Tag: holiday cheer and thumping

Hope isn’t the same thing as wishes.

You can wish for whatever you want, and there are a million stories about why you shouldn’t–stories of wishing for things done to be undone, for the dead to be with us again, for all the things that are beyond our reach to be here, now. And some of those stories are frankly asshole stories–some of those stories are about not getting above yourself. Stretch, friends. Climb. Get the heck above yourselves, and then get above that. Do it all you want. Do it more. But some of those stories are saying: don’t batter your heart against the impossible when you could be spending that energy looking for a climbing route. And…finding that line between can be hard.

That hard line is some of my job, as a science fiction and fantasy writer: what’s hopeful, what’s unrooted, a soap bubble dream. If we tell each other that we can dream of a better world, but the only better worlds we can dream of require humans to not react like humans–require the past not to have happened–require invented interventions we can’t summon–we’re telling people that nothing will ever be better. So we need to do a little better than that, even when the worlds we’ve dreamed up are three doors over and can’t happen–we need not to people them exclusively with shapes of hope that can’t.

It’s also some of my job this year as a family member. Trying to figure out shapes of hope that can join up with the reality that we have: the conditions, the diagnoses, the treatment plans. Because “I wish all this would go away” is not hope, it’s not support, it’s not caring. I can say it to myself anyway, and sometimes I need to; the emotions aren’t wrong. But saying it to the family members who are most struggling is of limited use compared to doing the work of helping, of making things a tiny bit better in some direction for their actual lives. Of getting them fed with something special, of getting some candles lit for them if I can, one day and then another day if I can, literally or metaphorically.

This is not a writing post. This is the one about the bread. Because good morning. It’s Santa Lucia Day. And when we’re making the lussekatter, when we’re lighting the wreath, those actions ground us. They keep us here in the real. The real smell of the yeast and the saffron, the feel of the dough stretching in our hands. It reminds us that sometimes the hopes we build for each other need to be built on something solid–and sometimes those are the very things we wanted to look away from in the present. But we have to reach out and feed and warm each other now, as we are, not as we wanted to be, and we have to recognize that we’re going to have to do this some more in a minute. It’s not going to be a quick job. I fed my neighbor, and my neighbor was still hungry: yes, that’s the job, friends, it’s more than one day’s worth. I lit my neighbor’s path, and my neighbor still stumbled. I still stumbled–well, yes. Because we’ve got a lot of light yet to shed before we have anything like a clear path here. We have to remember that we are in the darkest of days, and if we’re lucky we get the most perfect saffron we’ve ever worked with–oh, you would not believe how perfect, it crumbled at the first touch of the pestle and scented the entire house–but no matter what size batch we bake, we’re going to be done with them while it’s still getting darker. And we’re going to have to turn our hand to the next task that feeds and warms us through the darkness, and the next. But we know that, we know that’s the work, and we’re ready. We’ve got this. And some mornings, the work is delicious.

Happy Santa Lucia Day.

2022: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=3654

2021: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=3366

2020: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=2953

2019: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=2654

2018: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=2376

2017: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=1995

2016: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=1566

2015: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=1141

2014: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=659

2013: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=260

2012: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/840172.html

2011: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/796053.html

2010: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/749157.html

2009: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/686911.html

2008: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/594595.html

2007: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/2007/12/12/ and https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/502729.html

2006: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/380798.html — the post that started it all! Lots more about the process and my own personal lussekatt philosophy here!

Friends, I’m tired.

I’m tired of learning valuable life lessons. I’m tired of having my heart warmed. I’m tired of being forcibly given perspective on what’s really important. I. Am. Tired.

You know the feeling that you have when you sit down on an airport bench in the winter? but you’ve packed a whole ton of things, and you know you’re going to have to hoist yourself up, overladen backpack and purse and suitcase and cane and winter gear and the whole bit, and go slog through the line to even get the suitcase checked? and then you’ll still be stuck with the purse and backpack and cane and winter gear and going through security and waiting to use an official airline shoehorn to fit your knees into the tiny seat area without wrapping them around someone else’s spine through the seatback in front of you? I am not doing that literal thing this December. But it is how I feel about brightness and good cheer right now. I am going to get there. But it sure feels like a lot right now.

