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Perfect little hand
A bubble of love surrounds
Baby brings such joy
Haiku: Babylove
Peter Pan Syndrome
Below is a ChatGPT description of “Peter Pan Syndrome.”
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Peter Pan Syndrome refers to individuals who struggle with accepting adult responsibilities, often exhibiting emotional immaturity. While it’s not an official psychological diagnosis, the concept identifies key behavioral traits. The six main signs often associated with Peter Pan Syndrome are:
1. Avoidance of Responsibility
Difficulty committing to long-term goals, careers, or relationships, and a tendency to avoid adult obligations such as financial independence or household management.
2. Emotional Immaturity
Difficulty handling criticism, conflict, or stress, often reacting in a childlike or overly defensive manner.
3. Fear of Commitment
Reluctance to commit to relationships, work, or life plans, often prioritizing short-term pleasure over stability.
4. Dependency
Relying heavily on parents, partners, or others for financial or emotional support instead of fostering independence.
5. Escapism
Seeking constant distraction or entertainment, such as video games, social media, or partying, to avoid facing responsibilities.
6. Narcissistic Tendencies
A self-centered outlook, prioritizing personal desires over the needs of others, with difficulty showing empathy or maintaining healthy relationships.
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And parents: don’t raise a Peter Pan. It can (and most likely will) damage your relationship with your other children.
Haiku: January 6th
New Year’s feelings
This New Year’s is getting me down. I had so hoped that 2025, the year I turn 60, would be the year we’d finally stop seeing his ridiculous orange face and hearing his racist, lying voice forever. I had thought if we could just get through the November election, he’d fade from our consciousness. I worked hard to try to make that happen.
Instead, the shitshow continues. All the anger, fear and bitterness of the past nine years is back. I’m suspicious of old friends who seem to blame all their problems on immigrants. I’m worried that racism or god forbid—gun violence—is going to affect my family. I’m so sad for the planet. I’m scared that our new leaders are truly just self-dealers.
I used to want to try to make the world a better place for all our children and grandchildren. Now I just want to try to protect my own children and grandchild in whatever way I can.
All the expansive positivity, American pride, and hopefulness for all women I felt watching Kamala Harris accept her nomination for president is gone.
I am taking solace in the unparalleled personal, private, internal joy of becoming a grandmother. Maybe my love for this one child will save me.
Consider the source
These days everyone is encouraged to “look at the source” of information they take in. “Don’t believe everything you hear” is a common refrain.
Well, my husband and I have the same policy with TV and movies. Certain people are in the “respected recommender” category. If Alissa or Ann or Gina tell us we should watch something because we’ll love it, we listen. I even jot it down for future reference.
Other people are in “the grain of salt” category. We’ll listen to their recommendations, but we have to consider the source. They might be someone we like very much personally, but we just don’t share their taste in TV and movies.
Some people who were once under consideration to be respected recommenders have recently been categorized “grain of salt” based on highly touting a pretty stupid show on Netflix. (I’m not going to say the name of the show, because many are finding it delightful.)
Now that Boston Globe TV critic Matthew Gilbert retired, I feel a little lost sometimes. If you’re the kind of person that eagerly awaited each new episode of Succession and is sad that both What We do in The Shadows and Somebody Somewhere just ended forever, then I’m listening.
We’re already aware and are excited for new seasons of Severance and White Lotus starting soon. And I went ahead and bought tickets to see A Complete Unknown on New Year’s Eve, because even though it’s getting mixed reviews, Bob Dylan is Bob Dylan. And I like to see all the big rock biopics on a big screen, with that big Hollywood sound.
You feel me?
Haiku: Difficult relationships
Polite and formal
To avoid full estrangement
Might be the best path
My 80s friend
At Christmas dinner yesterday, my father told me he had run into my old friend Debbie at the fish market. They recognized each other and exchanged some quick pleasantries.
