Welcome 2012.

So. New Year’s. That time when everyone makes huge resolutions about spending the year building world peace, inventing cures for cancer, and losing huge amounts of weight. This time for sure!

Yeah, right.

Me? I still make some resolutions… small ones. Goals I can actually reach if I put in a bit of effort. I make resolutions about finding ways to be slightly better organized, kinder to other people, and more thoughtful about how I spend some of my time. And while I make a couple for January first, I don’t necessarily make all my resolutions then, either.

There’s an art to making resolutions that stick. You have to choose things you’re actually ready to do, make them big enough to challenge you in some way, but not so huge that you’re doomed from the outset, and you have to recognize that even if you don’t succeed at all of them, that doesn’t mean you’re an utter failure. Oh, and it helps a lot to keep the list fairly short.

Me? I’m vowing to be a better, more active FA activist this year. I’m going to keep right on being visible and fat. And while I firmly believe that others have every right to do as they please with their bodies – including dieting for weight loss and having bariatric surgery – I do not believe that this right requires me to agree with their decisions or actively support actions I believe to be more harmful than otherwise. I will continue to wear my scarlet Fat proudly, eat what I darn well please in public, talk loudly about human rights, and wear my new bright orange coat with great elan. Anyone who has a problem with that? Is cordially invited to eat a great big bowl of Mind Your Own Business Flakes.

I’m resolved to re-organize my kitchen this year. I haven’t done it since we moved in in 2001 and things have gotten a bit cockeyed, what with getting more kitchen stuff and just kind of jamming it in where I found a dab of space. Now there are cupboards that are unholy vortexes and I fear I will be sucked in. It’s time to pull everything out and put it all back together in a way that makes more sense… and maybe even get rid of a couple things that aren’t worth keeping.

Yeah, those are pretty much the resolutions I’ve made for this year. More will probably pop up along the way, but those are my big goals.

How about you? Anyone out there in Big Girl Land got a good one to share with the class? Do you have a secret for keeping resolutions?

Always remember: life is too short for cheap champagne, and never eat caviar with a metal spoon!

May your holiday be as fabulous as Harvey in his seasonal drag!

Me? I’m finishing up some last-minute baking and watching Christmas movies. There are a lot of great films based on a Christmas theme. You know, like It’s a Wonderful Life:

Treacly? Yes, yes it is. But then Capra’s genius lay not in his subtlety, but in his optimism.

And then there are the not-so-greats, like Santa Claus vs the Martians:

Unforgettably craptastic.

But some of my favorite Christmas films aren’t really recognized as being holiday-centric. And a couple of my other faves… well, the theme is undeniable but they don’t make for the most traditionally heartwarming viewing.

Want to know my top five fave Christmas movies? Read on after the cut… and remember that neither of the above films is on that list.

Bad Santa. It’s rude, it’s crude, it’s full of utterly despicable characters… and yet I adore it. Billy Bob Thornton is brilliant as the slow-witted conman whose annual big con is to play a department store Santa and rob the store on Christmas Eve. Tony Cox is the elf who plans it all and does his level best to keep Thornton sober enough to keep his job. The late, great Bernie Mac turns in a gloriously wicked performance as the crooked department store security man, the late lamented John Ritter is howlingly funny as the HR guy so full of white guilt he can’t even fire a drunken Santa and his abusive elf, and the very much still with us Lauren Graham is gut wrenchingly funny as the woman with a very kinky Santa fixation. This one is not for the kiddies and it won’t give you sugarplum dreams, but it’s the perfect antidote for too much seasonal saccharine.

A Christmas Carol. Specifically, the 1984 one with George C. Scott as Scrooge. As good as various other Scrooges have been over the years, Scott is the only one I feel makes him an entirely human character. This is also the one production I can think of where Tiny Tim really looks sick, rather than just using a crutch. This boy (Anthony Walters) looks like you could knock him down with a feather. Add in terrific supporting performances by: David Warner, Roger Rees, Angela Pleasance, Frank Finlay, Susannah York, and Edward Woodward (whose turn as the Ghost of Christmas Present is clearly the deranged bastard son of Michael Caine and Richard Harris) and suddenly Dicken’s tale of redemption becomes far more plausible and touching.

The Lion in Winter. See? I told you there would be something most people wouldn’t think of as a Christmas movie. And yet the whole story takes place over Christmas. Peter O’Toole and Katharine Hepburn lead an amazing cast in this tale of treachery, in-fighting, and family holidays. It also contains my mother’s favorite line from any film ever. The first person to guess what that might be wins a gold star and my unending admiration.

