I Am Overcome With the Festive
(Kruiser’s Permanote Description: This column is intended to be a lighthearted, short-form way to frequently connect with our cherished VIP readers. Sometimes it will be serious. Sometimes it will be fun. Sometimes it will be a cornucopia of intellectual curiosities and fascinations. OK, maybe not so much the last one. Anyway, as this is a departure for me, I’m including this explanation at the top of each post for a while. Also, non-subscribers can see the first couple of paragraphs so I am in desperate need of filler until we get to the private stuff (subscribe here). Please remember that there is a standing invitation to ask me anything in the comments. Once a week, I’ll answer.)
By the time any of you get around to reading this, it will probably be after Christmas. If so, I hope you had a great one. If you’re not of the Christmas-ing persuasion, I sincerely hope you got to TGIF the you-know-what out of the day.
I am writing this in the early evening on Christmas Eve. The COVID monster has conspired to make it difficult to see my daughter this week so I am manning the editor’s desk here for a couple of days. Work and capitalism may not fill the paternal hole in my heart this Christmas, but they’re a nice salve for the bank account.
It also helps to have a job where a little whiskey in one’s coffee is a feature and not a bug.
I am grateful that I can at least attend Christmas Mass in the morning. Sure, I had to put in a reservation because 2020 taints everything, but I will at least be in a church. While talking to my daughter on Thanksgiving, I told her that I wanted to fly to Los Angeles for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day so that we could go to Mass at our old parish in Santa Monica while she was there visiting from New York. She immediately told me not to bother because she was sure that in-person worship would be canceled for Christmas in Los Angeles.
Sadly, the kid knows her stuff. She just texted me that they’re about to “attend” the live stream vigil Mass there.
So many traditions have been disrupted this year that it’s depressing to think about it, so let’s not do that anymore.
I’ve long eschewed secular traditions masquerading as Christmas traditions but I am occasionally willing to change. What or whom, you may ask, brought about this sudden open-mindedness?
Gal Gadot.
While I’m most looking forward to worshiping, working, and spending time with friends, I am also looking forward to Wonder Woman 1984 with so much giddy anticipation that I feel like, well, a kid on Christmas Day.
Honestly, I would welcome a new Wonder Woman movie being a Christmas tradition for the next few years. Maybe longer than that. Let’s be honest, Gal Gadot is going to be hot for a very long time. No one need buy me a present as long as this happens.
Grant my Christmas wish, Warner Brothers, and the world may yet know peace.
Remember, you can ask me anything here. I know I haven’t done a lot of these yet but we’ll get there. Here’s a question from the comments of the last post:
I’m usually reading at least eight books at once. Some are longer projects. I finally decided to tackle Infinite Jest, for example. I always like to have one easy fiction read as a way to relax after I am done with my Morning Briefing duties in the middle of the night. Sci-Fi and murder mysteries are my go-to genres. I recently read Tana French’s In the Woods, and I’m four books into the Expanse series.
You can follow me on Goodreads to keep up with my eclectic reading list. I need more friends over there.
Merry Christmas!
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PJ Media Senior Columnist and Associate Editor Stephen Kruiser is the author of “Don’t Let the Hippies Shower” and “Straight Outta Feelings: Political Zen in the Age of Outrage,” both of which address serious subjects in a humorous way. Monday through Friday he edits PJ Media’s “Morning Briefing.” His columns appear twice a week.
