RECOMMENDSDAY!

As winter comes to the coronaworld, I'm trying out different things to keep me busy. One of those things is a weekly post to share things I think are cool/important/fun/interesting, from books to shows to podcasts and other things in between. -M.R.

If you thought I was uninspired last week (because I told you I was), I'm even more so today. A bit part of the problem is that Christmas is looming—Christmas Eve is tomorrow, and I just don't have the energy to fight against that tide and recommend anything that's non-holiday related. At the same time, I just don't have a lot of festive thoughts this year.

I would've liked to take the time to write a whole long post about how Christmas is sad every year, and we fight back the darkness with friends and family and sharing and food, but this year we can't and so people can't be in denial about the sadness of the Christmas season the way they usually are. Unfortunately, I just haven't had the time or inclination to write it, like so many other things. I don't know when I first heard "Fairytale of New York" but whenever it was, I was ready for the its realist take on the holidays, and I've loved it ever since.

I do have a harder and harder time every year with the gay slur in the song, I have to say. The defense of it being "the character" is fair enough as far as it goes, but I just wish it wasn't in there in the first place.

My advice, by the way, is to listen to the song first before you watch the video below. It's hard to divorce the experience from Shane MacGowan's teeth when you watch the video.