I think it might be helpful to someone, somewhere, maybe out in the great wide world or maybe just in the United States somewhere. Things recently went pear-shaped (or rather, we got the first indication that they’re destined to go pear-shaped in the near future).

I was going to write a post about the one-note nature some people tend to apply to the gods, paralleling it with the one-note nature writers often attribute to their fantasy races and alien species (I even called it “Proud Warrior Race Gods”, as a play on the TVTrope title “Proud Warrior Race Guy”, a specific flavor of “Planet of Hats”). Not sure if that was going to go anywhere though, so I binned it.

Spooky season is once more upon us, though that’s gotten lost in the shuffle a bit. Most people seem to think that spooky season peaks at Halloween and then they move on to the happy, homey (or not) holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas. However, I’m a big proponent of a spooky winter, lasting at least through Imbolc. I may be such for the rest of my life. And it seems like this will be another good year for it. Most people aren’t really in the habit of gathering with loved ones and friends around hearths anymore, and I don’t consider myself a good storyteller, unfortunately. I don’t know who all is (even if I sometimes take stabs at novel writing). However, the advent of audiobooks gave us the next best thing: putting one of those suckers on for all long drives, long walks, lonely nights, and other such things. There are even like-minded folks writing and publishing ghost stories and other creepy tales themed around Christmas, part of a trend that’s been on the upswing since 2015’s Krampus. I hope it keeps up.

I’m not sure what to do next. Or how I feel about what happened. The most I can say on that front is that I’m not surprised. I may sometimes hope that history looks back at us and calls us primitive or (charitably) misguided, but that’s about as far as it goes. I’ll keep crocheting and hope this little act of combating fast fashion will do some good. I’m presently working on next year’s Halloween costume (Sam from Trick ‘r Treat), and I have other projects to finish, but this year’s addition to my Ugly Christmas Sweater collection is finished well in time, so that’s good. Safe from the Yule Cat, at least.

On the subject of Yule, I hope somebody decides to stir some shit up this year. We could do with a war on Christmas.