I LOST IT in the Apple Store. Chad and I were waiting for one of the geniuses from the Genius Bar to help us set up Michaela's Apple Watch. We bought her a refurbished Apple Watch because all of her friends have one, and she has no way of communicating with her friends unless she uses one of our phones to text them. Nobody has a home phone anymore, so there's no way to get in touch with people unless you have your own device. Now that Michaela is eleven, it's starting to feel a bit cruel to make her borrow one of her parents' phones so she can text or talk to her friends. It's time for her to have her own device.

Anyway, I lost it when Chad suggested we buy her another present. I looked around the store, at the polished white surfaces and the gleaming black screens, and I just had a meltdown. "All this shit is so expensive!" I hissed, because I didn't want people who were happily shopping for their own devices to hear me. "It feels like we're buying her a car! And she's only eleven!"

Here's the thing. Gifts, for me, are fraught. First of all, I have never been very good at giving them. I identify with Jo March, who told her sister Amy, "I wish it was as easy for me to do little things to please people, as it is for you. I think of them, but it takes too much time to do them; so I wait for a chance to confer a big favor, and let the small ones slip."

Is a present a small thing or a big one? Either way I tend to fail. I think of a good gift and then...just let it slip. And slip. And slip until the day of exchanging presents comes and I realize that I have let it slip far too long, and now it's too late.

Second, I grew up celebrating Christmas and Hanukkah. My friends were jealous because they thought this meant I got twice as many presents. I never disabused them of this idea but I am pretty sure I got the same amount of presents as any other kid who celebrated only one holiday instead of two. They were just more spread out, which meant getting one big gift on one night and a lot of little presents, like socks.

Now I have a daughter who was born on the Winter Solstice. So instead of just having to worry about Christmas and Hanukkah presents, we also have her birthday to contend with. And then, this year, it seems like all of the marketing departments in the world had a meeting and decided to make advent calendars a real thing. Wasn't there supposed to be a war on Christmas? I guess Christmas won. So now, we not only have Christmas, Hanukkah, and birthday stuff to worry about—we have advent too.

I felt lousy in the Apple Store when Chad pointed out that Michaela loses out by having a birthday that coincides with the holidays. We can't shaft her by treating her birthday like just another night of Hanukkah or whatever. And of course he is right. I can't let my seasonal overwhelm get in the way of her getting the most out of her special day. I drew the line at the advent calendar, though. Instead of buying the special Sephora advent calendar she asked for, I have been making little envelopes and putting notes in them every morning, or sometimes a little trinket. She seems satisfied. She even forgave me the couple of times I forgot.

Three Things Keeping Me Going This Week

1. The Elizabeth Catlett exhibition at the Art Institute. One of my biggest regrets from when I used to write about art in New York was ignoring the 2010 Elizabeth Catlett show at the Bronx Museum. What planet was I on? Or: where did I get off? I'm wiser now, or more tuned into the things that move me versus the things I think I should like. I fear I found Catlett's work too earnest. Or did I have (or pretend to have) a bias against figuration? I'm glad I feel more free to like what I like. Worth noting: the beautiful symmetry between Catlett's busts and the outstanding sculpture by Simone Leigh which is in the north garden of the Art Institute. (Hat tip to Chad for pointing that out.)

2. I am a fantasy nerd. As a kid I devoured The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley and The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander and the abridged version of King Arthur. I love Tolkien and T.H. White's The Sword and the Stone. And I was also a fan of Lev Grossman's "Magician" books. So I was primed to enjoy Grossman's most recent book, The Bright Sword, which revisits King Arthur's court. Still, it took me a while to pick it up because I'd heard that it dragged a little. I polished it off relatively quickly. I appreciate what Grossman is trying to do: compress all the versions of Arthur into one big book, one that captures both Britain's pre-Christian, pagan culture and also the pomp of jousting knights in the Middle Ages. I was also drawn to the theme of nation-building and the vital role immigrants play in that.
3. Brightly Shining by Ingvild Rishoi. I finished this book right before Santa Lucia day, which felt appropriate since it is set in Norway during the Christmas season, and the protagonist, who is a young child, participates in a Santa Lucia program at her school. The book is a loose mashup of two of my favorite Hans Christian Anderson stories, "The Little Matchgirl" and the robber girl episode from "The Snow Queen." I learned of it through Dua Lipa, who I only recently learned is a bookworm with really good taste in books. It is a short, easy read that caught me off guard with how emotionally affecting it was. (As an added bonus, it inspired me to read "The Snow Queen" to Michaela, and I had forgotten how wonderfully bizarre that story is. Now Michaela likes to awaken me in the morning by saying "Wake up, you old nanny-goat!" which is how the robber girl wakes up her mother, who responds affectionately in kind.)

Bonus Thing: I'm about halfway through the audio version of Doppelgänger by Naomi Klein, and already I am telling everyone I know that they have to read this book. Including you! Please, read this book. No other book or article I have read has succeeded in explaining to me why people refused to get vaccinated for Covid. This book helps me understand their rationale and the way government failed (and continues to fail) so many, many people, forcing them to fend for themselves and retain their dignity in the process.

That's all from me for this year. I drafted this before the terrible events of the weekend. But even if I had all the time in the world to write, I don't think I could think of anything to say that would offer the encouragement we all crave right now. I'm just going to continue to seek out community and opportunities to do the right thing.

In the meantime, keep those candles lit.

Love,

Claire