The Holidays Have Always Been Weird

[Listen to an audio version of this blog here.]

It’s Christmas Eve, and instead of curling up on my parent’s sofa as snow falls outside, with a tree lighting up their enormous living room window, I’m taking a solo road trip to Sedona, AZ to play in the mountains and pat a horses’ nose.

Weird year, weird holiday season.

My family decided to socially distance this Christmas because we don’t want to inadvertently kill each other. Isn’t that nice?

Normally, my family would be congregating and eating; laughing and avoiding politics or religion. We would be cooking a ham and mashing potatoes and rolling lefse into sugary, buttery logs. Lefe, by the way, is a traditional soft Norwegian flatbread, usually made with potatoes and cooked on a large, flat griddle. We cover the bread with butter and sugar and ignore the impending heart attack. I just took a sharp left turn into the world of lefse; read more about it here.

Another one of our weird holiday traditions is the pickle in the Christmas tree. The gist of this tradition is that someone hides a pickle ornament deep in the tree. Because both the pickle and tree are dark green, the pickle is difficult to find, and the first lucky SOB to spot the pickle gets either an extra gift, a year of good luck/blessings, or a pat on the back. Well…