Debbie and I were neighborhood friends who ended up becoming close friends for many years. She knew my parents well and I knew her family too. Her dad was a great guy. We took several trips to California and Florida in our late teens and twenties. We did a fair number of edgy things together including lots of underage drinking, shoplifting, dine-n-dashing, and at least one crazy 80s Spring Break trip to Fort Lauderdale. (Wet t-shirt contest anyone?) Debbie was 18 months older than me (a year ahead of me in high school) and liked to party and dance. I’m sure my first nightclub experience was with her. Even though she was a true redhead, she loved the sun like I did and we went to the beach as often as possible. We went skiing a few times too and once spun out in my mother’s car driving in a snowstorm. We did a 180 and hit the guardrail. (Debbie was driving at the time and we were fine.) In fact, we wanted to carry on with our ski trip with one headlight dangling, but when we called my parents from a gas station, they made us come home.
Debbie and I stayed friends for many years through a variety of life experiences including her being severely burned in a freak accident. (I remember visiting her in Shriner’s Burn Center where I saw the most horrifically scarred young children.) We knew each other’s deepest, darkest secrets. We attended each other’s weddings and then drifted apart as we became mothers and got busy raising kids. Still, we sent Christmas cards and occasionally saw each other in person.
Then, at some point during the second Obama administration her right-leaning political posts on Facebook caused a tiff between us. We unfriended each other and that was that. Some years later, I felt badly about it, but figured she had probably morphed into a Trump supporter, so what would be the purpose of reaching out. We were too different by then.
You know that expression about some friends being for a reason, some for a season, and some for a lifetime? Well, at one point I might’ve thought we’d be friends for a lifetime, but it turns out we were friends for a season. And our season was the 1980s. Big time.
If I had to pick one song that tends to trigger a Debbie memory, it would be Kool & the Gang’s Celebration. I picture us dancing around in front of a mirror, sipping some alcohol, while we made our hair as big & fluffy as possible for whatever came next.
A Milestone Christmas
This year is a milestone Christmas for us—our first one as grandparents.
We know our sweet little baby granddaughter won’t remember this Christmas, but we hope to have many more where we’ll make memories she can remember.
Christmas already feels so exciting again just having this perfect little girl in the world.
Merry Christmas 🎄
XOXO
Mary
Candy cookies
I’m not sure when cookies with pieces of candy in them were invented, but I feel like they got very popular when I was a kid in the 70s. In fact, I’m just going to go ahead and claim them for GenX. We may not have invented candy cookies, but we sure made them very popular.
I fondly remember my first “hidden treasure” cookie—a powdered sugar-covered cookie ball with a Hershey’s Kiss in the center. My mom made those every Christmas. And remember those first M&M cookies? Those were my second favorite type of Mrs. Fields cookies to get warm at the mall.
As every American who has ever trick-or-treated knows, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are the best mass-produced candy in the US, which of course leads to numerous recipes which incorporate them.
These Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Cookies (recipe from Sally’sBakingAddiction.com) are perfect because you sink the candies into the hot cookies and then put them in the freezer for about 10 minutes to prevent too much of the chocolate melting. This results in the perfect integration of candy and cookie. The cookie dough itself has peanut butter in it and is rolled in granulated sugar before baking. It elevates the already perfect peanut butter cup to a whole new level.
This batch of cookies officially concludes my 2024 Christmas Baking Extravaganza, which may or may not have been partially motivated by election-related escapism. I hope you’ve enjoyed it!
Related posts:
Elfie
I was recently complaining that I’m no longer able to answer the WordPress “Daily Prompt” because I’ve completed a full year of them and apparently, that’s all you get! Several smart people (including my daughter) said why don’t you just write your own prompts. Good idea.
Even easier, why don’t I choose one of the many daily prompts readily available to me through the Apple iPhone Journal feature, in which I’ve been dutifully logging my yoga workouts, manicures, and doctors appointments for almost a full year.
This is Elfie.
He was given to me in the mid 1960s by a babysitter. I was a tiny toddler at the time and apparently I really loved Elfie. He’s not only cute, but he has a gentle bell in his tummy that makes a pleasant kerplunkety sound when you rock him. My parents made sure he never got lost and eventually passed him on to me when I was settled in my first home.
Each year, I take him out of the attic, where he lives with my other Christmas decorations, and sit him on the piano. Don’t you just love his little red nose and skinny legs?
At this point, I think I cherish him because he’s SO old. He’s old enough now to move to a 55+ living community. Maybe I’ll bring him with me if I ever move to one of those places. Also, Elfie reminds me of the pure magic of Christmas I felt as a little child…that gasp of delight when I descended the stairs on Christmas morning.
50 Happens 