b.rox

Warning: What follows is not a well-researched authoritative statement. It’s unfettered speculation. Take it with a grain of salt. The Oldest Holiday Surely the winter solstice must be the oldest holiday, or one of the oldest. Early humans noticed that the days would get shorter and longer, and it’s fairly easy to determine the solstice [...]

Cards, cards, cards. We had 25 holiday greeting cards printed. When I drew up a complete mailing list (after the fact, stupid, I know) I realized we needed twice that number. But it’s all good, because in point of fact we only actually mailed a dozen or so cards before time got away from us [...]

Strange times we live in. Here’s a Christian pastor, C. Joshua Villines, who says we should take Christ out of Christmas. Compare that to noted Pagan, T. Thorne Coyle, who wishes we’d all put Christ back in Christmas. They both make interesting points. As far as I can tell these two essays were written independently [...]

When I whipped up a Xmas mix three years ago, I had to engage in some serious scraping to round it out. Times have changed, and my collection has expanded. I can now present a collection of seventeen tracks with zero compromises. This is everything I consider necessary for a Five Star Xmas. Enjoy! I [...]

Dear Persephone, You’re twenty-two months old as of yesterday. Not long ago I had a fleeting vision of what you might be like when you are twenty-two years old. We were napping together and it came in a dream as I was half-asleep, so vivid and so real and so beautiful. I woke up and [...]

My co-worker Jim has said there’s been many a warm Xmas Day in New Orleans throughout his life, Xmases where he finds he’s quite comfortable wearing shorts. But I think this is the first such Xmas I’ve experienced here. I was hanging out in shorts all day. Warm summery weather. Loved it. I did not [...]

Good Yule y’all! …from Persephone, Sebastian and Santa. And from Xy and me as well.

I really don’t mind a long convalescence. It’s the initial descent that I hate. Anyway, I’m on the upswing now. Still a little unsteady but close enough to function. I went back to work today and was fairly productive despite some lingering queasiness. Today was the day of the big Fifth Floor Xmas Potluck. (In [...]

One of my photos is being used in a book called I See… Xmas; I’m not actually sure which photo but I think it’s this one which is odd because it has nothing to do with Xmas.

I got some clothes and a swell electric garlic roaster for Christmas this year, but by far the coolest gift comes from my dear departed Grandma Mildred. It’s a crib blanket that I used as a child forty years ago, handmade by Grandma. The theme seems to be travel. It says: “BY AIR, BY SEA, [...]

There are nineteen balusters In our balustrade. I painted them all orange today Each one a different shade. Actually that’s not true. I painted sets of two In alternating hue. This tortured verse Has gone from bad to worse But do not curse My name. I plan to have a merry Christmas And hope you [...]

A question to all the Christians out there: How would you like to see non-Christians act with regard to Christmas? How can we be both respectful to you and true to ourselves? Clearly we can’t celebrate the religious aspect of the holiday, so would you rather we not participate at all? That doesn’t seem quite [...]

Xy and I didn’t really exchange gifts this year. That is, I got her a gift but she didn’t get me anything. She’s a Scrooge, but I’m a sentimental old fool. I stopped into an upscale used clothes shop on Christmas Eve and saw a cool scarf. I knew she’d like it. But I was [...]

Take a nighttime drive down Bienville, from Galvez to Jefferson Davis. It’s dark. There’s a house with some lights near Tonti, another near Gayoso. Generators, I guess. There are no street lights. The Bienville corridor is dark. Except for our street. When we got power restored to our house, it also resulted in two more [...]

I got my first haircut since Katrina today, at a little barbershop in the Seventh Ward called Unifiers Soul Brothers Hair Styling. The artwork in front of the place was wild, and I knew I had to patronize this establishment. The barber was a man named Mr. Percy. He was wearing a Santa hat and [...]

Getting there was hellacious. We faced two major traffic blockages and two major downpours. We were rear-ended — just a tap, no damage. We ran over a large mysterious object. Our windshield wipers stopped working midway through the second downpour. And, quite frankly, Xy is not a great traveling companion. We had a number of [...]

MAD’s posted a great rant about the True Meaning of Christmas. I’ve long subscribed to the notion that the particular date for the celebration of Christmas was chosen because of pre-existing solstice festivals, but Wikipedia suggests a number of other theories. (Thanks to Anne for recommending the article. I turned her on to Wikipedia in [...]

Signs of the impending holiday in our neighborhood… It’s a little hard to read because of the burglar bars, but the spray-painted message lists the names of the little girls who live there: “Merry Xmas Liondai, Tilai, La’Shai.”

So it’s Christmas Eve, and I’m eating lunch at Coop’s Place in the Quarter with my in-laws. The waiter there is a perpetual stoner. For the holidays he’s wearing a Santa hat and a blinking red-and-green stud in his beard. An old biker dude is hobbling out of the restaurant on crutches, and the waiter [...]