#I haven’t spent a full Hanukkah with my family since starting college

[welcometotheravenclawcommonroom]

People who wanna travel long distances to visit family after not taking proper precautions: but I need to visit family! It’s the holidays!

Every non Christian religion who’s had to be away from their families their whole adult lives on their holidays because of work or school running on the Christian holiday calendar: oh nooooo! How terrible for you!!!!

[ladyseaheart1668]

Endless Summer Book 4 : Daughter of Vaanu (Chapter 36)

Description: It’s December for the Catalysts and the supers. Time to celebrate!

Tagging: @mysteli @xo-endlessmayhem-xo @endlesshero1122 @whatmcsaid @feartheendlesssummer @tigerbryn11

Notes: This chapter is dedicated to Robin Metz (1942-2018). Robin was a professor of mine in college, as well as my academic advisor. He was the head of the writing department, and my craft would not be what it is today without him. He will be missed

On a happier note, I cannot believe I managed to get this chapter out in time for Christmas. But here it is. Happy Holidays, Everyone!

Chapter Thirty-Six

Lights in the Darkness

Tahira

A high-pitched electronic ding accompanies a message flashing the top of my vision as my mask alerts me that Caleb has sent a text. Hopefully containing the audio files from his interview. I touch down at the church, and dismiss the alert as I walk her to the clergy house. She thanks me and I give her a hug goodbye, staying guard until she unlocks the door and gets inside. I take flight again, heading towards Grayson's apartment.

I wasn't lying when I told Caleb that something came up. But I definitely implied it was more...dire than it actually is. This isn't something that's important to the fate of the world, or even the fate of Northbridge. But it is important to Grayson. And that makes it important to me.

I stashed a change of clothes at a library a few blocks away. Not inside the actual library, of course, as that would be way too conspicuous. But the library is designed with an underground parking garage beneath, and there is a place at the bottom of a grassy hill where several oaks and the corner of the large brick wall that surrounds the library on three sides form an ideal changing spot for the superhero on the go who needs to conceal her identity. It's not easily accessible to anyone without the ability to fly and it doesn't face any windows, so ordinary citizens don't usually pay any attention to it. I touch down and find the bag of clothes and winter outerwear I left there this morning. I change in a hurry. December air is bitey in this part of the country, even for a superhero. I stuff my supersuit in the backpack, slip it onto my back, and check that the coast is clear before clearing the wall and casually rejoining the civilian population.

Grayson

“Am I late?”

Tahira stands at the front door of my apartment building, shivering and huddled against the bitter cold. It's started to snow, and the flakes coat her dark hair like a lace veil. I smile and draw her into my arms, leading her inside.

“You're right on time. I've got cider waiting for us.”

Upstairs, I help her peel off her wet outerwear and press a warm mug of cider into her hands. She savors the warmth as she brings the mug to her face to breathe in the scent.

“Mmm. Perfect.” She blows gently across the mug, stirring the amber surface, and then takes a careful sip. “Yup. Perfect.”

“Good. At least that's a hit. I also tried my hand at latkes, but I don't know if I got it right.”

She grins a little. “How badly can you mess up a potato pancake?”

I grimace. “...Worse than you might think. Especially if you haven't even eaten one in years, let alone ever made them solo...”

I trail off, feeling a pall start to creep over me. I turn toward the stove, where the latkes are still sitting in the rapidly cooling oil coating the cast iron skillet. For some reason, my instinct is to turn away from Tahira when I can't keep my expression from crumbling as tears spring to my eyes. They don't fall and I don't choke on the lump in my throat, but it isn't as if Tahira can't guess what's going through my mind. I hear the sound of ceramic gently meeting formica as she sets her mug on the table, and then her strong arm encircles my waist. I let my arm drop over her shoulder. For a moment, she says nothing. Then, she leans over the skillet and breathes deeply.

“They smell pretty good.”

“I don't know why I'm doing this,” I murmur. “...I haven't even done Hanukkah in years...”

She rubs my back patiently. I said the same thing last night. I think she's realizing she's going to get eight nights of me wondering why I'm celebrating a holiday I haven't celebrated since the death of my grandmother. Dad hasn't celebrated or observed anything since Mom died, but for awhile, Grandma kept it all going.

“...Do you want this?” she asks me. “Do you want to light the candles and sing the prayers and eat latkes? I mean, it's kinda what I was expecting to do, but if you just want to talk or fool around or watch a movie, I'm game for anything.”

“...I do want this...” I confess softly. “I just...I don't know why I should do it...”

I feel her hand on my cheek as she turns my face toward hers. “Because you want to do it, Grayson. It really doesn't matter why you want to.” She kisses me gently. “Nothing and no one will be damaged if you do.”

“...And if I don't?”

“Nothing and no one will be damaged by that, either. It's all up to you. But for the record...I think you should.”

“...All right. Let's do this.”

Out in the living room, I dim the lights. The menorah sits on the credenza, flanked by sentimental knick-knacks and framed photographs. It belonged to my grandmother, who left it to me in her will. It's been a few years since I drew it out. I would not say that I have lost my faith since she died. I don't believe I have built up walls or neglected my spirituality. Charity, empathy, and kindness are still at the core of what I believe in. But I might concede that I've lost touch with my culture. It's hard when the only family I have left has all but abandoned it. But I'm starting to realize how much I want it back. I want to reconnect with my roots. Hanukkah is a decent place to start. Perhaps the only support I have is my secular humanist girlfriend, but I'm grateful for her. I am grateful for her encouraging me to perform the rituals that remind me of times before everything in my life outside of her was falling apart.

I draw her close to my side as I light the candles and sing the prayers. What washes over me is not quite calm. But when I finish the last note, and Tahira asks me if I feel better, I can honestly answer that I do. She smiles and kisses me.

“Good.”

“Thank you for doing this with me, Tahira.”

“Of course.” She cups my cheek, stroking it gently. “At the darkest, coldest time of the year, everyone should have something to celebrate, whether it's a holiday or something else.”

“That is a big part of what Hanukkah is all about,” I muse. “Light enduring through darkness, even when the odds were against it...”

She winds her arms around my neck and her dark eyes meet mine. She smiles, and there's a softness and affection in her gaze that brings a lump to my throat. She looks at me not just with love, but...with admiration. The Hero of Northbridge is looking at me with admiration.

“Just like you,” she says. “Even after everything you've been through, you're still standing strong.”

“After everything I've been through?” I chuckle mirthlessly. “What about you?”

“To be fair, I think we've gone through most of the last half-a-year together.”

“Except I didn't realize it for awhile.”

She winces a little. “...I thought I would be protecting you by not telling you who I was. But I'm  glad to have you in the club now. ...And since my arch nemesis happens to be your father...”

I wrap my arms around her, drawing her against me. I'm not angry at her for bringing it up, but I'd really rather not think about that right now. I'd prefer to think about how much I appreciate her, not how angry I am with my father for hurting her, or how betrayed he has made me feel.

“Personally, I think the biggest advantage to the current arrangement is that you don't have to worry about disappointing me if you're late for a date or something. I'll just assume you were saving the city.”

She laughs. “How much do you want to bet that the first time I'm late for a date, it'll just be because I took a nap and forgot to set an alarm?”

“Hmmm...twenty bucks.” I peck her mouth with mine. “But since you're here now, and I have a gift for you...”

Her dark eyes meet mine. “Let's focus on the moment.”

Jake

Believe it or not, I used to love Christmas. Even though I was always fiesty and had a hard time making friends because of it, I wasn't always the bitter loner the Catalysts first knew me as. And, yeah, I'll admit it, I was a sucker for the holiday season schmaltz, right up until the year I watched my best friend blow up above me. After that, the days bled into each other until I had passed three years and three Christmas seasons without giving a crap. Then, of course, I met the love of my life, but we kinda literally skipped Christmas when we jumped forward six months with one of our number missing. And then I lost the love of my life. And spent five years without her. For those five years, I sometimes tried to celebrate for the sake of my family—both my blood relatives and the Catalysts—and once or twice if I had a partner at the time, I bought a card or a gift. But my heart was never really in it.

This year is different. This year I have everything in the world. My best friend. My family. My wife. Our unborn daughter. This year, I actually want to celebrate. The moment Halloween was over and I started to see fluffy red hats and fir trees draped in tinsel, I started to feel that old excitement again. And since the first of December, it's been underneath every moment of anxiety, flipping me from mind-numbing panic to eager anticipation.

On Saturday morning, I wake to find that Alodia is already up, standing in front of the full length mirror on our closet. Her hair is wet from the shower, and she's wearing a bathrobe, but from where I am, I can see that she's still naked underneath. She is holding the robe open, studying herself, her expanding belly, her swelling breasts. I roll over onto my back, grinning at her.

“Mmm-mmm. What a sight to wake up to.”

Alodia closes her robe, rolling her eyes, but I can see a smile playing around her mouth.

“You still think so? That's good to hear. Honestly, I feel more hideous every day.”

“You could never be hideous.” I push back the covers and get out of bed, moving to wrap my arms around her from behind and nuzzle her neck. She smells fresh and clean, like laundry right out of the dryer. Somewhat different from her usual floral-scented body washes and shampoos, but she's been using those less often since she's been pregnant. The stronger scents are harder to tolerate when her hormones have dialed her sense of smell up to eleven.

Alodia leans into my embrace, sighing as she strokes her belly. “Four more months. It's probably time to start preparing the nursery. Do you have any thoughts on that?”

I let my chin rest on her shoulder, swaying gently with her. “Hmmm, I don't know. Honestly, I kinda figured I'd let your nesting instinct guide us there.”

She snorts, reaching up to ruffle my hair. “Well, as long as you realize you're giving me full creative control. I don't want to do a traditional pink ballerina sort of room.”

“Really? I thought you loved your baby ballerinas.”

“I do. But there's no certainty that River is going to like ballerinas. For all we know, I'm growing a little karate champion. I'd rather do something more...gender-neutral.”

“No guarantee she'll like gender-neutral teddy bears or clowns or what have you, either. And as a baby, she'll probably like anything as long as she learns to associate it with calm and quiet and feeling safe. Still, I get your point.”

“I think I still want a theme. I sort of like the idea of a rainforest theme.”

I hesitate a moment before venturing, “Do you mean like your suite at The Celestial?”

She leans back in my arms, covering my hands with hers. “The rainforest is such a big part of our story together,” she murmurs, almost sounding apologetic. “It's where we met...where we fell in love...where we once thought we would build our little house and live together forever...where we separated and where we were reunited...”

I press my lips to her cheek. “It is a big part of our story,” I concede.

She exhales, a steadying sigh. “Besides that, I think all the greens and blues and browns and leafy patterns and such will be soothing.”

“It sounds very pretty. But you know, there is something more immediate that we should be thinking about.”

“Oh? What's that?”

I turn her gently in my arms so that we're face-to-face. “Christmas. Our first Christmas together.  It feels like a pretty big milestone to me.”

“I suppose it is.”

I feel my brow knitting at what strikes me as a rather lukewarm response. “Are you...not enthusiastic about Christmas?”

“What? No, no, no, I like Christmas as much as anyone else. I have some pretty wonderful memories of Christmas. It's just...times like this make it a little difficult to forget that those memories are only of one timeline. And in another sense...this is my very first Christmas ever.” Her expression clouds for a moment. She lowers her gaze, but not before I see the sorrow in her eyes. “...And when that feeling fades...I remember that not all my Christmas memories in this timeline are happy ones. ...It was over Christmas break freshman year that Diego came out to his family...”

“...Ahh.” I wince.

