★★★★ A gust ripped a fresh batch of golden leaflets off a honeylocust tree and sent them up the avenue to join the older detritus already in motion. The older boy sprinted along with the wind boosting him, pressing against the quilted back of his coat. There had been either a snowflake or something that looked like snowflake on the air; little moving specks sailed just out of view all day. Afternoon was dark and serious. A clear streak appeared in the northwest late; one had been there in the morning, too, but it had stopped seeming relevant. Gorgeous pinks appeared where the separated but enduring dark clouds allowed them. The night wind buffeted the windows on one side and set air currents moaning outside the apartment door on the other. The moaning rose to a shriek, and through the night new groanings and tappings and thumps accompanied it.

Nana’s Christmas Floor Plan

A. Twin mattress for Jonathan, b. 1993, 6’3″
B. Twin mattress for Jacob, b. 1993, 6’3″
C. Twin mattress for Sam, b. 1995, 5’9″
D. Inflatable mattress for Aaron, b. 1996, 6’7″
E. Hamper
F. Closet, contents unknown. Door has not been opened in previous 21 winters.
G. Central heating vent. Turns on every 20 min, causing door H to creek or, if not closed completely, swing open.
H. Door to hallway. Grandchildren Zachary (b. 2005) and Max (b. 2010) have been tall enough to reach doorknob since ~2010 and 2015, respectively.

Jonathan is a grad student studying protest and performance. He loves his Nana and her house very much. He is on twitter @statusfro.

Holiday Dread is The Awl’s series dedicated to the season of joy and other emotions. Previously:

Holiday Dread: Being The Mom

And other answers to unsolicited holiday-themed questions

“How can I avoid talking about politics with my family this Thanksgiving?” — Red State Jane

You could take a vow of silence. Print out a little note in a Comic Sans font and hand it to all your loved ones this Thursday. “Jim is on a spiritual journey. It involves watching Detroit Lions’ football games in absolute silence. Thank you for your support.” People may not understand a vow of silence. But they respect them. But that doesn’t mean they won’t be able to talk about Hillary’s e-mails or whatever. You will just have to grimly nod to yourself.

Alternately, you could turn directly into that conversation. Shave your head, grow a goatee (particularly effective for women), get a beret, strap up a pair of Doc Martens, carry around copies of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Black Panther comics. As you read them, nod grimly to yourself. Any time someone asks you to pass the stuffing, shout, “You are being lied to!” During the family football game make sure to deflate the ball just like your personal hero, pretty-boy rebel Patriots’ QB Tom Brady. When asked what you are thankful for shout “I’m thankful for the imminent Bloody Revolution!” Be the one people walk on eggshells around. It’s not passive-aggressive, it’s aggressive-aggressive.

But, perhaps, the very best way to avoid interacting with your backwards, red-state kin is to take Nyquil just as you arrive at Thanksgiving dinner. You can blame sleepiness on tryptophan, jet lag, car sickness, stress, erectile disfunction. Whatever is going to get you out of being cornered by your uncle about your opinion about “this Hamilton thing.” They will let you sleep in someone’s big-ass bed and you’ll get to eat your plate later in absolute silence. It’s bad enough that the rubes in your life have foisted a lout into the highest office in the world. There’s no way you’re going to give them the satisfaction of feeling like they’re “winning” anything except a silly game of Rising Fascism. Tell it to my closed eyelids, creeps!

“When’s the best time to leave the city to travel for Thanksgiving?” — Worried Will

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving is an insane ‘Escape from New York’ fuckfest of traffic and recriminations. So, Wednesday. Around noon. Drive right into the hot part of the volcano. This way you may not make it out of town at all. Everything is completely jammed up in every direction. It’s like Dick Cheney’s heart, nothing is getting out. Just sit in traffic for six hours and text your family hourly. Best-case scenario will be you’ll give up, go back to your apartment and have the greatest Thanksgiving of your life with whichever of your pals is still in the city and doesn’t have Thanksgiving plans. Eat bodega sushi and watch Love Actually with the people you actually love. This is what Linus would tell you is what Thanksgiving is all about. And that little thumbsucker is wise as fuck.

