The Shortest Day

Happy Solstice

I woke to the sound of a car coming down my driveway in the middle of the night and thought, Well, I guess this is how it ends. I’m about to be murdered by robbers. But then I looked at the clock and saw that it was actually 7:00 in the morning and the car was in fact a delivery van dropping off Christmas presents. It was so dark. The morning sky was perfectly black.

Waking with a sense of mortal dread seemed an appropriate start to the shortest day of the year. According to Susan Cooper, the winter solstice is all about mortal dread. To northerners living long ago for whom death by starvation, disease, and cold were facts of winter life, surviving the shortest, darkest day of the year was cause for celebration. I don’t celebrate survival on the solstice so much as I celebrate the lengthening days; what Susan calls the return of the light. I’m not afraid of winter and its short days because I have a warm house and plenty of food, another cause for celebration. It’s cold out there and the Portland streets are full of people who aren’t so lucky.

If you’d like to hear Susan Cooper, eloquent folklorist and author of The Shortest Day, talk about the history of the solstice in her beautiful British accent, you can listen to this Weekend Edition segment from 2019. I guess it re-aired this week. I’m on it too, and next to Susan I sound like a stoney kid. But hey, I’m proud to have worked with such a brilliant lady, and I’ll sound stoney on Weekend Edition any day.

Happy Holidays

For over a decade I’ve designed my family’s annual holiday card. This year I had a bunch of deadlines in December and didn’t have a lot of time for it. I spent the better part of a day drawing my family as 18th century aristocrats, only to abandon the idea when I woke up the next morning, saw it with fresh eyes, and decided that it was a bad look.

Merry Christmas, peasants! Love, the ruling class

I’ll be honest, I’ve been somewhat creatively paralyzed by what’s going on in the world. I’m devastated by the magnitude of suffering in the Middle East. I’m vaguely anticipating the collapse of American democracy. I guess there are lots of Nazis right here on Substack, making money and spreading their evil gospel. And everywhere I look in my city I see a tent on a street that is home to a cold, wet human. The world is awful.

I’m told that it’s the responsibility of artists to reflect, process, and examine this awful world through our art. Generally I think I agree with this, but lately I haven’t been able to do it. I spent another day working on a new holiday card concept. I took three different stabs at it and didn’t like any of them.

The best of three

All day I sat on the couch with the iPad, drawing holiday cards with my apple pencil, sighing loudly while the clock ticked away and my work deadlines loomed. Finally Colin said, “Do you just want me to make one of those Shutterfly cards with a photo?” and I was like, “YES.”

Typically I would be sending out my homemade holiday cards around this time, risograph printed by the fine folks at Outlet. I’m a little bummed. But I’ll be back at it next year. In the meantime, enjoy some cards from years past.

Rad Santa

Another holiday tradition: every year since they were little, my friend Kara and I have taken our kids to see Santa at Bridgeport Village in Tigard.

They’re ten and eleven now and this year I wondered if they might finally have outgrown it. They walked into Santa’s adorable little christmas cabin like the tweens they are, all swagger.

Santa was like, “I know you two. But you are magically bigger than the last time I saw you. Are you shapeshifters?”

They were momentarily dumbstruck by this, but then one of them said simply, “Yes.”

“Oh,” said Santa, “Then you may be on the naughty list. Well, come get your picture taken and then we can talk.”

The photographer snapped a few photos and then Santa was like, “Let’s take an evil one.”

This Santa plays D&D, right?

Afterwards, he gestured to the kids to have a seat on the floor in front of him and he gave them a gentle lecture about being kind and generous, not just during the holidays but year-round. He told them to “flip the script” by asking their friends, not what they got for Christmas but what they gave. I’m not usually such a sap but something about the sight of our kids on the cusp of adolescence - reverently kneeling before Santa and promising to be good people - made me cry. I literally pretended there was something in my eye, and as I passed him on my way out I said quietly in a wavering voice, “Right on, Santa.”

Peace on Earth, everybody.

Love,
Carson

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