Well, we are fully in the Christmas season!
The most significant thing from this week is that on Thursday, my oldest nephew, Preston, came to town with a special someone named Claire. They have been dating for a year. Preston has always been concerned about saving money, ever since he was a child, and they determined that if they got married, their tuition would be cheaper. Also, the rest of my brother's family is all in Taiwan, and Claire is not super close to her family.
So on Friday, my parents took Preston and Claire to the Davis County offices so they could get a marriage license and get married in a simple legal ceremony. Supposedly, they plan on having a more formal, official wedding when they're done with school. This is the first time we have added a family member since 2010. (By "family," here I mean my parents and their descendants.)
I had the idea that we should have dinner at Joy Luck, the same restaurant where Preston's parents had their wedding dinner twenty-two years ago.
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Now, it seems weird to me to talk about frivolous things in the same post that I talk about a wedding. But the groom and bride are the ones who decided to make their wedding a non-event, so I think I'm justified!
On Tuesday, we had our staff holiday party at the Utah Historical Society, which was a baking contest and sweater party. I made fruitcake blondies so I could use up the candied fruit in the cupboard.
They also gave out little awards to every staff member. They asked people to submit descriptions / things they liked about their coworkers, and then they gave out custom awards. Mine was the "Year-Round Festive Footnote Fanatic Award," which is pretty accurate. They also had Google Gemini come up with a couple of sentences to describe each person, using the information that staff had submitted, and they definitely had that vague, somewhat lifeless AI vibe. Mine was "For his encyclopedic knowledge as the Utah History Oracle, paired with his commitment to quiet, essential thoroughness in checking every detail, as our most festive colleague, who always shows up ready for any holiday—and ready to win at Jeopardy." That was flattering, though I'm not sure about the Jeopardy! reference, and people seem to think I know more than I actually do.
Sadly, I have continued to be able to trail run every day. I am hoping that this is just a blip and next year will be more normal Christmas weather, but I'm so worried that this is the new normal. And our current dystopian leaders
I've been reading a book called Consumer Rites: The Buying and Selling of American Holidays. It describes how many of our holiday traditions have been influenced by capitalism. But before the nineteenth century, holidays were generally minor events and not largely celebrated, because that meant a day away from working—so the capitalistic mindset was also at play then.
Regardless of what you think about the commercialism of holidays, it brings me genuine joy to go to stores and see what kinds of fun holiday things are for sale. Of course I like buying various seasonal treats, and I don't buy as many permanent things these days, because it can be a hassle to figure out where to put them. But I made some fun Target purchases this week: a battery-operated menorah that lets you select how many candles to light,
**Here is the obscure song lyric that's the title of my post.
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