“I’m going to ask my girlfriend’s parents’ permission to marry their daughter at Thanksgiving. When’s the best time to do this? Before or after the big meal?” — Ready Teddy

Don’t do this. Not ever. There’s something primitive about this ritual. The only person’s permission you need to get married is the other person. There’s nothing charming or chivalrous about asking for some strangers’ blessing to marry another person. People are not property. Parents do not speak for their children. Will you be disinherited or something? Is the lordship of your powerful house in the balance? No. Then just ask the person you want to marry. And inform everyone else of their decision.

“My aunt makes the worst pumpkin pie. And my mother for some reason always tells her I love it. But it tastes like farts. She makes it especially for me. Kill me now, dude.” — Pumpkined Out Pete

This is easy. It’s the same solution as the first day of prison. You show up, pick the largest relative out of the bunch and just immediately get up in their shit. Just go wild on them. Make wild, violent gestures like air quotes and jerk-off motions. Use phrases like “Well, it’s the opposite of what you’re claiming, actually.” They will eventually punch you in the nose and you will have to go to the emergency room. Everyone will feel bad, but there’s really not much anybody can do about broken noses anyway. They will have saved you a slice of the pumpkin pie you allegedly like so much. But say, oh, great I’ll have it later. Then toss it out the window at a sign on the Merritt Parkway on your drive home.

Jim Behrle lives in Jersey City, NJ and works at a bookstore. He’s the co-host of “Sportsytalk” on WFMU.

A shameless endorsement of Alamo Drafthouse

America, currently, is a clogged toilet at a party. Full of shit, on the brink of overflowing, but not enough of a disaster yet that everyone in the house can appreciate the full extent of the problem.

“Josh has been gone a while,” someone near the fridge might be noticing for the first time.

“The toilet sounds like it’s running,” someone in the hall might be saying. But no one really has access to the full picture—except for Josh, but he’s locked in the bathroom saying, “Oh god, oh god, oh god,” and checking the cabinets for a plunger.

If the stress of living beneath a government that lends itself so easily to a house-party poop metaphor is stressing you out the way it is for me, maybe you want to spend 90 minutes thinking about… not that. Here in New York, we recently got our first Alamo Drafthouse movie theater, and I’d like to recommend that you go. I have been twice in the past few weeks, and both visits were internal noise-canceling events.

Alamo Drafthouse is a chain that originated in Texas, and their big claim to fame is that they offer a full casual-dining menu as part of your moviegoing experience. For every two large, leather seats in the theater, there is a dining table to share. To order off the menu, you just have to write what you want on a little slip of paper and stick it in a holder on your table. Within a couple minutes, your server will come pick up the slip, and then return with your meal when it’s ready. It’s like a drive-in, but inside. It’s like Outback Steakhouse but at the movies. It is, in so many words, a very specific kind of comfort fantasy.

If you’re not sold off the concept alone, let me walk you through the pros:

So many options.

You still have the choice to order movie theater favorites like popcorn and Sour Patch Kids, but maybe you’d also be interested in a cocktail? A warm peanut butter banana cookie? Something called a wild mushroom flatbread? All of these are available to you at Alamo. Plus, the sodas are bottomless, so you also have the option to order one of those and crank through as many refills as you can fit inside of your one mortal digestive system if you’d like. There are a million routes to take.

Thoughtful-ass dinnerware.

I’ve been to Alamo ripoff theaters in the area, and one of a few things they get wrong and Alamo gets right are the plates and cups. There is no porcelain or glass at Alamo; your cup is plastic and enormous like you’re at a diner, your plate is made out of that A ’70s wood that looks quilted. Is it the chicest New York City aesthetic? No. But imagine caring about that. Everything is silent while you eat—there are no clattering forks on the floor because they’ve fallen out of a wrapped napkin, no scraping spoons in coffee cups during a sex scene—just good old fashioned muted ingestion.

Ample space for one adult to quietly seethe.