(But Doctor, I am the great lussekatter blog post Pagliacci.)

When I write a Santa Lucia post now, I know that even if I’m oblique, even if I’m practically opaque, I will remember what was going on that year anyway. Two years ago I wrote about how cold the dough was, about my beloved tinydog coming for extra loves and reassurance, and I remember that so viscerally, even though today’s dough was a normal temperature and my little dog is gone. And I know that no matter what words I write and no matter what happens after this, I will look back at them and think: we already knew Grandma had cancer then, that was the year we first knew.

But the lussekatter still needed to be made. The tired I have right now is not a muscle tired, it’s a bone weariness, an emotional exhaustion, and this is exactly the sort of thing that’s medicine for that. This year the saffron did not grind basically at all. Not a bit of it. Stubborn threads, and I had to work every inch of gold through that dough, every fragment, first streaking red and then shading out to the proper yellow. And you know what? It tasted just the same as if the saffron had behaved itself. The extra work was necessary but effective. So light the candles, friends, even if you have to break three matches and scorch your fingers to get there. Knead the bread, sing the songs. Time to hoist ourselves up again. We’re the ones who’ll do it for each other, and deep down your heart doesn’t live on an airport bench. Your heart is going to get there. Mine too, as long as we can do it together.

2021: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=3366

2020: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=2953

2019: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=2654

2018: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=2376

2017: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=1995

2016: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=1566

2015: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=1141

2014: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=659

2013: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=260

2012: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/840172.html

2011: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/796053.html

2010: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/749157.html

2009: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/686911.html

2008: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/594595.html

2007: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/2007/12/12/ and https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/502729.html

2006: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/380798.html — the post that started it all! Lots more about the process and my own personal lussekatt philosophy here!

The light isn’t back yet.

What do you mean these are the rituals we have. We’re doing the right things. We’re baking the bread, we’re singing the songs, we’re lighting the candles, what do you mean the light isn’t back yet. Why don’t we have better rituals. Why don’t we have something that will fix this dark.

And the answer is: because it is December, pals. It is December, and that is not what these rituals are for. We don’t knead saffron into enriched dough and light fires and hold our loved ones close because it will change astronomy. That is literally not what we’re doing here. These are the right things to be doing not because they will alter the fundamental nature of science but because they’re what we’ve got while the inexorable nature of the universe keeps working. This warmth, this goodness, this humanity is what we’ve got that we can control–because the timing of the Solstice is out of our control.

Yes, I’m totally talking about the Solstice, why do you ask? That is definitely what I’m talking about here.

And at the beginning of the day–no, not the end of the day, Santa Lucia is a beginning of the day holiday–at the beginning of the day, it is better to knead the dough that rose really well but for some reason is still a really tough knead. It is better to clear the epic plough ridge from the end of the walk. It is better to mask up in public places. It is better to keep doing the best we can, even knowing that the best we can is not an immediate fix, because immediate fixes are not the only thing we have, comfort and joy and mitigation are also worth having for themselves. And lussekatter. Lussekatter are definitely worth having for themselves.

Happy Santa Lucia Day. Keep trying.

2020: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=2953

2019: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=2654

2018: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=2376

2017: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=1995

2016: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=1566

2015: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=1141

2014: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=659

2013: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=260

2012: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/840172.html

2011: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/796053.html

2010: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/749157.html

2009: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/686911.html

2008: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/594595.html

2007: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/2007/12/12/ and https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/502729.html

2006: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/380798.html — the post that started it all! Lots more about the process and my own personal lussekatt philosophy here!

The lussekatter dough was weirdly cold this year, colder than the whole wheat dough from Wednesday. I can still feel the chill in my hands, even though it’s risen fine, avidly even.

