The War on Christmas Customs

Here’s another one to add to the list of “ideas that won’t happen.” In high school, a friend of mine and I hit upon the idea of writing an illustrated book of “unusual family customs.” Sort of a Martha Stewart idea guide gone horribly wrong: quirky and surrealistic customs that families could enact with great seriousness, raising their kids as though the custom was perfectly normal. In his book The Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman hits on one: the kids in the family are taught that, on presidents’ day, you are supposed to go to school and cosplay your favorite president. Other schoolkids did not understand why the child showed up claiming to be Millard Fillmore.

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Things That Delight Me: An Orphan

All my life I’ve been embarrassingly lucky. Ever since I did such a fantastic job of picking my parents, I just seem to stumble into the things I need when I need them. I don’t kid myself that it’s anything to do with skill or merit but I’ll take it. Some of you may hate me by the end of this posting, but I’ll try to make it up to you.

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