see the human need for joy and celebration in the middle of the darkest part of the year. January is often quite difficult for its darkness and cold (unless you are big into winter sports) and a two-week feast as the year turns was a wonderful way for our ancestors to energize themselves to endure its difficulties.

Most of us don’t have to worry too much about the cold. I do have to go out and feed the chickens each morning but my outside chores are pretty limited and I get to spend much of the winter in cozily temperature-controlled spaces with a warm red blanket and as much coffee or tea as I would like. However, viewing Christmas as a twelve day season has actually helped me a bit by delaying the “start” of Christmas in my home and then giving it a little more space after the 25th is over.

I’ve already mentioned enjoying leftover pie with breakfast, and that is actually one of the ways I continue to mark the feast of Christmas. By not gorging before Christmas, I justify the extra sweets to myself and to my workout routine! Pie with breakfast is really no more absurd than cold cereal for breakfast but it does feel special and festive!

I also keep my Christmas gifts out for a while before incorporating them into my daily life. Even though I love to give and receive practical gifts, I don’t like to make them “ordinary” by storing them away immediately. I clear up my desk before Christmas Day and make space where I can set the new socks or soaps or journals out and admire and enjoy them before they join their proper places in drawers and on shelves. I feel more gratitude this way, spread out over twelve days of noticing them.

I don’t decorate very much but everyone in my family loves the warm glow of candle light and twinkle lights and so any of them that we have out for Christmas stay up through the end of Christmas on January 6th (or, honestly, somewhat longer). Early mornings and late evenings are very pleasant in the soft and flickering glow of candlelight.

Enjoy the holidays! May they bring you through the darkest weeks of winter, ready for the renewal of Spring.

Thanks for reading!

With love from Boise,

Marissa

This story was written by Amanda Patchin. Amanda has a monthly-ish newsletter where she shares her booklist, selections from her fiction, and updates on what books she has for sale in the Zed Bookshop.

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PS - speaking of useful gifts... how about a cozy sweater from your fave newsletter?

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