What to do this week(end): Dec. 11-17

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Greetings, gang, and welcome to the weekend! It’s nice to be here with you all — a lovely respite from frantically checking tracking numbers for packages that all feel doomed to arrive on December 26 (related: when it just says “label created” for over a week with no other updates, is it safe to assume the present I bought for a friend is buried under a pile of jackets in the UPS warehouse?) and battling the unfathomable hellscape of the “seasonal” aisle at The Dollar Store looking for wrapping paper. I just made good on my New Year’s resolution from January and finally canceled my Amazon Prime subscription, but I still can’t help but feel a little grossed out by the unvarnished materialism that has become the defining characteristic of this time of year. Do the people in your life need a pair of RBG socks or a blob-shaped candle or a glass tree ornament that looks like a donut? Well, good news, there are like 7,362 stores that would like to sell you said things, as well as many more items that will likely end up in a Goodwill box or, worse, a landfill. 

But let me course-correct here — I certainly don’t want to be a Grinch, and I do understand there is a lot more than corporate profit to focus on, but keeping oneself in the right mindset just feels like it takes a real effort sometimes. I have to consciously remind myself of all the happy moments I’ve had over the past week, like an epic dim sum brunch in Flushing with my favorite people, a night spent in decorating my tiny Christmas tree and baking this cookie which is the apex of cookiedom as far as I’m concerned, a gathering for a friend’s milestone birthday that made it clear how loved she is by so many, and my somewhat perverse delight in reading every word of this spicy takedown of a pretentious and unhinged Michelin-starred restaurant in Italy when it appeared in my Twitter feed yesterday. 

One shift I’ve noticed is that I suddenly want to see ALL the movies: Licorice Pizza, West Side Story, The Power of the Dog, House of Gucci, C’mon C’mon, this Beatles documentary that everyone is going on about — I feel overwhelmed! Help me out friends, which do I need to do first, and what if my attention span has gotten so bad that I get distracted 10 minutes into an episode of Succession? I’m also pretty pumped for the plethora of holiday markets going on this weekend, like this one at Littlefield, or the FAD market, or the Black-owned Brooklyn Market at Weeksville Heritage Center. 

I need to buy some books/cookbooks for the people on my list, so I was thinking about a trip to the Powerhouse Bookstore at Industry City, and I might try to time it so that I can see Rooftop Films’ screening of The Muppet Christmas Carol on this rainy day. Or, I might head down to BAM to see Spike Lee launch his new book this evening, which is one of the events I previewed in our December Culture Calendar earlier this month. If I’m being completely honest though, I’ll probably spend a lot of the weekend cleaning my apartment and baking, maybe listening to the excellent 9/12 podcast while I’m at it. It’s been a lovely companion to my nightly walks around Brooklyn, which give me space in my day to admire the beautiful lights that my industrious neighbors have decorated their spaces with and wish for a better world and improved headlines in 2022. 

Whatever you get up to this weekend, I hope it is as stress-free and light-filled as possible. I’m told that this involves avoiding the Sex and the City reboot at all costs, so please take all necessary precautions and make yourself a Christmas cookie instead.  

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