
This year, it seemed that fully half my friends (at least, the ones who post on Instagram) hauled their Christmas decorations out in early November. I couldn’t fault them for it: as my sister and others have said, 2020 needs all the joy it can get. My mom famously decorates early every year (my parents have three Christmas trees), but everyone else seemed to jump on that bandwagon this year. It made a lot of sense to me, but I just was not ready to put up my own decorations.
Decorating the tree is one of my favorite Christmas traditions: I am one of those people who loves tons of (small, white) lights, and for whom nearly every ornament has a story. But since my divorce, that ritual is a bit fraught. Last year, I had my friend Lauryn come over and help me decorate, and this year, I asked my guy to help me do it.
We hauled my little tree and assorted decorations out of the basement on a Saturday night, and assembled it on the fireplace. I strung the lights that night (he provided moral support and Christmas music), and we waited another week to do the ornaments. I sort of like the look with just the lights, and it felt like a small acknowledgment of Advent: waiting, letting the process take its time.
Last weekend, we unwrapped a few cherished ornaments (plus two new ones I bought at Albertine Press), and hung them on the tree. And we also bought stockings at Target, and hung them on the snowflake hangers I’ve had for years. Old alongside new.
I can’t erase the memories of Christmases past, nor do I entirely want to. But we are moving forward, and I’m so pleased with the effect. It’s cozy and twinkly, and since I’m home all the time these days, I get plenty of chances to enjoy it.
looking for the light: Juliette’s tweets.
December 11, 2020 by Katie Noah Gibson
During this completely bonkers year, I have needed voices of reason more than ever — to help me make sense of the pandemic and political madness, and cut through all the noise. Juliette Kayyem is one of my go-to sources for sharp, thoughtful, sane news commentary, and her tweets are a major source of light (and reliable information) these days.
I met Juliette when I worked at the Harvard Kennedy School, where my duties included staffing the camera room on campus. We had multiple faculty members who were regular guests on CNN and other networks, and the camera allowed them to speak to networks remotely.
I got to know Juliette as she’d come dashing into the camera room before a CNN hit, frequently finishing up a call with her consulting company before plugging in her curling iron and changing into a snazzy blouse. She struck me then as brilliant, real and funny, and I’ve enjoyed following her work ever since — but she is really knocking it out of the park these days.
This pandemic, whatever else it is, is confusing, and the distribution of a vaccine (not to mention containing the spread, distributing PPE, etc.) is (and will continue to be) a huge logistical and policy challenge. Juliette (a former homeland security advisor at the state and federal level) knows a thing or two about disaster response and logistics, and I have so appreciated her thoughtful takes on various stages of the pandemic and the challenges facing us at each stage. She and a colleague have also done a wise, funny “Questions from Quarantine” video series, and she occasionally peppers her Twitter feed with photos of her sunset runs, or her dog.
In short, she’s a human being sharing her considerable expertise and also her very real, very human take on life during the pandemic, and I am here for all of it. I’m thankful today for the experts who are pulling back the curtain a bit, sharing their scientific and political knowledge (and their struggles with bored teenagers) as we continue to navigate this pandemic together.
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Posted in musings | Tagged commentary, HKS, joy, Juliette Kayyem, knowledge, light, logistics, national security, pandemic, social media, tweets, twitter | Leave a Comment »