Thank you for writing this and putting such a depth and shape around what the holidays mean to you. Our holidays were always predictably “egg shelly,” never really joyful and carefree but they also never descended into violence. It was just the ongoing sense that everything could explode at any moment that made them miserable. My heart really ached reading some of the things that your mother said and created around you.
As for the holidays, I went the opposite direction as many people with conflicting experiences: I charged unapologetically into overdrive. All the holiday things my little heart had dreamed of. I spent Thanksgiving with some cousins in Brooklyn, shlepped to the Macys Thanksgiving Day parade and had an “eye contact moment” with Santa and felt some sort of childlike belief was planted inside me. I can’t shake my enthusiasm for the music, the soft light, the evergreen. The efforting is catching up with me these days and my tree this year is wrapped in lights but otherwise undecorated. It is a new closeness with trees that I’m savoring, as it’s my first christmas in five years that I won’t be tucked on the side of our mountain.
All this to say, The Family Stone was a breakthrough visionary sort of movie to me in my college days. The dysfunction you described is accurate but to me it felt like a family that’s alive enough to engage, care and get a little messy together. I was enraptured by the mother. She felt like an archetype I wanted to be wrapped in like a soft blanket. I wanted to become a mother whose children brought themselves to her, a mother who defended them (the dinner scene where Meredith talks about not wanting her to children to be “challenged”).
Oof. Thank you for the time you poured into this piece. I really do honor that. 🙏🏼
A beautiful and moving post. I found it a pretty heart-wrenching read!
I don't have a favourite Christmas film. I'm not a great Christmas fan. But last year, in England, facing my first Christmas without my mother, who'd died 6 weeks before, I found myself watching Die Hard. I don't know why. I guess it was a reminder of times past (though not with my mother, who'd have hated all the swearing), a tiny glimpse of Christmas nostalgia without too much tinsel.
I'm glad you wrote that you spent seven hours on this post, because if I thought someone could create such a beautiful piece of writing about such a sensitive subject in significantly less time, my envy might have interfered with my absorption and appreciation of your post.
I'm due for a re-watch of RGM. I haven't seen it for a decade.
I'm obsessed with Darlene Love's Christmas, Baby Please Come Home.
I just saw her perform it live a week ago, and her voice was as s strong as ever at age 82.
I’ve never had a Christmas movie tradition and mostly don’t like them. I don’t like Christmas either, but that’s unrelated. I promised my kid I’d watch the last Hunger Games with them, though, so that’s coming up!
So so so hauntingly beautiful, Anastasia. I loved every second. Also, my bestie always recommends The Family Stone!! She sent a selfie of her bawling to it the other night, which is a selling point for me 😂 love a good cry. Sending lots of love and rest to you this holiday season!
A beautiful essay Anastasia - or do you prefer Ana? You write with heartbreaking restraint. I like to watch Desk Set, which is a rom-com written by Nora Ephron’s parents and starring Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. Also early computers & media circa 1957. Its Christmas link is a Christmas party scene. It hasn’t aged too badly. I also like the local film Ladies in Black (again only a couple of token Christmas scenes) about a young girl’s summer job working in a Sydney department store. Nostalgia but the feel good is delicately undercut by some of the implied commentary. Heart warming & hopeful. Finally, I love Babette’s Feast a Danish film I saw at midnight on Christmas Eve and like to watch when I can. It isn’t streaming locally & I don’t have the DVD (or a player) anymore. Sigh. About a refugee maid in a remote village who might once have been the most famous chef in Paris before fleeing the 1870 Commune. A film about love and food and kindness in the wintertime.
Thank you Ana for sharing this with us. I felt so many knots in my stomach and throat reading through this essay.
We don’t have a Christmas movie tradition. But I used to watch documentaries from Jerusalem or other broadcasts as a child. The first time I actually caught up watching Christmas movie was when the pandemic hit, with nowhere else to go, movie seemed like the best option. I watched ‘Klaus’ in 2020, ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ in 2021, ‘howl’s moving castle’ in 2022 and this time I am planning to watch ‘The velveteen rabbit’
I always watch “Hook.” I was allowed to stay up late one night when I was five or six in the early nineties, and that magic stuck with me. I have also spent many holidays alone and will sit here and chant “Rufeo” at my laptop screen.
I feel so much, reading this post and knowing it’s your story. Thank you for sharing it with us.
Also, I’m so glad to find the three film reviews here! I remember telling you I loved all three and looking forward to reading the post if you wrote it. Yay! You had me right back inside POA and RGM, and now I feel the need to re-enter both of them immediately. I’m noticing how both of them served as the family scapegoat or black sheep. Which then made me wonder who would be considered the scapegoat of TFS? Is there one?
Thank you for what you wrote here. I feel my heart and mind quieten when I’m reading your words.
Thank you for writing this and putting such a depth and shape around what the holidays mean to you. Our holidays were always predictably “egg shelly,” never really joyful and carefree but they also never descended into violence. It was just the ongoing sense that everything could explode at any moment that made them miserable. My heart really ached reading some of the things that your mother said and created around you.