“...But...at the same time, he and I made some wonderful Christmas memories on our own after that. On Christmas Eve, we used to pull out the sofa bed and spend the whole night watching Christmas specials, drinking eggnog, eating treats... We'd go out onto the deck at midnight to light sparklers and exchange gifts like we used to do with his family, and then we'd come back inside and go back to watching Christmas specials until we fell asleep. We'd sleep in until noon on Christmas day, and even though Aunt Molly and Uncle Rob were usually already getting ready for another fancy Christmas party, they would have left a huge platter of French toast and bacon warming in the oven for us, plus an obscenely large pile of characteristically extravagent Christmas presents for each of us...”

“Diego, too?”

“Yeah.” She is quiet for a moment. “...He was always part of the family to them. ...Once it became clear how important he was to me. ...And when his own family turned their backs on him...”

“Decent of them,” I grudgingly admit.

“...They weren't great parents. But they tried. They did their best.” Her eyes are starting to sparkle. As her mouth twists, she presses her face into my shoulder. “...Stupid hormones.”

I can't help chuckling. “My poor pregnant princess. Don't worry. I'll take care of everything to do with Christmas. But I do want to celebrate. I've got everything to celebrate this year, and I think we all deserve to have a real nice holiday.”

“That sounds exactly like what we all deserve.”

Dax

“I don't know, Dax. Is it really the only way?”

In what used to be Silas Prescott's office, Grayson sits on the edge of a leather easy chair, absently scratching with his thumbnail at a speck of something on the glass end table beside him. In the chair across from him, I lean forward slightly.

“It's the only way we know of.” When Grayson's uncertain expression doesn't alter, I sigh. “If Kenji gets injured as Talos, the only way we know of to heal him is by applying the liquid prism to bronze and grafting new tissue out of the result. We've seen it in action. His bronze body won't revert to human form with a life-threatening injury. It's...some sort of defense mechanism innate to his abilities. But if we just try to graft regular bronze to his body, it could kill him. So...yeah. As long as he intends to keep fighting, until we can find another way to heal him...we need to keep manufacturing liquid prism.”

Grayson sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Look...I'm in no way against making sure we have what we need to keep Kenji alive in the...unfortunately likely event of grievous injury...”

“And I totally get your reservations,” I assure him. “In the wrong hands, that stuff is dangerous.”

“Potentially beyond what we've already seen. Alodia did say that liquified time crystal is supposed to be highly toxic to humans. ...But if Kenji is likely to need it to survive a battle, then we have to keep up production. It's just...” He trails off, sighing and shaking his head. “We need to keep it quiet. Only have as many working on it as we need.”

“I think Hazel mostly developed the formula herself. And I don't think she will question you continuing to wanting to keep a small batch on hand.”

Grayson's eyes meet mine. “...Eventually, she's going to start asking questions that are going to be difficult to answer. ...I might think about asking Tahira to let us bring her into the club.”

“Is it necessary to go that far?”

“I don't know. ...But I'd like to keep Tahira in the loop. Not make the decision without her.” He gives me a rueful smile. “I'd be a real jerk boyfriend if I didn't.”

“Yeah, I'll concede that point.” I lean back in my chair. “The good news is that I think we have enough on hand right now to get us through a few more battles. But I think we'd all feel safer with a few more doses.”

“I'll get Hazel on it, then. First thing in the morning. For now, it's late, so you go home and relax.” He smiles again, and it's genuine this time. “Boss's orders, Dax. Your holiday bonus should cover any gifts you need to buy, so don't feed me any lines about needing the overtime.”

I can't help chuckling as I stand up and grab my coat. “Okay, boss. You have a good night.”

Alodia

Even in this timeline, I don't think I can remember Christmas ever being so exhausting. I'm sure being pregnant is the biggest reason for it, of course. But combined with that, it's my first Christmas home after having been gone for five years, and everyone who loves me is determined to mark the occasion. I don't really mind. I'm sure if I didn't have a little person growing inside me and sending my hormones into overdrive, I would be completely on board with the idea. But some aspects of the plan to make this Christmas unforgettable are inherently inconvenient. Like when Aunt Molly and Uncle Rob decide to surprise us by having a massive tree delivered and hiring professional landscapers and interior decorators to deck our halls both inside and out, and we haven't had time to get Varyyn hidden away somewhere he won't invite questions. Thankfully, Jake comes to our rescue and manages to work out a deal that results in us keeping the tree and decorations and the landscapers being allowed to decorate the grounds, but which keeps strangers out of the interior while not depriving the workers of a wage. Aunt Molly and Uncle Rob concede that the cost doesn't really matter to them as long as we're happy. They even acknowledge that they probably should have asked before sending strangers to our home.

That very day, a couple packages arrive from Jake's parents, containing another batch of decorations for us. The end result is that our little nuclear family of five has its own private decorating party that actually puts me in a proper holiday mood. Diego puts on a playlist of Christmas songs that run the gamut from medieval carols to John Denver and the Muppets, Mike prepares cider from a traditional family recipe, and I tease Jake by pretending that I intend to climb up the ladder to hang garlands.

“That's not really funny, Alodia,” he grumbles when I laugh and step off the ladder. “I just had images flashing through my mind of you falling and what could happen...”

I kiss him placatingly. “Falling is a hazard of ladders, you know. Even for non-pregnant people.”

“Yeah, but a fall from that height isn't likely to be fatal to a full-grown adult. So if any of us fall off that ladder, we're likely to break something at worse. You fall off that thing, you might...” He trails off, his expression twisting, and I realize just how much I scared him. I kiss him again, apologetically this time.

“You're right. I'm sorry. I promise I never actually intended to climb the ladder. I'll stick to hanging ornaments.”

“Geez, are Molly and Rob keeping anything for their own tree this year?” Diego wonders, pulling out the third box. “I feel like most of these are pretty familiar.”

“Yeah, a lot of them are. They've definitely given me all my favorites. Plus all the homemade ones from school projects. ...I expected them to part with those without much fuss, but I am surprised that they're letting me have the dancing ballerina and the Swarvoski snowflake. Jake, what did your parents send us?”

“Let's find out.” He kneels beside the box and fishes his keys out of his pocket to tear through the packing tape holding the cardboard shipping box closed. We crowd around him as he pulls the box open and digs through the bubble wrap, coming up with a Nativity barn, a box of painted figurines, and a burgundy ornament box. His eyes widen a little. “Oh, wow!”

“What?”

“This,” he says, trailing his fingertips over the ornament box. “My grandparents were getting these sets of gold ornaments as part of a...I guess it was a mailing club or something. You know, like a book or a music club where they send you books and CDs every month. Except it was once a year and it was ornaments. When they died, they left my folks a couple boxes.”

“Generous of them to give us one.”

“Yeah. And this Nativity set...well, my parents got this in the late 80's when Rebecca was a baby. Pop and Grandpa built the stable. Every year when we put up the tree, Pop'd take us to this religious bookstore in town and we'd get a new figurine. A new shepherd or a milk maid or an animal.” He chuckles. “By the time I came along, we actually had two Baby Jesuses because when Rebecca was a toddler, she used to play with the figures like toys. One year, the Baby Jesus went missing, and it wasn't until they took down the Christmas tree that they found Him. Apparently, Rebecca had decided to make Baby Jesus climb the tree and just...left Him there.”

I laugh. “So they'd already bought a replacement?”

“Yup.”

Varyyn lifts the wooden stable carefully, almost reverently. “Where do you think we should place it?”

I look around the living room, considering. “How about that end table over there? It looks big enough. We can put down the linen tablecloth so it doesn't get scratched.”

“Diego, will you help me, my darling? You know better where all the figures should be placed.”

I smile a little as I watch the two of them lay the tablecloth and begin placing the painted figurines.

“We should keep the wise men outside the stable for now,” Diego declares. “They're not actually supposed to arrive until the Feast of the Epiphany, which isn't until early January.”

I laugh. “Catholic upbringing still dies hard,” I quip, to which Diego grins and shrugs sheepishly.

“I can empathize,” Jake says, reaching over to pat him on the shoulder.

“I can't really,” Mike admits. “My family are C&E Methodists. How about yours, Alodia?”

“Secular as they come,” I reply. “The kind who only go to church for weddings. But remember I was practically raised by Diego's family, so I had enough second-hand Catholic education that I probably know as much as he does. I could probably still say the entire Mass in Spanish. And most of the prayers.”

“Please don't,” Diego entreats ruefully.

“I can say it in French if you prefer,” Jake offers.

“How about no one says Mass?” Diego groans in mock-exasperation. “That would take forever!”

I laugh and turn my attention back to the tree, pulling a glitteirng gold sleigh out of the burgundy ornament box.

“What do you think of all this, Varyyn?” I ask. “I mean, I'm guessing this isn't your first Christmas, but have you gotten used to everyone going crazy this time of year yet?”

Varyyn smiles, shrugging. “You only experienced one Niala'rei,” he points out. “And quite an unusual one at that. But the preparation and excitement that go into Christmas is not very much different. The stories are different, of course. Those took me a while to get straight in my head. But it is not very difficult for me to understand building such celebration around an event with spiritual and cultural significance to your people. Besides. I like an excuse to shower my beloved with gifts. Whatever it might be.”

I laugh as Diego blushes, but I can see the smile on his lips. “Well, if that isn't reason enough to get behind the holiday, I don't know what is.”

Tahira

The Sunday after Hanukkah ends, I find myself at St. Catherine's again, checking on Dylan and his family after the last Mass of the day. To my distress, I find them subdued, their spirits obviously dampened.

“...We've never had Christmas without our parents before,” Dylan reminds me gently when I ask what's wrong. I feel a stab of guilt, much stronger than I was expecting to. I have been working on convincing myself that I did everything I could that day. That the blame lays with Silas Prescott, who started the fight, and not with me. Most of the time I believe it. Then I remember that people died that day and all of that unravels. But this conversation isn't about me.

“That's going to be so hard on all of you,” I say softly. “...I imagine you'll be spending the day with Father Le?”

“Of course. Though he'll be leading Mass most of the morning.”

“...What about presents?”

“Well...we've got a few. I've managed to save enough to get everyone something, and Father Le pitched in. But...it's going to be a pretty lean year.”

I am quiet for a moment. “...I would like to help. If you'll let me.”

“You don't have to do that.”

“I know I don't. But I want to.”

“Why, though?” He looks wearily at me. “If it's just because you feel guilty, don't. Our parents' deaths weren't your fault. You were fighting to protect them. I know I'm only fifteen, but I'm old enough to know that even a superhero can't save everyone.”

“It's not just guilt,” I insist.

“Then why us? Why not some other kids? There are plenty in the city who will have less than we have this Christmas.”

“I know. And I have given to charities and volunteered at homeless shelters every year since I was younger than Alex. But you're the family that's happened to fall into my lap this year. And I won't just ignore you. If you tell me you don't want my help, I'll leave you alone. But I won't ignore you.”

He is quiet for a moment. Finally, he sighs, rubbing his hands over his face. “What did you have in mind?”

Estela

“I'm going to miss you.”

Quinn tips her head at me like a confused puppy. “It won't be that long before you see me again. I mean, you are still meeting me at my parents' before New Years' right? You still want to drive to California together?”

“Of course I do. It's just...I've gotten used to having you here...”

“Yeah,” she smiles. “I've gotten used to being here. I wish we could spend Christmas together, but it's Mom and Dad's first Christmas since they've officially been living together again...”

“And it's my Mom's first Christmas in eleven years,” I add softly.

She pulls me into a tight embrace. I hold her, burying my face in the curve of her neck. I try to tell myself that it won't be long before I see her again. And it won't be. But that doesn't make the parting any easier. Especially since I still haven't found the courage to tell her what I have been thinking and feeling for some time now.

“I promise,” she murmurs. “We'll be together again in no time.”

