Home for the Holidays

This monumental post - my 201st - marks the onset of the holiday season. On a brisk and chilly Friday I put the first of the red lights outside and also pulled out the stack of cookbooks to select the honored recipes for this years crop of cookies. But also a night back, I shared the tradition of watching one of my holiday chestnuts in a warm  living room, with a fireplace, on a couch curled up with a blanket.

Jodie Foster's brilliant classic Home for the Holidays with a stellar ensemble cast of Holly Hunter, Robert Downey Jr. and Anne Bancroft among many others. It is hard to believe it is nearing 20 years old as we watched the credits roll; other than the obvious lack of wrinkles in RDJrs young face and the sad passing of both Bancroft and Charles Durning. I'm not sure what it is that draws me to it time and again - it is certainly not my East Coast family although we do bring along some of the crazy to the Thanksgiving table. Maybe it is the colorful characters that defy molds? Geraldine Page as the nutball auntie with her whipped cream key lime pie with M&Ms or farts in the car. Papa Durning playing his Hammond living room organ while watching the holiday football game. Robert Downey Jr keeping his gay relationship at bay amidst a sense of humor that is offending to everyone.

But I think if I had to capture it - it is the angst at the onset of the season that begins Thanksgiving Day and hangs over our heads until the ball drops on New Years Eve. Some rejoice in it while others dread it. Family is always central and while some cling to those traditions, others deny that they ever existed for them. It is a snowglobe of moments whirlling in our life and every once in a while we try to freeze one into a Polaroid photo that we can revisit when we need a marker to define ourselves. If you have not seen it in a while, this is the season!