happy holidays – The Tragic Queen

“Bah humbug”

–A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Usually when it’s beginning to look like Christmas, this fact brings joy. Instead, once you’re an adult– and you’re no longer waiting up at night to try and get a peek at Santa– Christmas becomes more about your dwindling bank account and the family members you still haven’t bought any gifts for.

Cats break beloved Christmas tree ornaments. Every song on the radio is either a Christmas carol from the fifties that you’ve heard a thousand times before with dated lyrics like “take a look in the five and ten” and “children will listen” or a modern pop monstrosity that is basically Silent Night with a beat behind it.

The instinct to just get through the season takes over.

The moment that it’s time to buy something for my family members, they suddenly become humble beggars who couldn’t possibly ask for anything, giving me no clue as to what I should buy them for Christmas.

In the days leading up to Christmas, I want to be cocooned in a warm house, tripping over presents in my living room and drinking out of a highball.

Instead I find myself rushing to finish work before the year ends, putting together last minute holiday cards, sniffling through a head cold, ugly crying at It’s A Wonderful Life and The Family Stone, and then wondering how I’ll ever pay down my credit card once the holidays end. I’m like a woman in a Hallmark film who needs to be taught “the reason for the season” by a guy in a flannel shirt in my hometown.

Then Christmas day comes and the whole thing is like a pregnancy: you forget about all of the agony that came with bringing it to fruition and the whole thing suddenly is a beautiful, life-affirming experience you would do all over again.

For me, it’s not Christmas until Linus explains the true meaning of Christmas to me. There’s nothing like a kids Christmas special that tackles seasonal depression and commercialism, like the Charlie Brown Christmas Special does. Even if you don’t think that that is the true meaning of Christmas, I always love at the end when Linus says “peace, goodwill towards men.”

*Happy holidays to this queen who insisted on getting in my selfie*

In all seriousness though, I love Christmas time and I love my family, who always make it special. I sat on my couch on Christmas morning, hemmed in by a bunch of really great gifts, because I am not a humble beggar who has any problem asking for what she wants.

So happy holidays. I hope you have peace, and goodwill towards men (and women and those outside the binary).

The Tragic Queen,

Raquel

P.S.: Check out how I kicked off the holiday season, when I went to go and see my first ever burlesque show.

Singular Royal Portrait

/rɔɪəl pɔːʳtreɪt/ Noun.

A representation of a member of a royal family
A photo shoot I do every year with a friend in order to get a smokin’ hot photo of myself for my blog and holiday card

It was that time of year again, where I take an obnoxious amount of photos of myself for my blog and holiday card and post them for the world to see.

Now, you may have noticed that it is mid-April, but we are just going to ignore that and just enjoy the pictures that I did put on my holiday card, because sometimes, it is hard to get around to posting your royal portrait photos.

Padgett came over for my “royal portrait” photoshoot, bringing with her a special light and her phone. What I wanted this year was to take a picture with my cat– something I assumed wouldn’t be a lofty goal.

I leaned in to take a picture with her. Suspicious of my intentions, she gave chase.

It took us an embarrassingly long amount of time to catch her, which we eventually did by cornering her in my bedroom. The only thing missing was the Benny Hill theme song.

What I was going for:

What I got after cornering my cat:

After still failing to get a decent picture, Calypso darted out of my room. My cat may never forgive me for trying to get a picture with her, despite rescuing her from a 17 cat litter in what I’m pretty sure was a trailer park.

*A photo of us when she still trusted me*

Otherwise, the shoot was lovely. My face was not behaving, but that’s nothing that a little alcohol couldn’t fix. I’m sure that that’s how the real models do it, anyway.

I changed clothes, I played music, and in the end I got some great pictures, with or without my cat’s cooperation.

Shoutout to Padgett for sacrificing life and limb to lean over my bannister to get a picture of me lying on the floor.

BTS

For the original shoot, I wanted the cover to say Happy Holidays, with a nice respectable photo of myself, and then the back to be a messy jumble to prove why we truly needed to be wished luck in the new year.