Every Year So Different - Cornershop & TRWBADOR
As usual, a relaxed song for Christmas day. This one reminds me of why I love holiday traditions so much:
It’s the same every year, but every year’s so different
It’s a way to get to know yourself, and your treasured people, repeating the same actions with them over and over again, separated by a year’s time.
When Toronto had its first decent snowfall a few weeks ago, a friend texted me to go sledding in Christie Pits. We scrunched onto her wooden toboggan and remembered how, last year, we’d worn masks to the park and hadn’t gone down the hill with anyone but our roommates. I wanted this winter to be more different from the last, but I do appreciate how much has changed.
Last pandemic Christmas was the one we got to call unprecedented. None of us were yet vaccinated. I agonized about whether or not to see my family; I’d only been spending time indoors with my roommates. This Christmas, my family might have been all together, but instead my brother came down with (a very mild case of) Omicron on Tuesday. I drove my mum’s car to his house and piled tupperware on his porch so he and his girlfriend could sort of share in the brunch my mum and her roommates had made. The same, and so different.
I’ve been sending these newsletters since 2015, and they serve as both a joyfully trivial writing exercise and an annual record of how I am both the same and so different. How do you feel connected to your December 2020 self? How do you feel different from them? It’s an uncertain time, going into 2022; we’re guaranteed to bring ourselves into any future we experience, but I’m not sure what else to expect. It’s a little reassuring, knowing I’ll almost certainly be here in your inbox again next December, writing about Christmas songs.
I’ll do it all again next year, every year so different
See you then.
Sending best Christmas wishes,
Tessa