Musings on...Raves and Faves

My must haves, can’t live withouts, delightful discoveries and add-to-carts, perhaps a gift guide?

Dec 03, 2023

Add to Cart: Samara Joy A Joyful Holiday

I have a former co-worker that I adore so much. She was the undesignated, but official, holiday wrangler. She would make a special dessert for every person’s birthday, just as a gesture. She kept track of our birthdays, she kept a board with updated pictures of our children as they grew for everyone to share. She is one of the most helpful and warmest person I have ever known.

The shift after Thanksgiving her well-worn CD player and her collection of holiday CDs would play during our pre-shift prep. She boasted a full and diverse library from the classics to any new popular artist’s Christmas offering. If we had a favorite to share, she played that as well. She is one of the best people I’ve ever worked with and although it’s been at least 5 years, I always look forward to her Christmas card. She is one of the few people I know that still sends out handwritten holiday cards. She sends them to her family far and wide, by mail. I have NEVER managed to send out a family Christmas card virtual or physical, but I do make an effort to buy a card to send to her, stamp and all.

This year, along with her Christmas card, I’m sending her the holiday CD by Grammy winning artist Samara Joy. Samara came on my radar last year, when her nomination made her a darling of the morning talk shows. This very young jazz singer has the requisite smoky voice and carriage of those much older, but still infused with the infectiousness of youth. A friend of mine shared a post about A Joyful Holiday and I knew exactly the person I could gift it to. This isn’t a gift guide, but I’m just saying…

Must Have: Giftful App

I have a love/hate relationship with Christmas lists. After my mother received the third watch in three years, I was enlisted to make sure my father purchased the gift she actually wanted. Christmas is also her birthday, so there was a little pressure. My mother provided me with all the details and made sure I knew which salesperson to talk with. Always up for a challenge, my father made sure to wait until Christmas Eve to head into the overpacked stores. This memory, along with my time in retail, keeps me from going out on Christmas Eve. If it’s not wrapped and ready by December 24, it’s not happening that year. These missions with my father helped me conquer cajoling, negotiating and how to verbally wrestle with the person that holds the checkbook. The apex of my work was the year I produced an amazing Christmas miracle. As she requested, there was a beautiful full-length fur coat under the tree (no presentism allowed), along with my resignation letter as her personal shopper. I know when to take a bow.

As a mother, I love my children’s Christmas lists. When they were younger, I set up wish lists on Amazon for their grandparents. As they got older, I saved their cute handwritten lists, with their childish misspellings and backwards letters. As they became techies, I kept their digital lists. Of course, I love the nostalgia, but I also want a record of their expensive tastes for future reference. If they try to contest the lavish accommodations I plan on making for my final years, I want proof that I’ve earned it. #bougiekids

As always, my children teach me something new. My daughter sent her Christmas list on the giftful app. Now, I don’t have to search for the items she wants, the product is linked directly to the store or site in one place. If this had existed years ago, I could have just helped my father add to cart and spent Christmas Eve with a nice mug of cocoa instead of walking through overheated malls in a heavy winter coat. So, if you’re the mom that knows everyone’s Chipotle order, but no one can remember what you like, this app will definitely lower the gift error rate. My son actually forgot the rice in my Chipotle bowl his first time out, so I’m not taking any chances with these people.

Watch: Candy Cane Lane

We always need a new holiday film to become a cult classic and I’m putting my money on Eddie Murphy this year. If you are into the local news stories of outlandish Christmas decorations, this is the movie for you. Even if you aren’t (hand raised), this is still the movie for you. Eddie plays a father intent on winning the annual Christmas decorating competition and things get out of hand in a big way. It’s funny, silly and inventive. It checks off all the tropes of holiday movies and mixes it with current pop culture.

Gen X alert loading. I have a long history with Eddie Murphy. I began watching Saturday Night Live when Eddie was a star player. Or, I tried to watch SNL. I still had a bedtime and would always fall asleep, but my father, being an early adapter, had the first VCR (VCR: google it) and I could watch the recording. I watched Beverly Hills Cop with my family at the theater. The premiere night of Eddie Murphy Raw was a date night in high school. When I saw Boomerang, I thought my college degree would put me in corporate environments filled with attractive and well-dressed African-Americans heading departments and running multimillion dollar campaigns. Life wasn’t exactly as the movies portrayed, but Eddie painted a picture of excellence and achievement that my friends and I aspired to as we entered the workforce. So, yeah, I’m an Eddie stan.

The Eddie Murphy skit my mother loved for us to perform.

Besides his obvious talent, I love that Eddie always makes a point of shining a light on new talented performers that are either “black famous” or are ready for a bigger spotlight. Once Eddie Murphy appeared on the Arsenio Hall show and he was asked if he would take a break from movies and go back to stand up. Eddie said he wouldn’t because the ‘cats’ (he always calls people ‘cats’) out there were so good. He made mention of a stand up comedian named Martin Lawrence. I had never heard that name, but within weeks, my college roommate and I rented a VHS (VHS: google it) of Martin Lawrence’s stand-up and watched the beginning of a mega career, but Eddie talked about him first. If you watch many of Eddie’s movies, you will see the beginning of many famous performers and actors.

Once again, in this holiday movie, Eddie always leaves space for 'new to some, but known to others’ performers like D.C. Young Fly. (For Ghosts fans, the amazing Danielle Pinnock steals every scene.) If you pay attention to the soundtrack, it’s filled with the music that the more melanated among us know from our holidays and family gatherings. He uses his star power to seamlessly integrate all cultures within universally hilarious stories. You come for Eddie’s cache and belly laughs, but you leave humming a new, hipper tune and with an inside knowledge of the next breakout stars.

I could probably teach a pop culture class or write a book on the depth of the legacy of Eddie Murphy but, I’ll just leave you this picture of my family’s homage to Eddie. At our church’s movie-themed Halloween, we could think of no one greater to honor than the man himself.

Follow: Awkward Family Photos on Instagram

Speaking of family photos...The holidays bring more time with family and everyone’s family is funny. I am always happy when this account shows up in my scroll. It’s just an amalgam of family photos, candid and professional. They are ridiculous and over the top and ultimately endearing. A present day look at what we thought was fashionable or even permissible back in the day is rife for laughter. Follow this one for when you need a belly laugh and use it as a cautionary tale for this Christmas. How will your photos play out a decade or two later? I urge you to take the photo anyway-our children and grandchildren will appreciate the laughter within the memory.