I once heard someone describe Alamo’s seats as “midwest size” and I’d like to confirm their assessment. Everything about the theater feels suburban. In the bathrooms, you’re greeted with a comically long corridor of glimmering stainless steel stalls. In the theater, rows of seats are spread extra wide apart to accommodate a scurrying waitstaff. The best part is all of this seems to be done with the movie in mind. Your server never blocks your view of the screen because there’s dedicated room for them to stand. You never wait in line at the box office because your seat was assigned when you purchased your ticket online. Once you have a ticket, your primary objective at this place is to have a good time. It rules.

No-nonsense.

Instead of Maria Menounos and Fathom Event trailers, Alamo plays a reel of clips tailored to your movie’s themes before the show starts. For Arrival, a movie about space and love, they played clips from Contact and Abbott and Costello Go to Mars. This is a sweet treat on its own, but at the end of that reel is when I get really horny. The theater also plays an informational message for all of the customers, and in that message they really let you have it re: your phone and voice. “There is no reason for your phone to make a sound ever,” the video purports, a claim I have been making separately for years. “Please be normal and have a fun time, or else we’ll kick you out.” I’m paraphrasing, but you get the point. Punishment dad. It’s important to them that you remember we’re all here to watch a movie.

Go, if you get the chance, is what I’m saying. It will feel like you are someplace where rules still matter and systems still work. If I think about this any longer I’ll probably realize how bleak it is, but for the time being I am very soothed by capitalism’s magnanimous embrace. That and storytelling. And American casual cuisine.

You have to make ALL the cookies.

Did you know, when you are The Mom, YOU have to make the cookies? ALL of them?

Did you know, when you are The Mom, no one else will fill your stocking for you, so if you want a stuffed stocking you have to fill it yourself and then pretend to be surprised by what you find in it? Like, even if all you want is socks, and you don’t mind knowing in advance that it’s going to be socks but might enjoy at least being slightly surprised by what kind of socks? Nope. Sorry. Remember: you are The Mom!

Did you know, when you are The Mom, the pleasure you might take in wrapping presents whimsically or with some small attention to beauty has a high statistical probability of turning into a sort of grim duty?

Did you know that when you are The Mom, lots of people “help” you chop the things and do the errands, but also, when it really comes down to it, you’re totally alone up there in the command center of your brain, which is basically always functioning at like Scarlett-Johansson-in-Lucy levels, complicated scheduling and prioritizing algorithms and diagrams scrolling quickly upward behind your eyes at all times?

Did you know that when you are The Mom, no one buys you a special new pair of Christmas jammies?

Did you know, when you are The Mom, you have to be the traditions that only truly bear fruit for your family after years of repetition, and that if you don’t insist on the traditions, the rest of your family will be like “eh, whatever, we can eat whatever for dinner” or “we’ll just have a bowl of cereal while opening the presents” not realizing that THAT WAY DARKNESS LIES? And that also, the point of your labors over these traditions is to erase yourself? To concoct the fantasy that the special delicacies are the tradition — warm, scented memories of that one particular cake that always appears — when really it is you who is the tradition (except you are not allowed to point that out unless you want to make everyone hate you more than they already hate/love you for being The Mom)?

Did you know that when you are The Dad, you do have to deal with the wrapping paper? But that’s sort of it?

Did you know that the heteronormative nuclear family is really kind of a disastrous organizing principle?

Did you know that when you are The Mom, it suddenly becomes clear that the Christmases you grew up reading about in Little Women or Little House on the Prairie or Little Whatever are complete lies? Nobody ever actually sacrifices anything of their own to get the Marmee something!

Did you know that when you are The Mom, if you’re lucky, a day will come where you won’t be in charge of everything at the holidays, and you’ll wake up in the morning with little to do except go show up somewhere else, and you’ll hear the clocks ticking in the quiet and feel rested and lonely, and that these will be two feelings you no longer, really, know how to feel?

Holiday Dread is The Awl’s series dedicated to the season of joy and other emotions. Previously:

Holiday Dread: Introspection

The Adventures of Liana Finck

Liana Finck is a New Yorker cartoonist. She is on Instagram.

You never know what you’ll be thankful for.

I didn’t ever think I’d get to a point in my life where I felt, “If I can just make it to Thanksgiving at least things will be okay for a little bit,” but then again there was a lot that I didn’t think I’d live long to feel and here we are.