I hesitate for a moment. There is so much I want to say right now. But all I can manage is, “Merry Christmas, Quinn.”

Caleb

Christmas Eve. It came on faster than I expected. I guess I've been kinda caught up with Rourke and his crazy—and trying to sort out how much is crazy and how much is true. It's been dark for hours as I lie on the roof of my van in an empty parking lot, filling my lungs with toxins in the name of relaxation. The clouds of smoke I exhale mingle with the clouds formed by my breath hitting the frigid air as I stare up into the falling snow.

The Island's Heart is gone. Alodia Chandler had something to do with its disappearance. There were other crystals like the Prism Crystal, but those are gone, too. The Prism Crystal is the last of its kind. I don't know why, but I feel confident that those are facts. The rest of it...let's just say that I don't think Rourke's all there. But I don't think he's all gone, either. I'm not sure what to make of his claim that the entire world was destroyed in a volcanic eruption that no one can remember because of time travel. But I wasn't living in a cave six or so years ago, either. I remember the story being all over the news about the eleven students who vanished on a trip to the Caribbean. For six months, no one could get near the island. Given that the Prism Crystal came from that island, I can't stay skeptical about the idea that something weird was going on there. More and more as I think about it, I find myself believing that Alodia Chandler might be something more than an ordinary human.

A sharp whistle startles me out of my thoughts. The surge of adrenaline through my veins makes me drop my cigarette. Luckily my outerwear is thick enough and my reflexes fast enough that I avoid getting burned as I sit up sharply. I glare at a scrawny figure who stands in the beam of a street lamp, partially shrouded by the snowfall.

“Goddammit, Roach! You know everyone hates when you do that!”

Roach shrugs, wiping at a runny nose with his sleeve. “Gotta get your attention somehow.”

I feel my scowl deepen. This kid barely has hair on his balls, but he's already one of Gigi's favorites. He's also her loyal little lapdog. “What do you want? Somehow I doubt Gigi's inclined to give me a Christmas bonus.”

“No. But she does want to know what you've learned.”

“I haven't exactly been at this long enough to have learned much.”

Roach folds his arms, narrowing his eyes. “You've had time to learn something. You been out here awhile, Caleb. You gonna prove you're earning your pay? Or does Gigi have to assume you're taking advantage of her generosity?”

I snort. “Right. Generosity. Is that what she calls it?” But I know better than to refuse him. “Look. I managed to get in to talk to Everett Rourke himself. Problem is trying to figure out what in that addled head of his is real and what's noise.”

“What's he say about the Island's Heart?”

“That it was alive. But it ain't alive anymore. It was possessed by some crystal alien thing. The Prism Crystal is just one of thousands of crystals that used to exist on the island, but don't exist anymore since the alien...evaporated or something.”

Roach raises an eyebrow skeptically. “...Evaporated?”

“I don't know the technical term. I don't even know what the alien thing actually did to make itself gone. I just know that it's gone, and so is the Island's Heart, and all the crystals 'cept the Prism Crystal.”

Roach appears to be thinking this over. “What about Alodia Chandler?”

“Rourke figures she's actually a crystal alien herself. Put her in stasis 'cause he wanted to experiment on her. ...Told the courts she disappeared 'cause he figured he'd get out of the psych asylum someday and go dissect her. ...Take that back to Gigi. Tell her I got more sessions with Rourke, and I'm gonna see what else I can get out of him.”

Roach narrows his eyes at me. He's suspicious, I can tell. But he clearly figures it's gonna be worth something to Gigi, because he leaves without another word. I sigh and pull out another cigarette to light up. I'm only a few minutes into my smoke when I'm interrupted again.

“Who was that?” a voice demands from behind me. I turn on the cold roof of the van to see Talos emerging from the shadows, the streetlights reflecting off his bronze body. I sigh.

“Your boss know you're out here on Christmas Eve?”

“It's not Dragonness's concern what I do with myself on Christmas Eve,” he retorts sharply. “And if you think I would hesitate to tell her if I thought I just watched you betray us—”

“I assume you heard what I told the kid, right?” I'm not in any mood to listen to Talos' threats right now. “I know you're not actually stupid, Talos. You been listening to the recordings same as Dragonness. You know I didn't give Roach shit.”

“Roach? Is that his given name?”

“Who the hell knows?” I grumble, taking a drag on my cigarette. “...Look, I had to give Gigi something.”

Talos frowns. “You're...actually afraid of her, aren't you.”

I let our a short, bitter bark of laughter. “Hell, yeah! You would be, too!”

“You can conjure fire out of nowhere. Is she even a superhuman?”

“No.”

“Then...what's stopping you from just burning her alive and having it over with? Not that I'd condone that sort of thing. But why do you stick around?”

“...'Cause I'm not the only one she's got her hooks in. She gets 'em while they're young and vulnerable. Kids like Roach. Weak. Pliable. ...I seen what she does to the ones who try to leave.” I close my eyes a moment. There are memories threatening to crawl out of the dark place I've stuffed them. “...Enough of them are under her spell enough that they'll do it for her. ...And if she were gone, they wouldn't know how to take care of themselves.”

“So...it's altruism? You're just protecting the little children?”

“Those little children aren't so different from me, Talos.” When he doesn't answer that immediately, I change the subject. “...You guys didn't happen to listen to the latest recording yet, did you?”

“...I haven't yet, why?”

“...I just been thinking about some stuff he said. You...don't think it's possible he's been in touch with Silas Prescott, do you?”

“...Why would you ask that?”

“I don't know. He didn't say anything that strongly hinted that he had. But he didn't manage to put it in my head. ...And if he gets in contact with Prescott, it's just a short walk to learning Tahira's identity.” I look up, meeting Talos' bronze gaze. “...I don't want that to happen. Rourke's not safe just because he's in prison.”

“...You're right.” He is quiet a moment. “I suppose I ought to thank you for the warning.”

I can't help smirking. “Yeah, Merry Christmas to you too. ...You shiny jackass.”

Alodia

The whole Christmas season has turned out to be pretty hectic. But for the most part, I can get into it. Still, I realize well in advance that I am going to need a few days to recover from Christmas before I can start anticipating our Catalyst New Year's party. By Christmas Eve, Mike has gone back Portland to spend the holiday with his parents. The four of us left drive up to L.A, where Rebecca hosts us for a Christmas Eve brunch before she has to go to work. Then we immediately head back to Laguna Beach to drop Varyyn off before we join Diego's family in Riverside for the traditional Christmas Eve posada and dinner, where I immediately find myself surrounded by a horde of Soto women all eager to give support and advice to the pregnant woman. Fortunately for me, two of Diego's cousins are also expecting, which takes a little of the attention off me. I end up having a pretty good time with the other two mothers, Gabriela and Lourdes, both of whom I remember meeting when Diego and I were children. Gabriela is eight months gone with her first child, a son. Lourdes is barely three months along, but she already has a son and a daughter, so she has plenty of wisdom to share. I don't make it all the way to midnight, but my belly does give me the perfect excuse to duck out early—and bring Jake and Diego with me, since we all came together.

The plan on Christmas Day is to attend my aunt and uncle's annual holiday party, which will be held at the house in Riverside for the first time in years since we have officially taken over the beach house. I expect it won't be nearly as exciting as the posada, but I still want to attend if I have the energy. Luckily, the party is in the evening, which means Diego, Varyyn, Jake, and I all get to spend Christmas morning together as a family.

Naturally, we begin by exchanging gifts. Jake and I each seem to be trying to turn the other into our personal Christmas dress-up doll, showering each other with new clothes. He also gives me a beautiful tear-shaped crystal pendant necklace on a delicate gold chain and matching earrings. Meanwhile, an envelope with a business card inside reveals that I've booked a session with a photographer to get pictures taken of us before the baby is born. Diego and I of course stick to our tradition of silly gifts for each other—Crown and the Flame action-figure set for me, and a collection of obscure Star Wars novels for him. He and Jake get each other wall calendars, while Varyyn give both me and Jake decorative tins of gourmet loose-leaf tea. Varyyn presents his husband with a hand-sewn leatherbound journal, and Diego leads us outside to show Varyyn the windsurfing board Jake helped him sneak into the pool the night before—complete with a wetsuit.

“The better to disguise yourself with,” he explains. “The beach is pretty secluded out here, so I think it should be pretty safe to surf without attracting too much attention.”

Varyyn pulls Diego in for a deep kiss, tenderly running his fingers through his hair. “Thank you, my darling. I shall enjoy this a great deal.”

“We've got one more box to unwrap,” Jake announces.

“Oh, we do?”

“Yeah. The other day, a package came in the mail from Tahira, with strict instructions not to open it before Christmas.”

Jake leads us inside, and fetches the package from the hall closet where he had apparently hidden it. It's not a small parcel, but it's not huge either, and it's not at all heavy. We tear it open and find two smaller boxes, one addressed to me and Jake, and the other to Diego and Varyyn. Jake and I find a soft yellow baby blanket printed with sleepy puppies and kittens, hand-knitted booties and a baby hat, and a couple of onesies. We coo and fawn over the items, draping the onesies over my belly, until we notice that Varyyn and Diego have gone silent as they read over a piece of paper in Diego's hand.

“...What is it?”

“...A disguise,” Varyyn replies, his voice thick with emotion. “S-so that I don't have to hide. If Diego were to need me beside him out there in the world...I can staywith him...”

“...What? What do you mean?”

Diego lifts a ring out of a small velvet box. “...This ring. Dax Darcisse developed it. There's a button here that will create a virtual disguise for Varyyn. Kind of a Jem and the Holograms deal. It will make him look human if he ever needs to blend in.”

I feel my heart beating faster. Is Dax really capable of developing a device like that? Will it really work?

“Try it on, Varyyn. Let's see what it does.”

Diego takes Varyyn's left hand, slipping the ring onto his finger like they're standing at the altar, which just makes me grin. Then, Varyyn grips Diego's hand in his right while he brings the thumb of his left hand up to press the button. There is a soft beep and pale lights seem to race over his body. And then...Varyyn is gone. In his place is a handsome man of his exact shape and height, wearing his clothes, except with dark brown skin, dark eyes, and black hair styled in dreadlocks. Diego and Jake stare at him in amazement, their eyes the size of dinner plates. I'm sure I don't look any different. Varyyn looks around at us, and then down at his newly-dark hands.

“...By the Bride and her Lover...” He leaps to his feet, rushing to look in the mirror in the hallway, the rest of us following. “...It...it worked! It really and truly worked! I look...human.”

Diego comes up to wrap his arms around Varyyn from behind. The holographic disguise barely flickers.

“...I think you look beautiful, babe. Not that you don't look beautiful in blue, too.”

Varyyn cautiously smiles. “I look...very different. I think I prefer my true form. But...if this form is ever needed...”

“I can think of a way to test it out that you might appreciate,” I remark. “What would you think of me calling Aunt Molly and asking if she'd welcome one more guest tonight?”

Grayson

Christmas Day, I volunteer myself to help Tahira in her plans to make the day special for Dylan and his family. Everything begins around noon. My role is to pick them up from the clergy house in a limousine and take them to see the latest pirate movie while Tahira and her team set up the clock tower. I've also helped with paying for the gifts. I think Tahira was a little embarassed having to rely on me to buy most of the presents, but as I remind her, I can afford it. Besides, my father was responsible for the deaths of their parents. Much more than she was.

The kids are thrilled to be traveling in a limousine. I spoil them with snacks and sodas at the movie, and they seem to enjoy it. I have fun with it, too. It's got a good story, engaging characters, action, and romance. Actually, the romance makes me think it might make a good date movie. The kids leave in high spirits, hopped up on sugar, popcorn, and thrilling action. My limousine is going to be a complete mess, but it's more than worth it.

