2025: deciembre
Image by NMW.
Why do we bathe in this psyche?
The final month of the year is always a busy one for me, and it’s exclusively due to the holiday festivities. There are parties and events to attend, people and lights to see. Shopping (mostly online) and preparing gifts, preparing food, preparing my headspace for another bow on another year and all of the human interaction we binge to celebrate. Work schedules are thrown off (I’m good with that), and the daily grind shifts into neutral. No one, except the psychos, wants to work in the gooch between Christmas and New Year’s Day. We are programmed to chill in the final days of the year. Give us these days to laugh with friends, eat like pigs, and reflect on how we should have better spent our time the previous year and how we plan on spending the upcoming year. It ain’t much, but it's a simple request.
Yet, here I am writing a blog when I should be drafting new communication plans for recruiting outreach in early 2026. Barf. That’s what the energy is like in the office on the handful of business days placed between these holidays. Vomit. No one wants to sit in the office and think about how lame it is to be here when we could be at home finishing the same work in less time because we’re not all trying to distract ourselves and each other from the work we don’t want to do in the office. I mean, I had to get proper dressed today. Dress shirt and pants. Tie. Sweater. FML.
This blog isn’t dedicated to how much I hate working the holiday gooch. It is simply a reflection of how I get to close out my year while you, or someone like you, gets to kick it at home on break. Don’t hate the player, right?
You may not be able to tell from the finished product, but the entire process, from the recording to the completion of the post-production, takes me three nights. I put in a couple of hours each night after the day job and dinner, so that’s around six hours of work I dedicate to the Any Given Sunday Podcast for 18 to 20 weeks a year. Of course, that’s not my only passion project. My cousin, FarFromProfessional.com staff writer C.A. Ramirez, and I are working on a together, so there’s that. That’s just what I would consider “work” on my plate. I haven’t touched the “life” stuff, but I bring all this up to make an excuse for myself and attempt to explain how I could have forgotten about my blog. Halloween and Game 6 of the World Series were the nail in my October blog’s coffin.
I’m here for November, though, homies. There are two specific things that I want to speak on this month. One event was at the beginning, and the other here at the end. Except for last month, I’ve been lamenting the passing of this calendar year in every blog post, knowing full well that we would be sitting on December’s doorstep before we knew it (if we were blessed enough to make it). Well, here we are.
Christmas
Capitalism beats us over the head with boughs of holly from the end of September until the day after Christmas. It’s a tired narrative to proclaim the real reason for the season is Jesus, but folks need to be reminded. Our focus is lost on the gift giving and meeting other people’s expectations. It needs to be refocused on the promise of hope, which nowadays can feel far away. A small light in a room full of darkness is all you need to lead the way. Be that light.
Best of the Year
Movie: One Battle After Another
A father/daughter story set amidst the great disappointment of the Obama administration and the rise of MAGA in its wake. Figuratively speaking.
A lot of people felt betrayed by Obama after riding that wave of hope he promised. People really believed that he would be different because he looked different from other president’s, but he sold out just the same. The repercussion of that was Donald Trump. This movie is subversive and makes you think it’s about one thing when it’s not.
Music: Deftones, private music
Sometimes I just want to rock. Deftones have been on a heater their last several albums, going all the way back to 2012’s Koi No Yokan. I listened to private music the weekend it came out on my way to San Diego from the I.E., and threw it on again for the ride back because it buried itself in my brain.
I found spiritual peace this year, too. Perhaps that should have been the lead.
Saturday Night Special
Episodes 73 through 76 dropped. Thank you to the folks out there watching it.
Check out the page right here for quick access to all episodes.