Anyway, here’s music. Enjoy.

★★★★ Enough leaves were gone that it was possible to read the time and the temperature—not late to school, and edging out of the 40s already—off the top of the bank building five blocks away. The bright and mellow haze seemed unsuited for the last half of November. The sky seemed featureless but changed from blue to white to something near lemon at the bottom, the colors deepening smoothly and slowly through the afternoon, on their way to eventually becoming a sunset. The river glittered under a flaring sun.

Current Mood, In Pictures

Andy Friedman is an artist, musician, illustrator, cartoonist, and writer. His work has appeared in New York, The New York Times, Esquire, Playboy, and The Paris Review, among others. He is currently working on a book of essays and drawings. Follow him on Instagram @sundayfriedman.

Holiday Dread is The Awl’s series dedicated to the season of joy and other emotions. Previously:

Holiday Dread: Making Thanksgiving Dinner

Growing up and culling the guest list.

For the past five years or so, my sisters and I have thrown together an ostensibly pleasant and joyous Thanksgiving dinner for friends, hosted out of my very small apartment. The bulk of the cooking would fall on us. As control freaks with little interest in seeing how someone else interprets mashed potatoes, in the early years we found it preferable to just do it all ourselves and have guests bring enough alcohol, appetizers and desserts so that we would never be required to set foot in a liquor store or the baking aisle of the grocery store, staring bleary-eyed at rows of pumpkin pie filling considering escape routes.

The thrill of cooking a big meal like Thanksgiving is exhilarating at first, like a Buzzfeed post about performative adulthood come to life. Look at me, I’m brining a turkey, you think while using the decorative mortar and pestle you pulled off the TV stand to crush fennel seeds for the dry brine. Yay, I own a roasting rack now, you muse as you wrestle it into the oven. Cooking for other people is a special thing, a lovely physical manifestation of your love or care. But it’s only rewarding if you do it for people that you love.

The guest list for Thanksgiving every year was a mix of friends old and occasionally very new. The first few years, cooking for my sisters, some people I knew well and near-strangers was fine. Everyone was appreciative and kind and ate the food and smiled even if the turkey was dry. I’m not sure what precipitated my sudden change of heart, but when I realized that Thanksgiving was imminent, instead of joyfully marking dog-earing pages in Bon Appétit and circulating an oven schedule, I felt something akin to dread — a low-simmering irritation at the thought of a scrum of people in my house, eating food, and then staying there past my traditional Thanksgiving bedtime of 9pm on the dot. This year, I put my foot down.

“I don’t want to cook Thanksgiving dinner for a shitload of strangers,” I told my sisters. “It has to be just us.”

The move towards a family-only Thanksgiving isn’t because I’m clamoring for more family time — my sisters and I live in the same city and any casual observer of our relationship would surmise that we are obsessed with each other. It’s just that what was once a event that I actually enjoyed had turned into a nightmare that caused resentment to bloom deep in my chest earlier and earlier every year.

As my mother’s daughter, I revel in the showmanship of making a big meal — plunking the turkey on the counter; carving it fussily and improperly with a glass of wine at my elbow, then eating my meal standing up in the kitchen with an eye on the gravy. This runs in my blood; I don’t know any other way to be. Half of it is an act, of course — I’m not really that put out. Last year, I crawled into bed and shut the door on a group of people drinking wine and banging repeatedly on a card table, the noise of which I thought was a dream but was actually two of the aforementioned friends of friends cutting lines of coke in my living room.

Thanksgiving is a holiday for eating more food than is necessary, watching the dog parade on TV and sleeping until at 10am the next day. It’s the best holiday in the world. This year, it will be small. My sisters and I will make some sides, roast a chicken, and drink wine in my dining room. Someone will fight with someone else, over something petty and insignificant, but we’ll recover quickly. Later, we’ll Uber to a friend’s house for dessert. I will go to sleep in silence. It will be fine — nice, even!

Holiday Dread is The Awl’s series dedicated to the season of joy and other emotions. Previously:

Holiday Dread: Being A One-Plater