“Thank you, Mister Prescott,” Ysabel says, “for taking us to the movie.” The others echo her sentiments. I smile at them.

“You're very welcome. But the day isn't over yet.”

“It's not?” RJ squeals. “Where are we going next?!”

“The clock tower. A good friend of ours has a Christmas party planned just for you.”

Quinn

Christmas has been absolutely perfect. I've had not one complaint. My parents are living in Chicago now, in a comfortable suburban neighborhood. Their house is small, but it has room enough for them, and for me. They flirt and laugh over gifts, they flirt and laugh over dinner, and they shower me with affection. After dinner, we cuddle together on the couch, me between my parents, nursing eggnog, a fire crackling away while It's a Wonderful Life plays on the television. It's always been my favorite Christmas movie, but this year it seems to hit me particularly hard. I'm tearing up at almost every scene. By the time George and Mary are walking down the aisle, I can't stop sniffling. I feel Dad's hand stroking my hair.

“You okay there, Flipper?”

“I'm fine, Daddy,” I promise, wiping my eyes. “I just...love this movie. And I'm just so happy to have us all together on Christmas.”

“We're happy to be together, too,” Dad replies, kissing the top of my head. Mom takes my hand, bringing it up to her mouth to kiss my fingers.

“...I love you, Quinn.”

I curl up close to her, laying my head on her shoulder. “I love you, too, Mommy.”

“...There was a time when Christmas made me cry. Because I felt certain that every Christmas would be the last I had with my only child.”

“Pam...” Dad says softly. I put a hand over his.

“It's okay, Daddy. ...I'm better now, but you know I understand how sick I was.”

Mom hesitates a moment. “...I love you, too, Jim.”

“I know, Pam. I love you, too.”

“The thing is, Quinn...sometimes I worry that you might...think that I ever stopped loving. Especially if I were to explain...certain things about why my marriage to your father broke down in the first place...”

I sit up, hunting for the remote, and pause the movie. My dad looks worried, but I take his hand. I look at my mother. “I never believed you didn't love me,” I assure her. “...But I can tell you want to say something.”

“I do.” She draws me into her arms, and I rest my head on her chest. “...Darling...when you were born, you were perfect. You were everything your father and I dreamed of. ...And then you got sick. The doctors told us what you had was incurable. That you wouldn't live to grow up. That you probably wouldn't live more than ten more years. For the first few years, your father and I were on the same page. Scrambling around, doing everything to save you. To give you more time. We poured everything into protecting you. But nothing seemed to work. Your illness would go into remission, but then it would flare up again worse than before. ...I went through every stage of grief. I denied. I was angry. I bargained. ...When I reached depression, I honestly thought about killing myself because I couldn't bear the thought of burying my child. ...Your dad knows all this. ...He also knows that I eventually reached acceptance.

“...I want you to understand that acceptance doesn't mean I was ready to see you die. It doesn't mean that I wasn't going to grieve you all over again when what I believed was inevitable happened. ...It just means that I came to understand that I couldn't die with you. That when you died, I would still be alive. And I had to keep living. For my sake...I had to accept that there would be life beyond my Quinn. You understand that, don't you, sweetheart?”

I wind my arms around my mother. “I do understand, Mom. More than you might think. ...When my friend Alodia...when we thought she was lost to us...” I pause to wipe fresh tears from my eyes. “...My friend Jake was in love with her. Still is. When we thought she was gone for good, we did everything possible to help him move on, or at least keep living. ...He ended up getting her back, though.”

“Just as your dad and I ended up getting you back. For which I will always be grateful. ...I never stopped loving you, Quinn. And it wasn't your fault that we divorced. It wasn't even your illness' fault. Everyone grieves differently, and at different paces. And losing a child—or anticipating the loss of a child—that has been shown time and time again to put relationships through the ringer, for the simple reason that everyone grieves differently. Your father and I processed the situation differently, at different paces. ...He was still fighting to save you when I was thinking more about cherishing every moment I had left with you.”

“You can still cherish every moment with me, Mom.”

“I know. And I'm so thankful to have you and your dad to share my life with...” If she intends to continue her train of thought, she's interrupted by the doorbell. All three of us jump, exchanging confused glances. “...What on earth...?”

I sit up, pushing back the blanket that was draped over my lap. “Someone's at the door,” I remark needlessly. I get up and go to answer it, my parents following behind me. I turn on the porch light and unlock the front door. When I pull it open and see who's on the other side of the screen, my brain goes numb for a moment.

Huddled and shivering, covered in a coating of fresh falling snow and painfully underdressed for a midwestern winter night, is Estela. She shifts awkwardly.

“...Hello...I'm...early,” she manages to say through chattering teeth. Her voice breaks me out of my stupor. I push open the screen door.

“Oh, my God, come inside!” She shivers her way inside, and I close the door as she stands on the mat, stamping off the snow. “Mom, Dad, this is my friend Estela.”

“Welcome,” Mom says somewhat dazedly. “We...weren't expecting you for a few days.”

“Yes. I know. ...But I couldn't wait.”

“Couldn't wait?” I echo. “Wha...how did you get here?”

She blinks. “Well, I am a C.E.O of Rourke International. I can summon planes and rent cars anytime I want.”

“But...what about your family?”

“We had our celebration already. And I have been in San Trobida for more than a month at least. ...I missed you, Quinn. And...when you said goodbye a few days ago, I...I missed the opportunity to tell you—mmph!”

She's cut off as I throw myself into her arms, kissing her firmly and fully on the mouth. She almost immediately relaxes into the kiss winding her arms around my waist and pulling my hips toward hers. We're both breathless by the time we break apart.

“I...suppose I don't really need to say it now...” she murmurs.

My mom clears her throat. “...I suppose we don't need to make up the guest bedroom then?” she asks. I feel a blush creeping up my cheeks as I turn to see my parents grinning at us.

“No, I...think we can both sleep in my bed.” I look at Estela for confirmation, and she nods. I laugh, bringing her close for another kiss. “...Merry Christmas, Estela. ...Let's get you warmed up.”

[momentumgo]

Laura Porat

Freelance Motion Graphics Designer lauraporat.com Los Angeles, CA Age 24 She/Her

How did you get your start in motion design, animation, or whatever it is that you do?

Ever since I was a kid, I was always being creative. I asked for papers and markers for every birthday and Hanukkah. I would spend hours in front of the TV drawing whatever came to my mind.

Throughout my childhood, my mom was very supportive of my artistic endeavors and signed me up for art lessons and I took a stop motion class one summer. When it came to applying for colleges, my mom encouraged me to major in animation. I went to Emerson College which is a small film school in Boston.

Life at Emerson College was unique as they place a lot of emphasis on extracurriculars so I joined clubs where I designed and animated things. I soon got the reputation for being one of the few animators on campus so students would seek me out for my animation skills. I got an internship at a post-production studio after my sophomore year of college which is where I was forced to learn After Effects on a much deeper level. I fell in love. I had a few different internships in college which made me realize that I wanted to be a full-time motion graphics designer.

After I graduated, I landed my first freelance role at a small virtual reality company in Burbank. I freelanced steadily for a few months until all of a sudden, I could not find any work at all. I spent the entire summer making no money. I was desperate to find a full-time job at a studio but everyone wanted someone who was older and had more experience.

Then, out of the blue, I received a phone call the night of Yom Kippur. My family is pretty religious so I had to lock myself in the bathroom and conduct this phone call in secrecy. It was from a producer who needed an animator starting the following Monday. I immediately accepted. I ended up working at that creative agency, InSync Plus, for a year where I honed and crafted my skills. I learned the workflows for animation and what it was like working in a team. It was a great experience. After a year of working there, I felt confident enough about my portfolio and skills that I decided to quit to rejoin freelancing full-time. I haven't looked back.

Since entering the freelance world, I've had the opportunity to create designs and animations for the NBA, Snapchat, Live Nation, and so on. I've gotten to work with amazing studios and clients. I get to determine my own schedule and choose the projects I work on.

What are some best practices you use today?

I am always looking for inspiration from different sources. I love watching movies, I read books, I go to museums, I travel, I take improv comedy classes and so on. I study and observe people around me. All of this influences the work that I do. It's so important to not just look to other motion designers for inspiration but to look outside. This leads to a great diversity of work and better results.

How have you learned to practice self-care? What do you do to take care of yourself?

Self-care is incredibly important in our field. We're pressured to constantly create content for others to consume. It can be very easy to fall in the trap of "oh well, I have to make something today or else it hasn't been a productive day." That mentality is so dangerous. If you don't feel like creating something, don't force yourself. See a movie, take a walk, go outside of your office or studio.

I participate in a kickball league so I get exercise at least once a week. I also plan for vacations where I don't do any work whatsoever on the vacations. Even if it's just a staycation, it's important to take plenty of breaks. That way, I come back to work re-energized and recharged.

What advice do you have for those just starting out?

There is no "correct" way of entering this field. You don't need to go to a fancy art school. Youtube, Lynda, etc have excellent online resources for learning.

Be active in your local motion graphics community. Go to meet ups and make friends! Don't go in there expecting something from someone. Just go to meet ups with a positive attitude and the mentality of learning about other people. I've gotten a lot of gigs from friends who have been too busy with work so they pass the project on to me.

DO NOT BE AFRAID TO POST YOUR WORK ON SOCIAL MEDIA! This is the biggest killer I see in artists. They're too afraid to post their work because they don't think it's good enough. Chances are, someone else will see it and really like it. Social media is a fantastic way of getting potential clients or even making friends. It costs $0 to post your work on Instagram, Twitter, Behance, and so on.

[networkingdefinition]

New Year's Eve Quotes

Official Website: New Year's Eve Quotes

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• A flower is a daisy chain, a graduation, a valentine; a flower is New Year’s Eve and an orchid in your hair; a flower is a single geranium blooming in a tin can on a murky city fire-escape; an acre of roses at the Botanical Gardens; and the first gold crocus of spring! … a flower is a birth, a wedding, a leaving of this life. – Jean Hersey • A happy New Year! Grant that I May bring no tear to any eye When this New Year in time shall end Let it be said I’ve played the friend, Have lived and loved and labored here, And made of it a happy year. – Edgar Guest • A year of ending and beginning, a year of loss and finding… and all of you were with me through the storm. I drink your health, your wealth, your fortune for long years to come, and I hope for many more days in which we can gather like this. – C. J. Cherryh • All of us every single year, we’re a different person. I don’t think we’re the same person all our lives. – Steven Spielberg • An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves. – Bill Vaughan • And New Year’s Eve is very, very important to me. – Debbie Harry • And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been – Rainer Maria Rilke • Another fresh new year is here. Another year to live! To Banish worry, doubt and fear, to love and give – William Arthur Ward • Approach the New Year with resolve to find the opportunities hidden in each new day. – Michael Josephson • As a standup comedian, I’ve worked almost every New Year’s Eve of my adult life. It’s the best-paying night of the year. – Elayne Boosler

