A bit like a hairshirt of unfortunate cut, the holidays are upon us. Thanksgiving has come and gone and now it’s nearly time for the conglomeration of midwinter events collectively known in our household as Pigduff. Pigduff is the phoneticization of an acronym, PGDFF, which was invented many moons ago by my friend Agnes and her brother. PGDFF stands for “Pretty God Damn Fucking Festive.”
I am not a fan of enforced festivity. I suspect this is the result of having been a professional musician for the entirety of what are euphemistically called my “formative years,” which in my case extended from roughly the age where I learned to tie my own shoes to the time I hit my third decade. Professional musicians, particularly classically-trained folks, spend the period from Halloween to New Years up to their ears in Other People’s Festive. It’s the busiest time of the year, you can make good bank, and everyone, as is right and reasonable and good and true, loves the Hallelujah chorus even though it is not about Christmas at all. (Really. It’s about the resurrection, a.k.a. Easter. No kidding. There’s a book that has the whole story in it, you could read it sometime.) There’s just not always a whole lot of native enthusiasm for major Pigduff frolicking left over after you’ve spent two months or so generating it on demand. For me, even though I haven’t worked as a pro musician for quite a while now, there still isn’t.
Which is, frankly, okay by me. Not getting sucked into the giant consumerist vortex of American winter-holiday culture, with its rampant emotional hostage-taking (if you don’t have a Perfect Holiday with the Perfect Food and the Perfect Presents and the Perfect Holiday Emotions you FAIL! FAAAAAAAIL!) is just fine.
I’m also just fine with “missing out on” many of the food traditions, most of which would leave me writhing in a miserable heap anyhow. When you can’t eat dairy products, and your system doesn’t really tolerate a lot of sugar or refined carbohydrate very well either, “festive” foods that are traditional in this culture for this time of the year aren’t. And given the degree to which I despise eggnog anyhow, I’m actually kind of relieved that now I have what amounts to a hall pass that gets me out of pretty much any requirement to consume token quantities of such things.
That said, I do love Nürnberger Lebkuchen, though. Love with an unholy anise-clove-ginger-cinnamon-and-pepper-flavored love. They can be hard to find, but I usually do find a packet of them and enjoy them thoroughly.
I like my Belovedary’s family tradition of eating Italian deli food on Christmas eve. Going out food shopping in Italian delis on Christmas eve, or the day before, is a good dosage level of Pigduff for me. People are usually pretty happy and everything’s bustling. Also, there is nothing wrong with good olives, good bread, prosciutto, and that sort of thing.
I like participating in my local totally awesomesauce indie bookstore‘s annual Cookie Swap (And Competition), too. Even though I can’t eat so much in the cookie department, I have a competitive streak a mile wide, as what red-blooded cookie baker does not, and I like planning what I’m going to make and then seeing how my offering fares. I won a prize last time! Maybe I will again.
And I like it when people don’t give me presents. I’ve honestly got pretty much everything I require, with the exception of a kitchen skylight that doesn’t leak when it’s windy and rainy at the same time, and I don’t think any of you are in a position to give me that. I like it when people make donations — whether in my name or not — to the causes I support. So if you were for whatever reason thinking about giving me a present, I thank you, and point you in the direction of the following very worthy causes:
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library — providing free books to preschool children
Scarleteen — the only genuinely indie sex education source on the internet
Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières — saving lives and reducing suffering around the world, no matter where
Tahirih Justice Center — providing advocacy and legal aid to immigrant women and girls in the USA facing gender-based violence
Hesperian Foundation Gratis Fund — The Hesperian Foundation produces remarkable instructional manuals that teach laymen and women how to treat and cope with basic health concerns. Where There Is No Doctor and other titles save lives around the world every day in a remarkable but unglamorous fashion. The Gratis Fund helps Hesperian get copies of these books into the hands of people who need them.
and last, but certainly not least… the American Civil Liberties Union.
Happy Pigduff, y’all. In whatever permutation of “happy” and “Pigduff” you would find most fulfilling.
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And a happy pigduff to you, too, my dear.
I like my Belovedary’s family tradition of eating Italian deli food on Christmas eve.
And then there’s my family’s tradition, which may come back into favor in my current household (albeit in a different form) when the twins are a bit older.
My mother decided that it was not fair for her to spend much of Christmas in the kitchen, while the rest of the household (all two of us) got to spend time in the living room playing around.
So for years, Christmas Dinner was smoked salmon on slices of baguette. Preparation time: zero. Enjoyment: significant. Time spent away from celebrating folks: zero. ;)
And I can completely understand the professional musician’s reaction to Pigduff — for more than half my professional career, the time leading up to Christmas was the most stressful part of the year, either due to exams, or, more recently, working for an express shipping company that got walloped every Christmas, or a music information company that renamed Christmas “iPod Day” and had, until the last couple of years, the whole Operations staff on-call on the 25th to solve capacity problems.
We who are obliged to be merry/busy salute thee, celebrators!