And the blueberries–the blueberries are not the good blueberries, because we haven’t been to that grocery store in ten months. The blueberries are the fine-I-guess-if-this-is-what-we-can get blueberries.

They’re still here. They’re still lussekatter. And oh, is it dark.

My tinydog has gotten old, this year. Her hearing has gone, and she’s shakier on her feet. Sometimes when I’m cooking–and this happened while I was making the lussekatter–she follows me around the kitchen much more closely than she ever did before, staying at my heels when I go from fridge to counter to sink. I take more breaks to wash my hands, crouch down and snuggle the dog, wash my hands again. I pick her up and let her lean into my chest, and I tell her she’s a good girl, I tell her I love her, in case she can still hear it through bone conduction. Or else just to get a chance to lean into each other. Because…what she mostly seems to need, these days, is the reassurance that yes, I am still here, we’re still together.

We are. Hi. Happy Santa Lucia Day.

I am, you know. I am still here. We are still together, making lussekatter, even if you can’t smell mine and I can’t smell yours. Even if it feels like the world is taken apart in pieces. I’m still doing this thing, this piece of fragrant golden light. I was relieved, this week, to hear that a friend had gotten his panettone, because I know it’s important to him, and this is not a year to skip important things. While the lussekatter dough was rising, Mark made himself childhood treats he’s only made once in the last twenty years, because they just sounded comforting and nice.

I may be singing “Coldest Night of the Year” to myself as I knead, but I’m still singing. I’m still kneading. I won’t say, “it can’t get us,” because of course it can, that’s how viruses work. But so far it hasn’t. We may be struggling, but we are still struggling. There’s more dark to come yet–the darkest is yet to come–but there’s light coming too. And we know that. We do. Even this year. Even now.

Happy Santa Lucia Day.

2019: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=2654

2018: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=2376

2017: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=1995

2016: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=1566

2015: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=1141

2014: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=659

2013: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=260

2012: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/840172.html

2011: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/796053.html

2010: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/749157.html

2009: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/686911.html

2008: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/594595.html

2007: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/2007/12/12/ and https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/502729.html

2006: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/380798.html — the post that started it all! Lots more about the process and my own personal lussekatt philosophy here!

I think I am not the only one who feels a wave of relief in these pandemic times every morning that I wake up without a fever, without a cough, without anything to signify that I am getting sick. I read recently that loss of sense of smell is one of the early signs, and so I had two reasons to be happy that I woke up and smelled saffron and yeast from the next story down.

Last night I stirred up the lussekatter to rise while I was sleeping.

I’ve never made lussekatter in spring before, never made them when the thaw was so thoroughly thawed that the snow pile in the circle was half-dirt. I’ve made them for something other than Santa Lucia Day before, specifically for Tim’s birthday, but he was out of the country for his birthday this year and hadn’t had anything I’d baked for him. When I asked if he wanted pumpkin bread as a social distancing treat (I still might do that next week…or later this week depending on how fast we eat the lussekatter…), he paused and said, “Actually….”

So here we are, kneading the dough, singing some different songs, trying to bring back a different kind of light. It’s not Lucia Day, friends, but sometimes we need another candle anyway. Sometimes we need to put our backs into a little more care for each other and a little more hope for goodness in the world. Support the health care workers and the food workers and infrastructure workers who are keeping us all as safe as they can manage, be kind to each other, and bring back whatever light you can in whatever way you know how. It’s not Santa Lucia Day, but we’ll do the work apart-together anyway.

“I’m not doing the pepparkakor this year, I can’t,” I said, and everyone in the family had different reactions. My mother asked if I wanted her to do them. (No. Dad and I were the only ones who ate them really, and I only ate one. Throwing away a batch of pepparkakor minus one would be so much worse.) But Timprov said, “But you’re still doing the lussekatter, right? I think we all need them.”

Yes. I still did the lussekatter.