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'New+Year', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_new-year').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_new-year img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man. – Benjamin Franklin • Calgary wins for my coldest New Year’s Eve gig. That’s when I learned Fahrenheit and Celsius cross at 40 below. I could see callers’ breath coming out of my phone. – Elayne Boosler • celebratin’ New Year’s Eve is like eatin’ oranges. You got to let go your dignity t’ really enjoy ’em. – Edna Ferber • Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right. – Oprah Winfrey • Dieting on New Year’s Day isn’t a good idea as you can’t eat rationally but really need to be free to consume whatever is necessary, moment by moment, in order to ease your hangover. I think it would be much more sensible if resolutions began generally on January the second. – Helen Fielding • Do what you do. This Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year’s Eve, Twelfth Night, Valentine’s Day, Mardi Gras, St. Paddy’s Day, and every day henceforth. Just do what you do. Live out your life and your traditions on your own terms. If it offends others, so be it. That’s their problem. – Chris Rose • Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go. – Brooks Atkinson • Each age has deemed the new-born year the fittest time for festal cheer. – Walter Scott • Every man regards his own life as the New Year’s Eve of time. – Jean Paul • Every New Year’s Eve, I have a pact to do something I never thought I’d do. So I created this list. You have to free your mind to do things you wouldn’t think of doing. Don’t ever say no. – Carl Lewis • Every time the ball drop on New Year’s Eve, We toast to more money, we smoke to more cheese. – Prodigy • Every time you tear a leaf off a calendar, you present a new place for new ideas and progress. – Charles Kettering • Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith. – Henry Ward Beecher • For a new year to bring you something new, make a move, like a butterfly tearing its cocoon! Make a move! – Mehmet Murat Ildan • For last year’s words belong to last year’s language And next year’s words await another voice. – T. S. Eliot • For the millennium [New Year’s Eve], you really have a choice to make. You either have to be naked with your head on fire and a shotgun in Bali or else you have to spend time with friends or family around the fireplace. And I’m choosing option B – Tom Morello • For years, I worked seven-day weeks, through birthdays and most public holidays, Christmases and New Year’s Eves included. I worked mornings and afternoons, resuming work after dinner. I remember feeling as if life were a protracted exercise in pulling myself out of a well by a rope, and that rope was work. – Antonella Gambotto-Burke • From New Year’s on the outlook brightens; good humor lost in a mood of failure returns. I resolve to stop complaining. – Leonard Bernstein • Games were moved to New Year’s Eve as part of a plan by college football executives where they want to create a tradition of watching football on New Year’s Eve. – Audie Cornish • Glory to God in highest heaven, Who unto man His Son hath given; While angels sing with tender mirth, A glad new year to all the earth. – Martin Luther • God, do I hate my little fat tits. You ever pinch your little meat tits and wish you were dead? You ever just stand naked in the mirror. “You little fat-titted mediocre failure!” You ever do that for 3 hours on New Year’s Eve. – Jim Norton • Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account. – Oscar Wilde • He who breaks a resolution is a weakling; He who makes one is a fool. – Farquhar McGillivray Knowles • Hope Smiles from the threshold of the year to come, Whispering ‘it will be happier’. – Alfred Lord Tennyson • I always work on New Year’s Eve, no matter what. – Debbie Harry • I don’t even drink! I can’t stand the taste of alcohol. Every New Year’s Eve I try one drink and every time it makes me feel sick. So I don’t touch booze – I’m always the designated driver. – Kim Kardashian • I get myself a gig somewhere, whether it’s in a club, whether it’s in a bar, it doesn’t matter, and I just work on New Year’s Eve because I always feel it’s very symbolic for me for the next year, for the new year. – Debbie Harry • I had a terrible fight with my wife on New Year’s Eve. She called me a procrastinator. So I finished addressing the Christmas cards and left. – Robert Orben • I hate New Year’s Eve. One more chance to remember that you haven’t yet done what you wanted. And to pretend it doesn’t matter. – Gregory Maguire • I have no way of knowing how people really feel, but the vast majority of those I meet couldn’t be nicer. Every once in a while someone barks at me. My New Year’s resolution is not to bark back. – Tucker Carlson • I have spent every New Year’s Eve since 1992 in Lourdes. I spend the hour of my birth every year in the grotto. It’s a place with meaning for me. – Paulo Coelho • I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes…you’re Doing Something. – Neil Gaiman • I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something. – Neil Gaiman • I like to work on New Year’s Eve. It has a nice spirit; a nice feel about it. If you are all about the ‘year-end’ thing at all, then laughing with fellow human beings is a great way to start the new year. – Paula Poundstone • I love watching ‘Twilight Zone.’ New Year’s Eve they do the marathon; I watch it every year. – Gerard Way • I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me. – Anais Nin • I saw Ronnie Hawkins play near my hometown, Port Dover, Ontario, and I saw him play there on New Year’s Eve and the following spring I booked myself to be his opening act on maybe five shows, and he hired me after the first night. – Rick Danko • I think in terms of the day’s resolutions, not the years’. – Henry Moore • I was a total nerd growing up. I’d rather sit home and read a novel on New Year’s Eve and say, ‘Wow, I read the whole thing in one night!’ That was my idea of a big time. – Beth Broderick • I was at a New Year’s Eve party, and someone asked me how was my year, and I said, ‘I honestly think 2011 was the best year of my entire life,’ and I actually meant it. – Dave Grohl • I won’t be going to any New Year’s Eve parties because I think they’re naff. No one over the age of 15 should bother going to parties. – Julie Burchill • i would like to remind the management that the drinks are watered and the hat-check girl has syphilis and the band is composed of former ss monsters However since it is new year’s eve and i have lip cancer i will place my paper hat on my concussion and dance – Leonard Cohen • I would rather receive a Pap smear from Captain Hook than venture out on New Year’s Eve. – Jen Lancaster • I would say happy new year, but it’s not happy; it’s exactly the same as last year except colder. – Robert Clark • If the age of the Earth were a calendar year and today were a breath before midnight on New Year’s Eve, we showed up a scant fifteen minutes ago, and all of recorded history has blinked by in the last sixty seconds. Luckily for us, our planet-mates–the fantastic meshwork of plants, animals, and microbes–have been patiently perfecting their wares since March, an incredible 3.8 billion years since the first bacteria. …After 3.8 billion years of research and development, failures are fossils, and what surrounds us is the secret to survival. – Janine Benyus • If you asked me for my New Year Resolution, it would be to find out who I am. – Cyril Cusack • If you feel compelled to give a New Year’s Eve party, don’t invite people to arrive too early or they’ll go off the boil before midnight. – Jilly Cooper • If you over plan New Year’s Eve it’s going to be a disaster so you have to be alive to changes. – Cate Blanchett • I’m usually at home and in bed by 10 o’clock. I do not want to be out at anybody’s New Year’s Eve party. – Andre Leon Talley • It goes Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day. Is that fair to anyone who’s alone? These are all days you gotta be with someone. And if you didn’t get around to killing yourself at Christmas or New Year’s, boom! There’s Valentine’s Day. I think there should be one more after Valentine’s Day just called, ‘Who could love you?’ – Laura Kightlinger • It was February sixth: eight days until Valentine’s Day. I was dateless, as usual, deep in the vice grip of unrequited love. It was bad enough not having a boyfriend for New Year’s Eve. Now I had to cope with Valentine datelessness, feeling consummate social pressure from every retailer in America who stuck hearts and cupids in their windows by January second to rub it in. – Joan Bauer • It’s hard to say what I meant by “as we know it.” I’m not about to go up on a mountain on new year’s eve and wait for the lightening to strike. – Hunter S. Thompson • I’ve had some lovely extraordinary experiences on New Year’s Eve. – Debbie Harry • Let each new year find you a better person. – Benjamin Franklin • Let our New Year’s resolution be this: we will be there for one another as fellow members of humanity, in the finest sense of the word. – Goran Persson • Let the dead Past bury its dead! – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Let this coming year be better than all the others. Vow to do some of the things you have always wanted to do but could not find the time. Call up a forgotten friend. Drop an old grudge, and replace it with some pleasant memories. Vow not to make a promise you do not think you can keep. Walk tall, and smile more. You will look 10 years younger. Do not be afraid to say, I love you. Say it again. They are the sweetest words in the world. – Ann Landers • Let this coming year be better than all the others. Vow to do some of the things you’ve always wanted to do but couldn’t find the time. – Ann Landers • Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Whatever you’re scared of doing, Do it. – Neil Gaiman • Make New Year’s goals. Dig within, and discover what you would like to have happen in your life this year. This helps you do your part. It is an affirmation that you’re interested in fully living life in the year to come. – Melody Beattie • Make your mistakes, next year and forever. – Neil Gaiman • Many years ago I resolved never to bother with New Year’s resolutions, and I’ve stuck with it ever since. – Dave Beard • May all your troubles last as long as your New Year’s resolutions. – Joey Lauren Adams • May the New Year bring you courage to break your resolutions early! – Aleister Crowley • May the New Year bring you courage to break your resolutions early! My own plan is to swear off every kind of virtue, so that I triumph even when I fall! – Aleister Crowley • Maybe this year, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives not looking for flaws, but looking for potential. – Ellen Goodman • My look is always glitzy for New Year’s Eve, even if I am at home. – Gloria Gaynor • My New Year’s Eve Toast: to all the devils, lusts, passions, greeds, envies, loves, hates, strange desires, enemies ghostly and real, the army of memories, with which I do battle — may they never give me peace. (New Year’s Eve, 1947) – Patricia Highsmith • My New Year’s Eve is always 2 July, the night before my birthday. That’s the night I make my resolutions. And this year scares the life out of me, because no matter how successful, how good things appear, there is always a deep core of failure within me, although I am trying to deal with it. My biggest fear, this coming year, is that I will be waking up alone. It makes me wonder how many bodies will be fished out of the Thames, how many decaying corpses will be found in one-room flats. I’m just being realistic. – Tracey Emin • My New Year’s resolution was to stop saying ‘You go, girl’ to myself. – Zach Galifianakis • My parents used to throw great New Year’s Eve parties. They invited such an eclectic mix of showbiz people. All those cool people were always hanging out at our apartment. – Ben Stiller • Never tell your resolution beforehand, or it’s twice as onerous a duty. – John Selden • New Year’s Day is every man’s birthday. – Charles Lamb • New Year’s Eve always terrifies me. – Charles Bukowski • New Year’s eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights. – Hamilton Wright Mabie • New Year’s Eve, we’re going to be doing a concert with the Philadelphia Orchestra in Symphony Hall. It makes me feel good, because of all the people they could have had, they wanted me! We do have to do a little work with the rhythm section. – Barbara Cook • New Year’s Eve, where auld acquaintance be forgot. Unless, of course, those tests come back positive. – Jay Leno • New Year’s Eve. It’s a promise of a night. Single, married or widowed, in love, loveless or lovelorn, we all leave our apartments and pick through snow in high heels, or descend subway stairs in tuxedos, lured to wherever we’re going–whether we know it or not, would deny it or not–by the kiss of a stranger. – Jardine Libaire • New Year’s is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions. – Mark Twain • New Year’s Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time. – James Agate • Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. – Mark Twain • Now there are more overweight people in America than average-weight people. So overweight people are now average. Which means you’ve met your New Year’s resolution. – Jay Leno • Of all sound of all bells… most solemn and touching is the peal which rings out the Old Year. – Charles Lamb • On New Year’s Eve he ould make a resolution to recover some his previous scepticism, but until then he would do as the Romans do, and smile at people even if he disapproved of them – Nick Hornby • On New Year’s Eve, my dear friend lost his battle with depression . . . Though he wasn’t the first friend I’ve lost to suicide, I sure hope he’s the last. I wish I had the chance to go back and tell them what they meant to me. I wish I had the chance to beg them to seek help, to keep fighting. I wish they knew that they were surrounded by countless others who struggle on a daily basis. – Jared Padalecki • One of the many reasons I love living in New York is that we get a front row seat to the innumerable thrills that take place here – from conventions and awards shows, to parades and U.N. assemblies. But my favorite New York tradition is the annual New Year’s Eve ball-drop on Times Square. – Marlo Thomas • One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: ‘To rise above little things’. – John Burroughs • Only sad sacks and conformists need things like no kiss on New Year’s Eve to remind them to feel lonely. They’re as bad as the people who need St. Patty’s Day as an excuse to get drunk or Halloween to wear slutty outfits. You can feel sorry for yourself and dress like a hooker all year round: Hallmark never needs to know. – Julie Klausner • Ring out the false, ring in the true. – Alfred Lord Tennyson • Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. – Alfred Lord Tennyson • Shaving my head was a millennium ritual, to not let it pass as just another New Year’s Eve. A lot has happened to me in the last couple of years, personally and spiritually. I wanted to mark it for myself. – Joan Jett • So I started shoveling Bob’s driveway, which is a strange thing to do at a New Years Eve Party – Stephen Chbosky • So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life. – Neil Gaiman • Spend your free time the way you like, not the way you think you’re supposed to. Stay home on New Year’s Eve if that’s what makes you happy. Skip the committee meeting. Cross the street to avoid making aimless chitchat with random acquaintances. Read. Cook. Run. Write a story. Make a deal with yourself that you’ll attend a set number of social events in exchange for not feeling guilty when you beg off. – Susan Cain • St. Patrick’s Day is the fourth biggest drinking day in America. It’s not the biggest. It’s right behind New Year’s Eve, Fourth of July, or any Secret Service party. – David Letterman • The feeling I have reminds me of New Year’s Eve, when the countdown is coming and I’m not quite sure whether to grab my camera or just live in the moment. Usually I grab the camera and later regret it when the picture doesn’t turn out. Then I feel enormously let down and think to myself that the night would have been more fun if it didn’t mean quite so much, if I weren’t forced to analyze where I’ve been and where I’m going. – Emily Giffin • The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. – Eleanor Roosevelt • The last thing I stole was a box of Coca Cola from a parked truck in Adelaide. I was nice and drunk. It was New Year’s Eve. And that was about 28 years ago. – Ronald Biggs • The merry year is born Like the bright berry from the naked thorn. – Hartley Coleridge • The new year begins in a snow-storm of white vows. – George William Curtis • The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written. We can help write that story by setting goals. – Melody Beattie • the object of a new year is not that we should have a new year, but rather that we should have a new soul. – Gilbert K. Chesterton • The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. – Gilbert K. Chesterton • The only way to spend New Year’s Eve is either quietly with friends or in a brothel. Otherwise when the evening ends and people pair off, someone is bound to be left in tears. – W. H. Auden • The proper behavior all through the holiday season is to be drunk. This drunkenness culminates on New Year’s Eve, when you get so drunk you kiss the person you’re married to. – P. J. O’Rourke • This leg will be known as Christmas, and this leg will be known as New Year’s Eve! Ladies…why don’t you all come visit the Big Valbowski between the holidays. – Val Venis • Time is the school in which we learn, time is the fire in which we burn. – Delmore Schwartz • To me, doing a gay pride show is one of the most fun things. My first show that paid more than $10,000 was in a gay club on New Year’s Eve in San Francisco. – Queen Latifah • To shut the door at the end of the workday, which does not spill over into evening. To throw away books after reading them so theydon’t have to be dusted. To go through boxes on New Year’s Eve and throw out half of what is inside. Sometimes for extravagance to pick a bunch of flowers for the one table. Other women besides me must have this daydream about a carefree life. – Maxine Hong Kingston • To this day, on my cheat days from my diet, which are New Year’s Eve and my birthday, I buy luxury foods that are very indicative of my class. – Sandra Cisneros • Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365-page book. Write a good one. – Brad Paisley • Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. – H. Jackson Brown, Jr. • We spend January 1st walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives…not looking for flaws, but for potential. – Ellen Goodman • We’ve made mistakes, But we’ve made good friends too. Remember all the nights we spent with them? And all our plans, Who says they can’t come true? Tonight’s another chance to start again. It’s just another New Year’s Eve, Another night like all the rest. – Barry Manilow • What you do for Jewish New Year is you go down to Times Square. It’s a lot quieter than the regular New Year. It’s just a few Jews walking around going, “sup?” – Jon Stewart • When I go, I’ll take New Year’s Eve with me. – Guy Lombardo • When I played the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas on New Year’s Eve, I got to bring Wiley, my 85-pound black lab. He’s responsible for my favorite New Year’s memory of all: At the end of the show, he ran onstage and then out across all the tables in the showroom, sending champagne glasses and gamblers flying. – Elayne Boosler • When I stopped wanting my New Year’s Eve to be perfect, to bring in the New Year right, is when it started working out right. When I was young, I was always looking for the best party to be at, to ring in the New Year, and I always ended up in the car going, “Happy New Year.” – Hilary Swank • Whether we want them or not, the New Year will bring new challenges; whether we seize them or not, the New year will bring new opportunities. – Michael Josephson • Women get a little more excited about New Year’s Eve than men do. It’s like an excuse: you drink too much, you make a lot of promises you’re not going to keep; the next morning as soon as you wake up you start breaking them. For men, we just call that a date. – Jay Leno • Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us. Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right. – Oprah Winfrey • You staying home all alone on New Year’s Eve? Unthinkable. Take my advice the countdown should be shared with someone, or it’s just another set of numbers passing you by. – E. A. Bucchianeri • Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties”.- Helen Keller, American author, political activist, and lecturer “Let our New Year’s resolution be this: we will be there for one another as fellow members of humanity, in the finest sense of the word. – Goran Persson Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. -Steve Jobs • Youth is when you’re allowed to stay up late on New Year’s Eve. Middle age is when you’re forced to. – Bill Vaughan