The Nightmare Before Christmas. It’s not just for Halloween anymore. From the Kurt Weill-inspired music to the exquisite claymation to the wonderful vocal performances, this is hard to beat.

So those are some of my favorite films for this time of year. What about you? What do you love? What do you wish would never be shown again? And what is my mother’s favorite line ever in any film?

You tell me.

I love that there are so many holidays at this time of year. Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan, Solstice… and probably some more that I just don’t know about, too.

Me? I celebrate an entirely secular Christmas. I call it Christmas because that’s what I grew up calling it, and because it’s easier to just call it Christmas than entirely buck the tide, and every twice in a while it really isn’t worth it to me to buck the tide quite so hard. It’s secular because, well, my personal philosophy of the world doesn’t happen to include a godhead. That’s me. I don’t ask anyone else to stop believing what they believe, and I completely respect the religious beliefs of others. I just don’t happen to share them.

And yet the thing that makes it the holidays for me each year is the day after Thanksgiving when I pull out my Christmas music and put The Clancy Brothers’ Christmas album on. Their boisterous rendition of Jingle Bells in Gaelic gets the holiday ball rolling for me in a way that nothing else quite can. The combination of raucous celebration and almost-but-not-quite maudlin reflection on the birth of Jesus grounds me, despite my lack of religious faith.

Why? Because of the way it makes me think of Christmas when I was growing up. That album was central to my family’s Christmas from the day it came into our home, shortly after its release. When I play it, I smell the Douglas fir trees of my childhood, and I can hear my father in the kitchen baking cookies. I can see my mother patiently creating new decorations for the house to go with the theme she’d picked for the party that year. I feel the anticipation of all those lovely packages under the tree. I feel warm, cosy, and entirely protected.

Christmas is different for me now. Oh, there’s still a Douglas fir tree, and it bears many of the old family ornaments. But the cookie factory is no more, and the tree is usually pretty much what I do for decorations. Mr. Twistie is uncomfortable with being given much, so his presents usually go under the tree on Christmas Eve, and he puts off opening them as long as possible.

But I still have The Clancy Brothers and their cheery outro of:

Bottles of whiskey and bottles of beer

We wish you all a happy new year!

So I find myself wondering, what holiday do you celebrate at this time of year, and what gets you in the holiday spirit?

And whatever holiday you celebrate at this time of year, I wish you one filled with happiness, prosperity, and good health.

When I was a kid, my brother and I made the yuletide bright mostly by waiting in an agreed-upon supermarket parking lot halfway between our parents respective evil lairs and being caught in the traditional children-of-bitter-divorce crossfire. Then later there would be cookies.

No one asked what we wanted for Christmas and as an adult, Christmas presents were firmly tucked into the For The Children nook of holiday cheer.

This year is different, and I discovered this year is different because Hot Latin Boy –who is a total curve-ruining overachiever– casually mentioned about all the millions of manhours he’s putting into my present, which I’m 99% positive is a “secret garden” full of my favorite plants and flowers from Texas and Virginia so I don’t feel homesick at Villa Plumcake.

That’s great and all, but it doesn’t exactly cast a golden luster on my gift to him, a white ceramic pineapple (a nod to an inside joke) that I’m not even going to giftwrap, lest it alert the border patrol.

It DID get me thinking what grand gift I really would like though, and for the first time in years, I’ve actually got one in mind.

Of course there’s the old standby:

(That, my friends, is the making of one FILTHY Venn Diagram)

but in the off chance Gaspar, Balthazar and Melchior DON’T manage to bring me Zizou, Xabi and Mou (I’m still going to wax, just in case) what I want more than anything in the whole wide world is a plaza-worn Traje de Luces.

Say what you will about bullfighting –despite Villa Plumcake being tantalizingly close to the Plaza Monumental, I’ve never brought myself to see a corrida the highly-embellished “suit of lights” is the pinnacle of beauty in a male couture garment.

(*snerk*)

And of course the bodies in them aren’t terrible either.

It occurs to me my burning desire for a traje marks a departure from buying clothes and accessories to collecting them. A traje is a standalone work of art and I would display it as such.

Of course I have a lot of my shoes, scarves and jewelry on display, but I also wear them. I’d never wear a traje.

Understandably, trajes are thousands of dollars new, and used ones fetch even higher prices if worn in the ring by a famous torero like Manolete, the James Dean of bullfighting.

I still don’t know if I’ll ever see a correo (I’ve heard they have no-kill ones, and I’d jump at the chance for that) or whether I’ll just stick with my Hemingway and Almodovar, but I’ve been pretty damn good this year and I sure would like to find a traje under my tree…you know, if Zizou and the boys don’t fit.

