December 23, 2025
Tuesday

I was going to follow up my love-laden wishes from yesterday with its apparent antithesis, the Airing of Grievances as prescribed for this day by Festivus, the festival for the rest of us. You probably know, without going to the link, what Festivus is, described by some as a parody, a form of secular antipathy to commercialized traditions that pervert the concept of the birth of Christ into a marketing tool, or even (brace yourself), a form of idiosyncratic ritual with social significance.

And oh my friends and oh my foes, are there grievances a-plenty this year! But I’m not about to go making a list and publishing it, because I found myself this afternoon, in a hair salon where there were at least twenty people waiting or checking out and the country music station was too loud and people were exclaiming over a 99-year-old woman with a black helmet of hair freshly colored and curled who was on her way next to the nail place next door, and they probably thought they were complimenting her but they weren’t they were infantilizing her and . . . see?

When I opened this device and began my setup for the typing and the distributing, my eye was caught by the random stories and whatnot that Google thinks I want to know something about. One of them was about Thorlak Thorhallsson, the patron saint of Iceland, who died (it is said) on this day in 1193. The name made me smile (I could style myself as Maggy Ludvigsdotter), and the list of his attributes is in line with the typical hagiography I grew up with in the immigrant Catholic culture of the 1950s. He rose from a family of impoverished farmers to become a priest at 18, then a bishop, then the founder of an Augustinian monastery, the same rule that the present Pope, Leo XIV, follows. He is regarded as the patron saint of Iceland, the Catholics of Scandinavia, fishermen, and autistic people.

So, henceforth, I will not be observing Festivus anymore. Instead, I will honor St. Thorlak Thorhallsson, and observe Tollaksmessa, the last day of preparation before Christmas. Go have some plokkfiscur (cod and haddock mashed with potatoes) or maybe some klenät (angel wings).