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New Year's Eve Quotes

Official Website: New Year's Eve Quotes

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• A flower is a daisy chain, a graduation, a valentine; a flower is New Year’s Eve and an orchid in your hair; a flower is a single geranium blooming in a tin can on a murky city fire-escape; an acre of roses at the Botanical Gardens; and the first gold crocus of spring! … a flower is a birth, a wedding, a leaving of this life. – Jean Hersey • A happy New Year! Grant that I May bring no tear to any eye When this New Year in time shall end Let it be said I’ve played the friend, Have lived and loved and labored here, And made of it a happy year. – Edgar Guest • A year of ending and beginning, a year of loss and finding… and all of you were with me through the storm. I drink your health, your wealth, your fortune for long years to come, and I hope for many more days in which we can gather like this. – C. J. Cherryh • All of us every single year, we’re a different person. I don’t think we’re the same person all our lives. – Steven Spielberg • An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves. – Bill Vaughan • And New Year’s Eve is very, very important to me. – Debbie Harry • And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been – Rainer Maria Rilke • Another fresh new year is here. Another year to live! To Banish worry, doubt and fear, to love and give – William Arthur Ward • Approach the New Year with resolve to find the opportunities hidden in each new day. – Michael Josephson • As a standup comedian, I’ve worked almost every New Year’s Eve of my adult life. It’s the best-paying night of the year. – Elayne Boosler