If you work in an office setting, chances are the annual holiday bash is rapidly approaching. It’s a time to let your hair down, relax a bit with the people you spend more time with than your family, and see whether the big bosses can take the legendarily lethal punch the folks in accounts receivable make.

If you don’t work in an office setting, chances are you still have at least one good friend or family member who considers the winter holiday season a darn good excuse to throw a big bash. It’s a time to catch up with those people you only see at these parties, nibble from the annual cheese ball, and see who succumbs to the lethal punch the host makes.

I well remember my parents’ annual Christmas do. The decorations, the careful choosing of which music to play in what order, the platters of fabulous food… and my fathers’ lethal eggnog which I swear could induce alcohol poisoning from six feet away.

I’ve been to a lot of parties for a lot of holidays over the years, and the one thing that seems absolutely guaranteed at each of them is seriously free-flowing liquor. Either there’s a single punch that will begin impairing your ability to pass a sobriety test before you even begin to drink it, or there’s a bewildering variety  of adult beverages and a genial host urging you to try a bit of everything.

How to get through the season with your driving record clean and your social network intact? Thinking just a bit beforehand can be just the ticket to keep you from disaster.

Know your limits. The simple fact is that we all have different limits. What yours is will depend on a number of factors, including: your weight, your history with alcohol, your individual metabolism, how much you eat… a lot of things. Pay attention to how you feel when you drink. For some of us one beer will be enough to make getting behind the wheel of a car a risky proposition, while another might still be okay after a lot more… provided the other circumstances are right, too. Don’t try to prove you’re less of a lightweight than you actually are.

Never drink on an empty stomach. And if you’re going to drink more, don’t stop eating. No, this is not advising everyone to gorge themselves all night long. But it’s a well-documented fact that liquor hits a lot harder on a system that has nothing else to chew on, as it were. Food helps slightly mitigate the effects of alcohol, so have a couple nibbles before you have a cocktail. And then eat again shortly.

Don’t mix your drinks. That’s not to say never have a mixed drink, of course. Just if you start with wine, don’t move on to hard liquor. And if you start with martinis, don’t switch to a different cocktail. Sticking to one drink makes it a little easier to discern when you’ve had enough, and when having more is a bad idea. The one exception to this rule is that it’s okay to mix it up a bit with something non-alcoholic. There’s no shame in club soda.

Have a designated driver. This is a great idea. As long as there’s more than one person in the car, have one of them stick to the apple cider and club soda end of the scale, so everyone knows there’s someone safe to drive. Just remember that if you use the fact you’re not driving as an excuse to get blotto in public, you’d better be prepared to be the cautionary tale until someone else embarrasses themselves worse at another party. The guy who came to our family Christmas party when I was fourteen, had too much of Dad’s eggnog and started eating the styrofoam popcorn strings? Yeah, we still remember him, even though he never came to another one of our parties. People who were there still shake their heads.

If you see someone about to leave who has clearly had too much to drink, get the car keys away from them. You don’t want the accident they get into on your conscience, do you? Drunk driving causes too many deaths every year. And if it was your party, in some areas you can be held legally responsible if someone leaves tanked and gets into an accident.

There are a lot of great reasons to celebrate this time of year. And everyone should have a great time celebrating. Just remember not to be the one suffering the repercussions of poor judgment with booze. Besides, isn’t it better to be the one who kept a level enough head to know where all the bodies are buried?

Why yes, yes it is.

Ah, the winter holiday season! There’s a crisp snap in the air, homes are filled with the aromas of peppermint and ginger, the malls are potentially lethal, a very few people recall that there are holidays other than Christmas being celebrated, and the world is awash in body shame.

I can’t turn on my computer or television without being assaulted by messages that I’m going to gain gigantic amounts of weight this winter if I don’t stop being so greedy at the same table I’m supposed to fill with homemade goodies until the legs give out. Every ladymag in the universe has a picture of the perfect pie, cake, or souffle I’m supposed to make, alongside a reminder that gaining a single ounce from eating it means I will die well before my time, alone and unmourned as Scrooge in the vision shown him of his potential future. Every year some fanatic out there starts a campaign to make Santa skinny so that he can use his role model status to shame those who carry more meat on their bones.

But you know what? We can opt out of the insanity. We can spend this special time of year failing to hate ourselves. We don’t need to create the false dichotomy of too much food  that we are not allowed to eat. You know what we can do?

We can take care of ourselves.

