I live in a small apartment. How can I be happy during the holidays?
There are lots of ways. Here’s an excerpt from my Christmas column for the New York Blade:
1) Low ceilings enable you to save by buying a budget tree.
2) Constant traffic noise lets you know other people aren’t having completely idealized magical holidays either.
3) In-building holiday parties (hic!).
4) It’s not your job to hang the decorations in the lobby. Which means you don’t have to remember where you stored them last year, which means no fights with the family over who was the last person to put away the box marked “tinsel.”
5) Radiator heat = no chimney cleaning.
6) You may have to tip the super, but you don’t have to tip suburban garbagemen, who can “forget” to take your trash away if they don’t like their envelope.
7) No musical Christmas displays across the street (I grew up with my neighbor’s roof playing “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” for two straight weeks.)
Hooligan kids throwing snowballs usually can’t reach the twelfth floor.
9) Tilty pre-war flooring makes dreidel anybody’s game.
10) In a glamorous urban pied-a-terre, it’s easy to hear It’s a Wonderful Life on the TV in the living room even if you are in the kitchen making cookies.
11) If you live in a doorman building, you get cheerful, helpful doormen for the entire month of December.
12) If you don’t live in a doorman building, you don’t have to tip your doormen. Go take the money you’ve just saved and buy yourself some peppermint bark instead.Happy and Healthy Holidays, and new co-ops to all!