I Choose Darkness by Jenny Lawson
A Holiday Essay
Title: I Choose Darkness: A Holiday Essay
Author: Jenny Lawson
Publisher: Amazon Original Stories
Publication Year: 2022
ISBN: 9781662511110
Rating: 5 stars
In trying to keep with the holiday spirit, I chose this essay by the ever hilarious Jenny Lawson as my next review pick. Like me, Lawson isn’t one for a big production of holiday cheer around Thanksgiving and Christmas. For her, the amount of work that goes into having a Hallmark-quality holiday just isn’t equal to the amount of joy she gets out of it. She talks about how during Christmas in the first year of COVID, she wrapped presents simply by shoving them down behind the couch and when it came time to open them, she just started chucking them at recipients’ heads.
Instead, also like me, Lawson prefers Halloween. A more low-maintenance celebration that doesn’t involve dusting off and then hand washing special China or trying to figure out how to properly cook a giant bird that isn’t going to turn out regardless of how you do it. Instead, she prefers the creepy and fun Halloween decorations that are always appropriate and that can be left up year round. She likes the joy of dressing up and getting candy and not having to get individualized gifts for everyone. She describes it as:
"A full-size standing bear leans against my computer as I write this, staring out the window at our neighbors, who think we're maybe dead but definitely insane. The bear was rescued from a bar that closed and is missing an ear, some of its nose, and large patches of fur, but you don't even notice it because you're too distracted by the fact that...it's Ruth Bader Ginsbear holding a gavel in her mangy, wonderful paw. The whole house is a delight. A dark, bizarre, slightly unsettling delight. Just like Halloween." (6)
That pretty much sums up my feelings about it. As far as I’m concerned, the year ends on November 1st and there’s not much left to be excited about until New Year’s (except my birthday, but as that tends to fall on the Solstice, which is the shortest and darkest day of the year, it barely counts because it’s over almost as soon as it starts).
As is usual for Lawson’s writing, the essay, while short, is filled with laugh out loud funny and yet weirdly relatable tales of Christmases and Halloweens past in her small rural Texas town. As this is a standalone essay, it was a very quick read, but still made me feel seen as someone who much prefers Halloween to any of the holidays that come after.
I am hosting Christmas at my house this year, so maybe instead of wrapping the gifts, I’ll try the stuffing them behind the couch technique.