As for the holidays, I went the opposite direction as many people with conflicting experiences: I charged unapologetically into overdrive. All the holiday things my little heart had dreamed of. I spent Thanksgiving with some cousins in Brooklyn, shlepped to the Macys Thanksgiving Day parade and had an “eye contact moment” with Santa and felt some sort of childlike belief was planted inside me. I can’t shake my enthusiasm for the music, the soft light, the evergreen. The efforting is catching up with me these days and my tree this year is wrapped in lights but otherwise undecorated. It is a new closeness with trees that I’m savoring, as it’s my first christmas in five years that I won’t be tucked on the side of our mountain.
All this to say, The Family Stone was a breakthrough visionary sort of movie to me in my college days. The dysfunction you described is accurate but to me it felt like a family that’s alive enough to engage, care and get a little messy together. I was enraptured by the mother. She felt like an archetype I wanted to be wrapped in like a soft blanket. I wanted to become a mother whose children brought themselves to her, a mother who defended them (the dinner scene where Meredith talks about not wanting her to children to be “challenged”).
Oof. Thank you for the time you poured into this piece. I really do honor that. 🙏🏼
A beautiful and moving post. I found it a pretty heart-wrenching read!
I don't have a favourite Christmas film. I'm not a great Christmas fan. But last year, in England, facing my first Christmas without my mother, who'd died 6 weeks before, I found myself watching Die Hard. I don't know why. I guess it was a reminder of times past (though not with my mother, who'd have hated all the swearing), a tiny glimpse of Christmas nostalgia without too much tinsel.
I genuinely appreciate you sharing this. I needed it right now. My own mother is a mini series, and holidays can be rough because of it. So... thanks.
Ana,
I'm glad you wrote that you spent seven hours on this post, because if I thought someone could create such a beautiful piece of writing about such a sensitive subject in significantly less time, my envy might have interfered with my absorption and appreciation of your post.
I'm due for a re-watch of RGM. I haven't seen it for a decade.
I'm obsessed with Darlene Love's Christmas, Baby Please Come Home.
I just saw her perform it live a week ago, and her voice was as s strong as ever at age 82.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH1h_A0vJD8
Well damn, this just flayed my entire pericardium and now my chest aches and I can hardly breathe…..anyone have some colchicine?
“Moms”; a four letter word like no other.
No holiday movies for me; I still sob during the isle of misfit toys scene in Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer 💔
I’m thankful that you have managed to survive all that you’ve gone through. You are the phoenix from the ashes and your writing is transcendent.
Beautifully told. 🫶🏻
I’ve never had a Christmas movie tradition and mostly don’t like them. I don’t like Christmas either, but that’s unrelated. I promised my kid I’d watch the last Hunger Games with them, though, so that’s coming up!
So so so hauntingly beautiful, Anastasia. I loved every second. Also, my bestie always recommends The Family Stone!! She sent a selfie of her bawling to it the other night, which is a selling point for me 😂 love a good cry. Sending lots of love and rest to you this holiday season!
A beautiful essay Anastasia - or do you prefer Ana? You write with heartbreaking restraint. I like to watch Desk Set, which is a rom-com written by Nora Ephron’s parents and starring Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. Also early computers & media circa 1957. Its Christmas link is a Christmas party scene. It hasn’t aged too badly. I also like the local film Ladies in Black (again only a couple of token Christmas scenes) about a young girl’s summer job working in a Sydney department store. Nostalgia but the feel good is delicately undercut by some of the implied commentary. Heart warming & hopeful. Finally, I love Babette’s Feast a Danish film I saw at midnight on Christmas Eve and like to watch when I can. It isn’t streaming locally & I don’t have the DVD (or a player) anymore. Sigh. About a refugee maid in a remote village who might once have been the most famous chef in Paris before fleeing the 1870 Commune. A film about love and food and kindness in the wintertime.
Thank you Ana for sharing this with us. I felt so many knots in my stomach and throat reading through this essay.
We don’t have a Christmas movie tradition. But I used to watch documentaries from Jerusalem or other broadcasts as a child. The first time I actually caught up watching Christmas movie was when the pandemic hit, with nowhere else to go, movie seemed like the best option. I watched ‘Klaus’ in 2020, ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ in 2021, ‘howl’s moving castle’ in 2022 and this time I am planning to watch ‘The velveteen rabbit’
I always watch “Hook.” I was allowed to stay up late one night when I was five or six in the early nineties, and that magic stuck with me. I have also spent many holidays alone and will sit here and chant “Rufeo” at my laptop screen.
I feel so much, reading this post and knowing it’s your story. Thank you for sharing it with us.
Also, I’m so glad to find the three film reviews here! I remember telling you I loved all three and looking forward to reading the post if you wrote it. Yay! You had me right back inside POA and RGM, and now I feel the need to re-enter both of them immediately. I’m noticing how both of them served as the family scapegoat or black sheep. Which then made me wonder who would be considered the scapegoat of TFS? Is there one?
Thank you for what you wrote here. I feel my heart and mind quieten when I’m reading your words.