First off, those extra holiday pounds everyone warns us about? Are a natural function of being mammalian. During the cold months, most mammals put on some extra weight as insulation against – wait for it – the cold! You know? That snow outside? The biting winds? The heavy rains? Yeah, that cold. Fur-bearing mammals also add more fur. That’s why cats and dogs and horses and so on look shaggier in the coldest couple months of the year. So don’t panic if you suddenly weigh five or ten pounds more in January than you did in September. You’ll probably shed it again in a couple months when the weather warms up. It’s part of the ebb and flow of nature.

Remember that even when you’re fat, you still need to eat. Yes, even if you weigh eight hundred pounds, if you don’t eat, you will starve, and starvation leads inevitably to death. In fact, it’s a much more reliable predictor than how many pounds you happen to weigh. So do eat regularly, and let yourself eat until your hunger is sated. Then eat again when you’re hungry again.

Just because the food is on the table doesn’t obligate you to be the one to eat it. Look, there will be a lot of good food set out at this time of year, and the temptation on the part of a lot of people is to assume the fat people will take care of any leftovers. It’s not your job. Once you’re not hungry, it’s okay to stop eating. If you would like to take more for later, that’s okay. If you don’t want it, that’s okay, too. If there’s food left over, there’s food left over.

Find ways to tune out the body shame. I don’t know about you, but I’m in love with my DVR. It allows me to watch my favorite shows and zap through the commercials so that I don’t have to see so many diet ads, and promos for shows devoted to telling me my body is disgusting. I don’t buy ladymags. I don’t own copies of any film that someone wore a fat suit in for comic purpose. In fact, I don’t think I own a film that uses a fat suit at all. I do, however, have a book with paintings by Rubens in it. After all, there’s a reason people talk about ‘Rubenesque’ women.

Avoiding shame is great, but finding support is even more vital. Seek out people who are more interested in who you are than what your weight is. Find a community that accepts you precisely as you are this moment. Bask in the love. It’s good for you.

Keep moving, and get your Vitamin D. It’s easy for those inclined that way to fall prey to depression during the darker months. The cold and dark makes getting out for a jog a trickier proposition than it is the rest of the year. The shorter daylight hours mean more of us don’t get out in the sunlight for a good Vitamin D fix. But the fact is that physical movement and Vitamin D do help us maintain our emotional equanimity. So if you can’t get out for your usual walks, at least get up from your desk and do a few stretches. Go dancing one night with friends. Do some wall push ups. Just make sure you do some physical activity every day, that’s appropriate to your physical abilities and fits into your schedule. Oh, and remember: housework or a physically demanding job? Is exercise, too. If you wait tables or fix peoples’ plumbing all day, or spent the day scrubbing your bathroom until it sparkled, relax. You’re getting plenty of exercise on the job! As for the Vitamin D? Drink your milk, if you aren’t lactose intolerant. Take a supplement if you are. It may not be the ideal, but every bit helps. Just keep in mind that it’s possible to overdo even very healthy things, so don’t scarf down half the bottle in one go.

Laugh. It’s a small thing, but laughter really is good for you, both physically and emotionally. It’s a great way to relieve stress, and it tends to make people around you smile. So when the stress is piling up, the traffic is bogged down for miles, every mall in your state is out of the must-have toy that is the only thing in the world your child asked Santa to bring… find the funny. Oh, do let yourself experience the frustration first. After all, I’m not asking you to bottle up your emotions. That’s a recipe for disaster, too. Just once you’ve vented a little, take a moment to find the lighter side of the situation, too. There usually is one.

Help someone else. Look, it’s easy to look around ourselves and think we’ve got it rough. Every time you turn on the television, there’s Martha Stewart showing you that she lives a far more beautiful life than you do. The Kardashians make more money every day for being rich and willing to expose their dirty laundry on basic cable. Someone featured on Yahoo headlines just found a lost masterpiece hiding in their attic worth tens of millions… and you’re looking at that overdue credit card bill and wondering why your life sucks so hard.

But if you think about it a minute, you’re probably not in that bad a place. You’ve got a roof over your head, an internet connection, and probably a few things you don’t actually physically need in order to survive. So share a little. Take a day to volunteer serving dinner in a homeless shelter, go read to someone in a nursing home. Donate a couple sweaters and coats you’re done with to someone who needs them. Ask a neighbor if (s)he needs help hanging Christmas lights or shoveling the driveway. Drop a can of chili in the food drive barrel on your next trip to the grocery store. It’s funny how good it can feel to do something for someone else, even if it’s a very small thing.

