Happy Holidays: Solstice and Christmas Traditions, Flare, Corona Full Cover Reveal, New Kittens, Winter Storms, and Planning for 2023 Already!

One of my fave Curly Girl Holiday Cards

Happy Holidays! Winter Storms and More

Happy Solstice, Hannukah, Christmas, and Yule time to all! How are you all doing? I’ve been waiting out a winter storm for three days in my house, with the latest being an ice storm that makes my metal ramp too treacherous to traverse safely. I hope to report on more holiday lights next week, when I’ll be able to safely leave the house!

Snow and cold we’ve about had enough of for the whole winter—we had a coldest day in ten years on the first day of Winter! I know the rest of the country will be facing this soon. For all those traveling—be safe. Stay safe and warm you all! Keep yourself warm with hot chocolate and tinsel, as suggested by the card at left.
In the meantime, here are a few holidayish scenes – snow in Woodinville, Woodinville holiday lights, and Molbak’s Nutcracker-inspired scene.

Photo by Anastasiya Dobrovolskaya

Solstice, Christmas, and Other Holiday Traditions

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about where the traditions for this time of year come from. Many we practice are far older than Christmas—exchanging gifts, having a feast, and setting intentions for the new year were practiced in many cultures as part of the solstice. Bringing in greenery, lighting candles. For practical reasons, we gathered together and shared what we had – probably to keep us earlier humans from starving or dying from cold or sadness! It’s different this year, with illnesses packing the hospitals, showing us maybe we shouldn’t do be doing big family and friend get-togethers just yet. But maybe we can incorporate some older traditions to bring us joy instead.

I listened to a beautiful carol which I found out was a Christina Rossetti poem, “In the Bleak Midwinter” that brought this idea home. On the Solstice, we had duck and potatoes and carrots (very winter appropriate), Glenn and I lit candles, thought about what we wanted to leave behind and embrace in the new year, and listened to the old prom themes we could remember late into the night. It was really nice! So anyway, in America there’s a weird idea someone is trying to steal Christmas, when in actuality, Christmas borrowed a lot of its stuff from other older religious and cultural traditions—and early Americans, like the Pilgrims, considered celebrating Christmas sinful! It’s also worth noting historians think Jesus was actually born in April! (My birthday month! Just a coincidence. Celebrating Easter and Christmas together would be a lot, I suppose.) And it does seem like we need to celebrate this time of year, to ward off SAD (as we call it now), to practice kindness (always in short supply but especially needed this time of year), and to try to find joy in the things we can.

Speaking of which, I have a few things to celebrate in this post!

Full Cover Reveal of Flare, Corona! Hot Pink!

I’m proud to reveal the full cover design of Flare, Corona, which should be coming out in just a few months! Look at that back cover, with the hot pinks and the fractal neurons! I love it. And I’m really loving my blurbs and blurb-ers. It seems things are moving fast already in the book direction—people are already writing about dates for readings! Eek! How is my calendar going to be full through May! Starting at AWP, this is the most social events I will have had in over three years! I hope I remember how to dress, socialize, speak correctly, and navigate crowds with my cane!

P.S. You can pre-order your own copy of Flare, Corona from BOA Editions here..

Me with Christmas kitten Charlotte

New Kitten!

You didn’t think I would forget this part of our year-end celebrating, did you? We are welcoming home Charlotte (her mother was named Jane Austen—this name is from Charlotte Bronte, as well as Elizabeth’s best friend in Pride and Prejudice and also my dear Aunt Charlotte who passed away a few years ago, who was a very fancy (and kind) lady. Charlotte is a little too small to breed so she joins our latest in a series of very cute ragdoll cats who were in some way not exactly perfect in the cat/human eye, perhaps, but perfect for us. (Remember Sylvia was re-homed for behavioral problems, such as fighting with dogs and breaking plates? We had no dogs and no plates in kitten-reach, so easy choice.) I love animals and, in my opinion, the more the better. Did you know I studied Zoology at the Cincinnati Zoo, thinking that might be a good career for me? Then I found out they made $26,000 a year, and a female zoo worker at the Cincinnati Zoo had her arm bitten off by a polar bear. So that’s why I don’t work with red pandas and otters for a living. What do you think? It could have been a better career for me! Anyway, we are celebrating our holiday with our new baby, and so far she’s gotten along okay with Sylvia, so now we have a pair of literary kittens again!

Another photo by Anastasiya, this time with a new year symbol: baby fox!

Planning for 2023

So, what are you throwing out from 2022 and embracing for 2023? Personally, I am hoping for better health, more energy, more friends, and less fear, less insecurity, and maybe some other good things too, specifically around the new book. Hey, I can dream!

Have you started making plans yet, as I find myself doing? Can I book a birthday party/book launch the same day? How many readings can I realistically do in a three-month period? Am I looking forward to seeing other writers again but also am nervous?

As I look back on the past year, at first I felt as if I didn’t get as much accomplished as I wanted to—as I could say of all the pandemic years—and was weighted down with too many doctor’s appointments and not enough fun stuff. But productivity is only one way—and a narrow one—to measure a year. I made new friends at a beautiful new farm in Woodinville – where I spent a lot of time wondering through lavender fields – and started a book club at a winery—where I hope to make more local friends. I got to go to La Conner for the Tulip Festival AND the Poetry Festival, and caught up with old friends, and did my first live reading at Hugo House since the pandemic with wonderful poets. I did podcasts for Writer’s Digest and Rattle. And of course, I worked this year with BOA Editions for the first time, on copyedits, covers, blurbs, and putting together all kinds of information. So in some ways I accomplished important things. So I guess I’m hoping for more time in flower fields, more time with friends, and more time away from doctor’s offices.

Wishing you a Happy Holiday, whatever tradition you celebrate, and a Merry Christmas to those who celebrate what turns out to be a pretty strangely ancient tradition. And if you don’t stop by the blog next week, have a happy and healthy New Year!