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'New+Year', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_new-year').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_new-year img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man. – Benjamin Franklin • Calgary wins for my coldest New Year’s Eve gig. That’s when I learned Fahrenheit and Celsius cross at 40 below. I could see callers’ breath coming out of my phone. – Elayne Boosler • celebratin’ New Year’s Eve is like eatin’ oranges. You got to let go your dignity t’ really enjoy ’em. – Edna Ferber • Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right. – Oprah Winfrey • Dieting on New Year’s Day isn’t a good idea as you can’t eat rationally but really need to be free to consume whatever is necessary, moment by moment, in order to ease your hangover. I think it would be much more sensible if resolutions began generally on January the second. – Helen Fielding • Do what you do. This Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year’s Eve, Twelfth Night, Valentine’s Day, Mardi Gras, St. Paddy’s Day, and every day henceforth. Just do what you do. Live out your life and your traditions on your own terms. If it offends others, so be it. That’s their problem. – Chris Rose • Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go. – Brooks Atkinson • Each age has deemed the new-born year the fittest time for festal cheer. – Walter Scott • Every man regards his own life as the New Year’s Eve of time. – Jean Paul • Every New Year’s Eve, I have a pact to do something I never thought I’d do. So I created this list. You have to free your mind to do things you wouldn’t think of doing. Don’t ever say no. – Carl Lewis • Every time the ball drop on New Year’s Eve, We toast to more money, we smoke to more cheese. – Prodigy • Every time you tear a leaf off a calendar, you present a new place for new ideas and progress. – Charles Kettering • Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith. – Henry Ward Beecher • For a new year to bring you something new, make a move, like a butterfly tearing its cocoon! Make a move! – Mehmet Murat Ildan • For last year’s words belong to last year’s language And next year’s words await another voice. – T. S. Eliot • For the millennium [New Year’s Eve], you really have a choice to make. You either have to be naked with your head on fire and a shotgun in Bali or else you have to spend time with friends or family around the fireplace. And I’m choosing option B – Tom Morello • For years, I worked seven-day weeks, through birthdays and most public holidays, Christmases and New Year’s Eves included. I worked mornings and afternoons, resuming work after dinner. I remember feeling as if life were a protracted exercise in pulling myself out of a well by a rope, and that rope was work. – Antonella Gambotto-Burke • From New Year’s on the outlook brightens; good humor lost in a mood of failure returns. I resolve to stop complaining. – Leonard Bernstein • Games were moved to New Year’s Eve as part of a plan by college football executives where they want to create a tradition of watching football on New Year’s Eve. – Audie Cornish • Glory to God in highest heaven, Who unto man His Son hath given; While angels sing with tender mirth, A glad new year to all the earth. – Martin Luther • God, do I hate my little fat tits. You ever pinch your little meat tits and wish you were dead? You ever just stand naked in the mirror. “You little fat-titted mediocre failure!” You ever do that for 3 hours on New Year’s Eve. – Jim Norton • Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account. – Oscar Wilde • He who breaks a resolution is a weakling; He who makes one is a fool. – Farquhar McGillivray Knowles • Hope Smiles from the threshold of the year to come, Whispering ‘it will be happier’. – Alfred Lord Tennyson • I always work on New Year’s Eve, no matter what. – Debbie Harry • I don’t even drink! I can’t stand the taste of alcohol. Every New Year’s Eve I try one drink and every time it makes me feel sick. So I don’t touch booze – I’m always the designated driver. – Kim Kardashian • I get myself a gig somewhere, whether it’s in a club, whether it’s in a bar, it doesn’t matter, and I just work on New Year’s Eve because I always feel it’s very symbolic for me for the next year, for the new year. – Debbie Harry • I had a terrible fight with my wife on New Year’s Eve. She called me a procrastinator. So I finished addressing the Christmas cards and left. – Robert Orben • I hate New Year’s Eve. One more chance to remember that you haven’t yet done what you wanted. And to pretend it doesn’t matter. – Gregory Maguire • I have no way of knowing how people really feel, but the vast majority of those I meet couldn’t be nicer. Every once in a while someone barks at me. My New Year’s resolution is not to bark back. – Tucker Carlson • I have spent every New Year’s Eve since 1992 in Lourdes. I spend the hour of my birth every year in the grotto. It’s a place with meaning for me. – Paulo Coelho • I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes…you’re Doing Something. – Neil Gaiman • I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something. – Neil Gaiman • I like to work on New Year’s Eve. It has a nice spirit; a nice feel about it. If you are all about the ‘year-end’ thing at all, then laughing with fellow human beings is a great way to start the new year. – Paula Poundstone • I love watching ‘Twilight Zone.’ New Year’s Eve they do the marathon; I watch it every year. – Gerard Way • I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me. – Anais Nin • I saw Ronnie Hawkins play near my hometown, Port Dover, Ontario, and I saw him play there on New Year’s Eve and the following spring I booked myself to be his opening act on maybe five shows, and he hired me after the first night. – Rick Danko • I think in terms of the day’s resolutions, not the years’. – Henry Moore • I was a total nerd growing up. I’d rather sit home and read a novel on New Year’s Eve and say, ‘Wow, I read the whole thing in one night!’ That was my idea of a big time. – Beth Broderick • I was at a New Year’s Eve party, and someone asked me how was my year, and I said, ‘I honestly think 2011 was the best year of my entire life,’ and I actually meant it. – Dave Grohl • I won’t be going to any New Year’s Eve parties because I think they’re naff. No one over the age of 15 should bother going to parties. – Julie Burchill • i would like to remind the management that the drinks are watered and the hat-check girl has syphilis and the band is composed of former ss monsters However since it is new year’s eve and i have lip cancer i will place my paper hat on my concussion and dance – Leonard Cohen • I would rather receive a Pap smear from Captain Hook than venture out on New Year’s Eve. – Jen Lancaster • I would say happy new year, but it’s not happy; it’s exactly the same as last year except colder. – Robert Clark • If the age of the Earth were a calendar year and today were a breath before midnight on New Year’s Eve, we showed up a scant fifteen minutes ago, and all of recorded history has blinked by in the last sixty seconds. Luckily for us, our planet-mates–the fantastic meshwork of plants, animals, and microbes–have been patiently perfecting their wares since March, an incredible 3.8 billion years since the first bacteria. …After 3.8 billion years of research and development, failures are fossils, and what surrounds us is the secret to survival. – Janine Benyus • If you asked me for my New Year Resolution, it would be to find out who I am. – Cyril Cusack • If you feel compelled to give a New Year’s Eve party, don’t invite people to arrive too early or they’ll go off the boil before midnight. – Jilly Cooper • If you over plan New Year’s Eve it’s going to be a disaster so you have to be alive to changes. – Cate Blanchett • I’m usually at home and in bed by 10 o’clock. I do not want to be out at anybody’s New Year’s Eve party. – Andre Leon Talley • It goes Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day. Is that fair to anyone who’s alone? These are all days you gotta be with someone. And if you didn’t get around to killing yourself at Christmas or New Year’s, boom! There’s Valentine’s Day. I think there should be one more after Valentine’s Day just called, ‘Who could love you?’ – Laura Kightlinger • It was February sixth: eight days until Valentine’s Day. I was dateless, as usual, deep in the vice grip of unrequited love. It was bad enough not having a boyfriend for New Year’s Eve. Now I had to cope with Valentine datelessness, feeling consummate social pressure from every retailer in America who stuck hearts and cupids in their windows by January second to rub it in. – Joan Bauer • It’s hard to say what I meant by “as we know it.” I’m not about to go up on a mountain on new year’s eve and wait for the lightening to strike. – Hunter S. Thompson • I’ve had some lovely extraordinary experiences on New Year’s Eve. – Debbie Harry • Let each new year find you a better person. – Benjamin Franklin • Let our New Year’s resolution be this: we will be there for one another as fellow members of humanity, in the finest sense of the word. – Goran Persson • Let the dead Past bury its dead! – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Let this coming year be better than all the others. Vow to do some of the things you have always wanted to do but could not find the time. Call up a forgotten friend. Drop an old grudge, and replace it with some pleasant memories. Vow not to make a promise you do not think you can keep. Walk tall, and smile more. You will look 10 years younger. Do not be afraid to say, I love you. Say it again. They are the sweetest words in the world. – Ann Landers • Let this coming year be better than all the others. Vow to do some of the things you’ve always wanted to do but couldn’t find the time. – Ann Landers • Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Whatever you’re scared of doing, Do it. – Neil Gaiman • Make New Year’s goals. Dig within, and discover what you would like to have happen in your life this year. This helps you do your part. It is an affirmation that you’re interested in fully living life in the year to come. – Melody Beattie • Make your mistakes, next year and forever. – Neil Gaiman • Many years ago I resolved never to bother with New Year’s resolutions, and I’ve stuck with it ever since. – Dave Beard • May all your troubles last as long as your New Year’s resolutions. – Joey Lauren Adams • May the New Year bring you courage to break your resolutions early! – Aleister Crowley • May the New Year bring you courage to break your resolutions early! My own plan is to swear off every kind of virtue, so that I triumph even when I fall! – Aleister Crowley • Maybe this year, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives not looking for flaws, but looking for potential. – Ellen Goodman • My look is always glitzy for New Year’s Eve, even if I am at home. – Gloria Gaynor • My New Year’s Eve Toast: to all the devils, lusts, passions, greeds, envies, loves, hates, strange desires, enemies ghostly and real, the army of memories, with which I do battle — may they never give me peace. (New Year’s Eve, 1947) – Patricia Highsmith • My New Year’s Eve is always 2 July, the night before my birthday. That’s the night I make my resolutions. And this year scares the life out of me, because no matter how successful, how good things appear, there is always a deep core of failure within me, although I am trying to deal with it. My biggest fear, this coming year, is that I will be waking up alone. It makes me wonder how many bodies will be fished out of the Thames, how many decaying corpses will be found in one-room flats. I’m just being realistic. – Tracey Emin • My New Year’s resolution was to stop saying ‘You go, girl’ to myself. – Zach Galifianakis • My parents used to throw great New Year’s Eve parties. They invited such an eclectic mix of showbiz people. All those cool people were always hanging out at our apartment. – Ben Stiller • Never tell your resolution beforehand, or it’s twice as onerous a duty. – John Selden • New Year’s Day is every man’s birthday. – Charles Lamb • New Year’s Eve always terrifies me. – Charles Bukowski • New Year’s eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights. – Hamilton Wright Mabie • New Year’s Eve, we’re going to be doing a concert with the Philadelphia Orchestra in Symphony Hall. It makes me feel good, because of all the people they could have had, they wanted me! We do have to do a little work with the rhythm section. – Barbara Cook • New Year’s Eve, where auld acquaintance be forgot. Unless, of course, those tests come back positive. – Jay Leno • New Year’s Eve. It’s a promise of a night. Single, married or widowed, in love, loveless or lovelorn, we all leave our apartments and pick through snow in high heels, or descend subway stairs in tuxedos, lured to wherever we’re going–whether we know it or not, would deny it or not–by the kiss of a stranger. – Jardine Libaire • New Year’s is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions. – Mark Twain • New Year’s Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time. – James Agate • Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. – Mark Twain • Now there are more overweight people in America than average-weight people. So overweight people are now average. Which means you’ve met your New Year’s resolution. – Jay Leno • Of all sound of all bells… most solemn and touching is the peal which rings out the Old Year. – Charles Lamb • On New Year’s Eve he ould make a resolution to recover some his previous scepticism, but until then he would do as the Romans do, and smile at people even if he disapproved of them – Nick Hornby • On New Year’s Eve, my dear friend lost his battle with depression . . . Though he wasn’t the first friend I’ve lost to suicide, I sure hope he’s the last. I wish I had the chance to go back and tell them what they meant to me. I wish I had the chance to beg them to seek help, to keep fighting. I wish they knew that they were surrounded by countless others who struggle on a daily basis. – Jared Padalecki • One of the many reasons I love living in New York is that we get a front row seat to the innumerable thrills that take place here – from conventions and awards shows, to parades and U.N. assemblies. But my favorite New York tradition is the annual New Year’s Eve ball-drop on Times Square. – Marlo Thomas • One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: ‘To rise above little things’. – John Burroughs • Only sad sacks and conformists need things like no kiss on New Year’s Eve to remind them to feel lonely. They’re as bad as the people who need St. Patty’s Day as an excuse to get drunk or Halloween to wear slutty outfits. You can feel sorry for yourself and dress like a hooker all year round: Hallmark never needs to know. – Julie Klausner • Ring out the false, ring in the true. – Alfred Lord Tennyson • Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. – Alfred Lord Tennyson • Shaving my head was a millennium ritual, to not let it pass as just another New Year’s Eve. A lot has happened to me in the last couple of years, personally and spiritually. I wanted to mark it for myself. – Joan Jett • So I started shoveling Bob’s driveway, which is a strange thing to do at a New Years Eve Party – Stephen Chbosky • So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life. – Neil Gaiman • Spend your free time the way you like, not the way you think you’re supposed to. Stay home on New Year’s Eve if that’s what makes you happy. Skip the committee meeting. Cross the street to avoid making aimless chitchat with random acquaintances. Read. Cook. Run. Write a story. Make a deal with yourself that you’ll attend a set number of social events in exchange for not feeling guilty when you beg off. – Susan Cain • St. Patrick’s Day is the fourth biggest drinking day in America. It’s not the biggest. It’s right behind New Year’s Eve, Fourth of July, or any Secret Service party. – David Letterman • The feeling I have reminds me of New Year’s Eve, when the countdown is coming and I’m not quite sure whether to grab my camera or just live in the moment. Usually I grab the camera and later regret it when the picture doesn’t turn out. Then I feel enormously let down and think to myself that the night would have been more fun if it didn’t mean quite so much, if I weren’t forced to analyze where I’ve been and where I’m going. – Emily Giffin • The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. – Eleanor Roosevelt • The last thing I stole was a box of Coca Cola from a parked truck in Adelaide. I was nice and drunk. It was New Year’s Eve. And that was about 28 years ago. – Ronald Biggs • The merry year is born Like the bright berry from the naked thorn. – Hartley Coleridge • The new year begins in a snow-storm of white vows. – George William Curtis • The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written. We can help write that story by setting goals. – Melody Beattie • the object of a new year is not that we should have a new year, but rather that we should have a new soul. – Gilbert K. Chesterton • The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. – Gilbert K. Chesterton • The only way to spend New Year’s Eve is either quietly with friends or in a brothel. Otherwise when the evening ends and people pair off, someone is bound to be left in tears. – W. H. Auden • The proper behavior all through the holiday season is to be drunk. This drunkenness culminates on New Year’s Eve, when you get so drunk you kiss the person you’re married to. – P. J. O’Rourke • This leg will be known as Christmas, and this leg will be known as New Year’s Eve! Ladies…why don’t you all come visit the Big Valbowski between the holidays. – Val Venis • Time is the school in which we learn, time is the fire in which we burn. – Delmore Schwartz • To me, doing a gay pride show is one of the most fun things. My first show that paid more than $10,000 was in a gay club on New Year’s Eve in San Francisco. – Queen Latifah • To shut the door at the end of the workday, which does not spill over into evening. To throw away books after reading them so theydon’t have to be dusted. To go through boxes on New Year’s Eve and throw out half of what is inside. Sometimes for extravagance to pick a bunch of flowers for the one table. Other women besides me must have this daydream about a carefree life. – Maxine Hong Kingston • To this day, on my cheat days from my diet, which are New Year’s Eve and my birthday, I buy luxury foods that are very indicative of my class. – Sandra Cisneros • Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365-page book. Write a good one. – Brad Paisley • Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. – H. Jackson Brown, Jr. • We spend January 1st walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives…not looking for flaws, but for potential. – Ellen Goodman • We’ve made mistakes, But we’ve made good friends too. Remember all the nights we spent with them? And all our plans, Who says they can’t come true? Tonight’s another chance to start again. It’s just another New Year’s Eve, Another night like all the rest. – Barry Manilow • What you do for Jewish New Year is you go down to Times Square. It’s a lot quieter than the regular New Year. It’s just a few Jews walking around going, “sup?” – Jon Stewart • When I go, I’ll take New Year’s Eve with me. – Guy Lombardo • When I played the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas on New Year’s Eve, I got to bring Wiley, my 85-pound black lab. He’s responsible for my favorite New Year’s memory of all: At the end of the show, he ran onstage and then out across all the tables in the showroom, sending champagne glasses and gamblers flying. – Elayne Boosler • When I stopped wanting my New Year’s Eve to be perfect, to bring in the New Year right, is when it started working out right. When I was young, I was always looking for the best party to be at, to ring in the New Year, and I always ended up in the car going, “Happy New Year.” – Hilary Swank • Whether we want them or not, the New Year will bring new challenges; whether we seize them or not, the New year will bring new opportunities. – Michael Josephson • Women get a little more excited about New Year’s Eve than men do. It’s like an excuse: you drink too much, you make a lot of promises you’re not going to keep; the next morning as soon as you wake up you start breaking them. For men, we just call that a date. – Jay Leno • Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us. Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right. – Oprah Winfrey • You staying home all alone on New Year’s Eve? Unthinkable. Take my advice the countdown should be shared with someone, or it’s just another set of numbers passing you by. – E. A. Bucchianeri • Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties”.- Helen Keller, American author, political activist, and lecturer “Let our New Year’s resolution be this: we will be there for one another as fellow members of humanity, in the finest sense of the word. – Goran Persson Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. -Steve Jobs • Youth is when you’re allowed to stay up late on New Year’s Eve. Middle age is when you’re forced to. – Bill Vaughan