We all still do need them.

We need them a lot this year.

It’s been unseasonably cold early here in Minnesota–we’ve had January-typical temperatures starting in November–which is the pathetic fallacy if I’ve ever seen it. It’s so much colder this year. The world is so much colder. Well. Yes. I’ve been standing in front of the oven when I take bread out, letting the residual heat dissipate directly into me. I’ve been wearing layers early–I think my long-sleeved shirts got about three days of time on their own before it was constant sweaters, fleeces, everything in layers.

Those of you who have been coming around a lot know that Christmas Eve day was always my time for just me and my dad. This year I’m making up a new bread recipe, an apricot chocolate babka, which is based on a plain chocolate babka that uses up basically every dish in the house and totally demolishes the kitchen, but with *even more* layers of decadent goodness. And effort. And mess. (Christmas dinner is not at my house.) I’m going to do that rather than having someone try to be Substitute Dad, rather than trying to recreate the old plans without Dad who was so central to them. So there are going to be two sets of special bread in this month, and I think I need both.

It’s a lot of work, though. Fighting through the dark in hopes that there will be light again somewhere if we just keep working for it hard enough is a lot of work. The rest of the world at large isn’t any brighter than it has been–in some places this morning quite a bit worse and I’m so sorry–but I’ve been writing these posts since 2006 and this is the darkest it’s been so far for me personally. When I preface wry or struggling comments with “Since my dad died,” I can kind of get people to remember that. When I don’t, I get pushback of the “I would expect you to be more cheerful!” kind. I get that a lot.

Because…grief doesn’t change the general shape of our relationships with people. So if the general shape is “we are mutually supportive friends,” there can be ebb and flow there, it’s all good. But if the general shape is “I provide light, you soak it up,” well, get with kneading that saffron bread, lady, that is your job here. That is what you are here for. Why are you not doing your job.

A lot of years I use these posts to be grateful for those who have brought light to me, and I am, oh, I am. I have needed some of those who have been there for me this year, and I know some of them have needed me too. We have clung together on this little raft when we expected to be on dry land. But…I feel like there’s a taboo around saying that some people have brought some of the darkness too, beyond what grief itself has brought us. Beyond what fear and political upheaval and all the other things have brought us, there are the people who treat us like commodities. Because we always fought to bring the light back before.

Well, and I’m trying to do it again. I’m burying my hands in the dough, I’m revising the words, I am doing the work. I am trying like hell to do the work. And to keep sorting out which bits of the work are really necessary and which bits I can just…let rest for a minute, a year. But I am not a commodity, I’m a person who is grieving. My mother is a person who is grieving. The answer we keep giving in this dark year, whenever anyone asks how we’re doing, is, “We’re doing the best we can.”

Today the best we can has to involve lussekatter. In a few weeks, an experimental babka. It also involves my current practice of reaching out to others who are grieving, ill, divorcing, or otherwise struggling–in general, but particularly when I’m angry at those few people who are not there for my mother in the ways they said they would be. That’s the best I can do: to not be them. To take their examples as an opportunity to do better, even when I am so very tired.

But also the best I can do today is say out loud: it is dark, and it was a lot of work making this bread, and I am really, really tired, and I could use some light. I need help with this. I can make the bread alone. (It rose enormously this year.) I cannot make this light alone. This darkness is a long road, and I am not out, and this bread is not magic. Neither are the words, “How are you? I’m thinking of you.” But until we get magic, we’re going to have to layer not-magic on not-magic until we’re warm enough to go on. They say it’s warmer if you keep moving. We can hope that’s right. We can stand by the oven and inhale the saffron and warmth and wait until it’s just barely cool enough to eat. Because this year we need this. Don’t forget we need each other.

Happy Santa Lucia Day.