If you need help getting through the holidays, ask for it. Look, I can sit here and blithely tell you to avoid toxic situations all I want, but if your job or your family is what’s giving you grief… well, you need more than a breezy blog entry to help you find a way to deal or a way to fix things. If you suffer from clinical depression, ten extra minutes in the sun isn’t going to be enough to balance your moods. If you fear you might do something drastic and irreversible, please don’t wait. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1 (800) 273-TALK. If someone in your family is hurting you, call the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence at 1 (800) 799 – SAFE.

Your well-being is important. You are important. Take good care of you, now and always.

No, that’s not some newly invented consumer holiday, it’s just all rainy outside and my dog is giving me Meaningful Looks whenever I try to encourage him to leave the cozy confines of his crinoline to go outside and do what needs to be done. No, I’m not sure why he sleeps cuddled up on a crinoline. Several months ago he started using one of my old, bizarrely dead wasp-filled (how?! HOW did that happen??) petticoats as a bed. I don’t know why.

Maybe he’s the reincarnated spirit of Christian Dior, maybe he’s just a weird dog. Either way, I’m not getting that crinoline back and I suspect I’m going to find a puddle somewhere.

Speaking of crinolines, the winter party season is well upon us and although I don’t subscribe to the theory that every woman must must MUST have a little black dress, there’s no denying they come in handy especially if you don’t have the dough to drop on several high-end pieces.

Accessories make the dress when you’re talking basic black. Take, for example this Tadashi Shoji asymmetrical cocktail dress.
First of all, I love it because it has SLEEVES and hits just below the knee, which means it’s appropriate for all but the most conservative of occasions.

For a holiday party, I’d pin on something like this fabulous Judith Jack snowflake brooch just where the ruching gathers over the hip and toss on some sparkly earrings.

Then when spring rolls around, replace the brooch with a pastel silk flower –I think we’re past the super-saturation of the early Sex and The City days– and coordinating shoes, maybe even sheer shortie gloves in the spring color of your choice if you’re adventurous, and you’re good to go through May.

Of course, you can go with something that’s already adorned, like this
Kay Unger dress with an oversize asymmetrical collar. The right accessories will take this through Easter too, and if you’re REALLY hippy –more eggplant than pear– this is an answer from heaven to balance out your figure.

It will also work gangbusters if you’re straight up-and-down and tall (short and topheavy, you’re up next). Plus, it’s a slightly more interesting variation on the asymmetrical thing that’s been around and shows no sign of slowing.

I know what you’re thinking. No way this
David Meister draped sequined dress is going to work on a big girl, but you couldn’t, in the words of the dope (in both senses) Kanye West, get much wronger.

I know, I was surprised too.

This is an absolute no-brainer for apples and the topheavy among us. Just toss on a pair of substantial, not spindle-thin, heels to anchor the look and be prepared to devastate. However, it works surprisingly well for the hourglassed too, even if you’ve got a bit –maybe not a TON– more sand in the bottom.

I tried on something similar to this a few seasons ago, not expecting much and I was shocked at how well it worked on my frame. It’s glitzy, it’s young without being reminiscent of mutton incognito, and it’s got just enough Bianca Jagger to keep it capital F fashion without being self-consciously hip.
Of course, if you’re looking for something a little more grown up but still  visually compelling, there’s this Tadashi Shoji cap sleeve number.

I’ll be honest, I debated putting this in because of my well-known hatred of all things cap sleeved. Then I thought about how cute this would look with one of my vibrant silk rebozos, Frida-style:

Or paired with a luscious emerald cashmere cardigan under a skinny little belt for that “Oh, yes, I always look this chic. See, I just popped this little sweater on in case I’d get cold. You mean some people have to TRY to look this fabulous? How interesting!”

And finally, the sleeper hit: David Meister’s 3/4 sleeve asymmetrical dress no sequins, no lace, no ornamentation, just a well-designed black knit dress that will look great on pretty much everyone, all the time.

Honestly, this is the dress I’d be most likely to select for my own closet because I could wear it to a hundred different parties a hundred different ways. It’s the perfect backdrop to not only a set of bangin’ curves, but also those showpiece jewels and traffic-stopping shoes. Bib necklaces, hair ornaments, ridiculously over-the top shoes, gloves, handbags…with the exception of my sneakers and cowboy boots, I’m having a hard time imagining a single accessory that wouldn’t work with this dress.

Nope. Can’t do it.

Stay tuned next week and through the rest of December for more of the Five Great series. Now while you’re off shopping, I’m going to find a puddle.

Or Joan Crawford will cut your giblets out!