The holidays are really good for writers. They bring out our sense of alienation, isolation, aloneness. They bring up ancient family wounds, sibling envy, parental neglect, abuse and suffocation. Social obligations and anxiety sky rocket. Melancholy sets in, or worse. Yes, this is our season!
Happy holidays. I love you guys. See you in the New Year. xo, Betsy
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Betsy Lerner 
So I’m not the only one this happens to?
The holidays — a fertile field for the writer to plow.
Happy Holidays!
We love you, too! Merry Happy Christmukkah! Ho Ho!
Ah, Betsy, fine Holidays to you, and to all of you here. Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but my holidays have come with a quiet joy, with only a fringe of sadness. My wish for all of you is such a time and place, with no fringe.
Thank you, Betsy, and thank you all.
Merry belated tidings of comfort and joy. (?)
THIS: “Social obligations and anxiety sky rocket.”
Exponentially.
Christmas is done in phases at our house (probably in many households, not just ours). There are four. And from one to the next, it leads to the inevitable meltdown at some point by someone. I love every day leading up to Christmas. The day before, and the day of? Not so much.
Love you back, and here’s to 2017!
[…] Betsy Lerner’s snarky humor spoke to me. “The holidays are really good for writers,” she wrote in her Christmas Eve post. “They bring out our sense of alienation, isolation, aloneness… Melancholy sets in, or worse. Yes, this is our season!” […]
Happy holidays to you, too! And best wishes for the new year.
I work in a post office. It’s been crazy. I’m ready for a rest and the two days off is a blessing. Even with all the hustle and bustle, I find time to write and for that I’m thankful. Oddly enough, much of what I’ve been focusing on lately has to do with holidays past and trying to make sense of family bitterness and anger. I guess you can never run away from it all.
Just finished a very un-holiday book called The Dolphin People by Torsten Krol. I have no idea why I read what I do and when. One theory is that Krol is really Stephen King. Good book, a page turner, but gruesome. Given the subject matter, set shortly after WWII and the main characters a German family in exile in South America, I suppose it has to be. Hohoho.