[clickbank-storefront-bestselling]

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[213hiphopworldnews]

What It’s Like As A Private Chef For Stars Like DeMarcus Cousins And 2Chainz

Sami Udell

It’s 7pm on a Monday night and Sami Udell is prepping a five-course dinner for her brother’s wedding party. Wearing her signature “Eat Good Food” t-shirt and apron, she chops fresh sweet potatoes while reading off a handwritten menu taped to her cabinet. As usual, the dinner will be centered on fresh fruits and vegetables, paired with a lot of heart. The potatoes will ultimately accompany the main course of crispy vegetables, halibut with cashew cream sauce, and a smokey, olive and herb relish. Though Udell has just returned from San Francisco, where she was invited to cook for NBA superstar Kevin Durant, she accommodates a last minute request to add four more people to the dinner party. These are the sorts of spur of the moment pivots she’s grown accustomed to as a personal chef.

At just 27 years old, with no formal training or accolades, Udell is a full-time personal chef for some of the world’s biggest athletes and musicians. She began teaching herself how to cook in college as a means to be healthier. When she moved to Los Angeles, she spent most of her time cooking for her friends, gardening, and learning everything she could about food to hone her craft. In a serendipitous moment of preparation colliding with an extraordinary opportunity, Sami’s hearty but healthy fare caught the attention of the personal assistant to Ludacris, after she catered a party he was at. After months of persistent follow-up, Sami received a call from Ludacris himself inviting her to cook for him. Her warm, disarming demeanor and infectious curiosity for nature and food have parlayed that into a star-studded list of clientele — including NBA star DeMarcus Cousins and rap icon 2Chainz.

I recently sat down with Sami in her makeshift commercial kitchen to discuss the highs and lows of working in such a physically demanding yet rewarding profession. She was incredibly candid about the difficult moments, the breadth of personalities, and the day to day joys and struggles behind all the glamour.

So, I know your story, but can you contextualize how you started cooking and how you first become a personal chef?

I started cooking just because I thought it was fun. I cooked for one of my brother’s networking parties, where I was lucky to meet Ludacris’s personal assistant. He actually delivered and ended up connecting me to Ludacris, so I started cooking for him when he was here in LA. I was really faking it honestly — pretending I knew how to cook while literally Googling “how to cook.” But the thrill of learning to cook was so fun that I was hooked. I ended up getting a job at a restaurant to enhance my skills. It’s such a brutal industry and I didn’t feel like I fit in. I didn’t go to culinary school but here I was cooking for a very famous celebrity. People were naturally judging me a little more than the other cooks because they didn’t understand how I had that job since my skills didn’t really align.

After being in that kitchen, as a 24-year-old, I didn’t have a lot of inhibition, and I wasn’t really scared to take risks, so I didn’t know what I was getting into when I decided to start a food truck. I figured I could run a restaurant, or a food truck on my own, and I did run the truck for two years, which was so fun, and I did love it. But what I realized through the truck was that, for now, I love cooking for fewer people and keeping the quality at its highest. Meanwhile, as the truck was running, my clientele grew and I started getting a lot of calls from NBA players. It started with DeMarcus Cousins, and I cooked for DeMarcus at his home for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for three months straight with no days off — for him and six other guys that were all well past six feet all. As much work as it was, I loved that personal connection, being in his house, listening to him talk about, say, ramen noodles. You know silly, normal things that he talks about. Seeing someone that people put on such a pedestal versus me being their chef is almost humorous. I get to know them in such a personal way and I love building that relationship, knowing who they are and understanding their food preferences. From there it just kept growing. I started working for NBA players and then 2Chainz and the family that owns Medmen, the cannabis company.

As long as I feel like I respect the person in some way, I’m happy. There does have to be a connection we build that makes me want to cook for them, because I devote every waking hour to cooking for them.

I know from personal experience that there’s something really special about your food, but what do you think it is that Ludacris, and ultimately all of your clients, love about you as a chef?

I think my passion for what I do has carried me really far, versus having a ton of skills. I’m not that person, but I’m very relatable and when I’m in someone’s kitchen, they can feel that I really love the food, and I care. Anyone can have skills, but not everyone has passion and care for what they do. I don’t even think I could teach it. I don’t know if it’s something that you can grow or ease into, but it only enhances as I continue. I feel so blessed to have such passion for cooking and learning about food. I have a nourishing spirit, I’m easy going, on-time, and I communicate.

You’re also really accommodating.

I do go above and beyond, even when it’s hard for me. It could have been easier to say that I can’t add four more people to the dinner tonight, but I will go above and beyond to make clients feel special, I want all my clients to feel like they’re my priority.

Tell me about how the relationship with DeMarcus Cousins came about.

I was cooking for him for two weeks and the night before my last day of meal prep, I got a call from his team saying that it would be my last day and they were going to continue with a different chef. I asked why they didn’t want me and they said they didn’t love deliveries and wanted someone who would cook in person. So I left a party in Venice and went to Erewhon to make the best homemade food I could make. It was 9:30 p.m. the night before I was supposed to drop off the food I had already made, and I decided to show up in person the next morning and do my best.

When I showed up the next day, they had already hired another guy who was on Top Chef. He had all the skills and was super extra. I looked DeMarcus straight in the eyes, he’s like 7 ft. tall, and said, “I know you hired someone else. But I will do my best, and no one is going to care more than I will.” I saw him light up, and I thought, “I think I have the job.” They called me the next day and said, “We had another chef, and we decided to go with you.” It’s so funny now because DeMarcus and I are so tight. It’s almost like we’re friends and that would never have happened if I hadn’t been so ballsy.

I love that story, and it’s such a testament to who you are as a person. So other than say, the potential rejection, what is the hardest aspect about what you do?

The hardest aspect is probably time. Imagine throwing an Easter party, or Christmas or Hanukkah dinner party for even five people. Imagine what you have to do: find the recipes, make a list, get groceries, go to multiple grocery stores, and because I like to be farm to table, I go to the Farmer’s Market. So there’s making your menu, then add LA traffic, parking, come back home, and by the time you get home, you have to make sure the kitchen is perfectly clean and then you prep and go to your client’s house. I wake up at 6 a.m. to be at the Farmer’s Market by 7 a.m. and then I go to one client’s house for breakfast, and then another for dinner, and I get home at 11 p.m. and I haven’t even looked at my email. As a personal chef, you do everything yourself. At a restaurant, they have a dishwasher or purveyor, but you’re really it — you do every aspect and having time to do all that is hard.

You cook for a number of NBA players. How do you take in their needs as top performing athletes and what do you think is unique about their diets?

Their diets are intense, especially when it comes to macronutrients. You have to take into consideration an exact amount of carbs or proteins. So as a chef, and wanting to be creative, you have to weigh things out: you’re a makeshift nutritionist and a chef. I also have to make sure they’re getting what they need to perform at their optimal level. But when you think about what they do, they have to be at peak ability, so I take it to heart and I really want that for them. To be creative with the restrictions, I go to the Farmer’s Market. Living in LA, we have access to amazing produce, maybe they can only have one cup of fruit, but I can find something interesting and make it special. I’m always finding new cool products, like a new spice or a new noodle that’s low in carbs, and because the grocery stores and Farmer’s Markets know me, they’re always giving me new products to try. Or sometimes I’ll watch an episode of Chef’s Table or eat at a Michelin starred restaurant and I think, “man, DeMarcus can’t have this…so what can I do to make it in a way that he can?” So I deconstruct my favorite dishes and I reintroduce them with things NBA players can eat.

What about rappers and hip-hop artists you cook for like Ludacris and 2Chainz? Are there similar considerations for their diets?

They’re actually quite similar. I got used to certain categories — like gluten-free is no problem. But their diets vary in calories since they’re not high performing athletes. Usually, it’s no dairy and no sugar. My brain is categorized by client — like “these two clients have the same diet,” or “this client is dairy and gluten free.” You can tell me to cook raw and I’ll figure it out.

What do you think would surprise people the most about being a personal chef?

How much work it takes or communicating. Or how physically draining it is. I’m always standing and running around. I’m always working even if I’m not at a client’s house. I’ll wake up in the middle of night, thinking about what they need for breakfast. It’s all-encompassing, in that way.

Also, the food can be pretty simple. They’re not eating foie gras every meal. Once in a while, it’s fancy but they really want tasty and healthy.

I know you’ve worked with a lot of different personalities. Are there any moments in particular where you thought, “I just can’t do this” or were really challenging? How did you keep going?

Yeah, I cooked for the founder of a major TV network and one day I brought a bottle of olive oil onto the driveway and it shattered on his driveway. They wouldn’t even let me in the house or let me clean it up, they just kicked me out. I went to my food truck after and just started crying. We’re all doing our best, so I didn’t understand why they would treat me that way. But, that stuff makes me stronger, as cliche as it sounds. After that, I cried, after DeMarcus originally told me “no,” I cried — I’m sensitive. But when I go home, I’m really good at looking at the whole picture: “What did I do wrong, and where can I go from here? Where can I grow instead of letting it stop me?”

Wow, that’s insane. But I think that goes to show why working with good clients as a chef is so important.

Yeah, I really value the people I work with, and I want all of my clients to do the best they can in life. So many people think it’s a glamorous industry, and it is… in a way. But I think people may not know that clients choosing me and me choosing a client are both important. I don’t care how much someone is willing to pay me if I’m not respected. When a client thanks me or texts me saying how much they loved a meal, I’m so grateful that they’re treating me well. Some celebrities don’t see this job as another human being, but my clients do and I respect that.

Where do you think your passion for food is headed?

I want to expand my business. I’m lucky that I’m young and that I work this hard. I know my body won’t be capable of this for a long time, but I‘m just in the present. I work as hard as I can and I work with people from all walks of life. I work 24/7 and I’m learning. When I look at my food from even a year ago, I see what I’ve done and how much I’ve grown. I’m putting in my 10,000 hours of cooking. When I watch things react in the pan, I know I have the skills and the sky’s the limit. I’ve built a strong foundation for a company and I ran a food truck for two years, so I have business knowledge which I think is only going to benefit me.

I do have goals, but I want to be present and learn so in the future I can do whatever I want. But I strongly believe I’ll be in the food industry until I die. I just really love what I do. I really love it.

Anything else you think is important to know about being a personal chef?

People are constantly texting you at the last minute with all kinds of requests [laughs]. People always want to know what my clients eat and what their personalities are behind closed doors and, honestly, I don’t think they’re the same but never in a bad way. People are always more down to earth — nice and humble. I choose to work with really good people. Being in someone else’s home takes away society’s glorified version of celebrity. It doesn’t really matter who people are, because at the end of the day everyone has to eat.

source https://uproxx.com/life/sami-udell-chef/