2018: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=2376

2017: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=1995

2016: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=1566

2015: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=1141

2014: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=659

2013: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=260

2012: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/840172.html

2011: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/796053.html

2010: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/749157.html

2009: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/686911.html

2008: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/594595.html

2007: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/2007/12/12/ and https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/502729.html

2006: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/380798.html — the post that started it all! Lots more about the process and my own personal lussekatt philosophy here!

Toward the end of the last several years, I heard a lot of people talking about how glad they would be to see the year go, how the next one had to be better. I’m not hearing that this year, and I don’t think it’s because 2018 has been all lollipops and rainbows, or even candles and saffron buns. No. I think it’s that there has been a slow realization that we are living in a dark time. That positive change is not going to come all at once with the turning of the year. We all knew that, I think, but…there’s knowing, and there’s knowing.

When you know something is wrong, identifying it can be such a relief. A lot of my friends with disabilities and other health issues have talked about this–how happy they were to get a diagnosis, how others didn’t always understand that and would be upset on their behalves. But upset is a reaction for if you thought nothing was wrong and suddenly got the news that something was. When you know something is wrong and now you know what…well. You can find coping mechanisms. You can begin to plan. Maybe you can even fix it–which is much harder when you don’t know something is wrong in the first place.

And here we are in the dark of the year. Santa Lucia Day has come around again. And the reason I started doing these posts twelve years ago (!!!) is that Santa Lucia Day is a holiday that comes before the solstice. Firmly and canonically before. We light the candles, we make the lussekatter, knowing that there is more and deeper darkness to come.

And we do it anyway. Because this is what we do. Because this is who we choose to be for each other.

There’s often a song in my head for Santa Lucia Day, other than the traditional one, and this year it’s Case/Lang/Veirs “I want to be here” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dskj0nqnIIY). “Not bracing for what comes next” sounds good to me…especially because I feel like being present with each other, just that, gives us the strength to deal with what’s next without having to flinch from it. And don’t we all need to hear that the hungry fools who rule the world can’t ruin everything? They can’t. There is bread, there is hope, there is work to make things better. Even when all we can do for a minute is be here together.

I kept the idea of making lemon curd from last year. That strand of caring for someone else that helped with caring for myself ended up working very well for me, and I’m looking forward to continuing with it. This year I’m about to try the result of kneading the dried blueberries into the saffron bread instead of placing them on top. I’m hopeful. But I’m also willing to keep iterating. I’m willing to keep trying to make things better, acknowledging setbacks along the way, acknowledging that the path to better is not always smooth.

The other thing I tried this year: last week there was a different saffron bread. This one was savory, stuffed with olives and tomatoes and cheese and prosciutto. It worked on the first try, not perfect but good, and I now have another means of sharing with others, another bread of light in a dark time. Not a replacement. Just another angle to try, and we need all of those we can get. And…maybe having the blueberries protected in some dough will keep them from falling away. It’s worth a try.

Sometimes the people we love are faltering in the dark, and there’s not that much we can do to help except be there and bear witness. Sometimes there’s more. We can stumble on wanting so badly to help. Sorting out which situations are which takes practice.

We’re getting a lot of practice, these dark days. We are here. We reach for each other. We learn how to do it better, and sometimes we fail, but even when we don’t, we have more darkness to get through.

But we do it together. And that makes all the difference in the world.

I bake too much for myself every Christmas, and I do it on purpose, knowing that these cookies will go to that dear one, that this bread is for another, that the experimental fudge (…stay tuned…) for yet a third. Because we don’t light the candles for just ourselves, we don’t sing to just ourselves. That’s not how any of this works.

Thank you for being the lights in my darkness, this year, next year, all the years. Happy Santa Lucia Day.

2017: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=1995

2016: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=1566

2015: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=1141

2014: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=659

2013: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=260

2012: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/840172.html

2011: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/796053.html

2010: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/749157.html

2009: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/686911.html

2008: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/594595.html

2007: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/2007/12/12/ and https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/502729.html

2006: https://mrissa.dreamwidth.org/380798.html — the post that started it all! Lots more about the process and my own personal lussekatt philosophy here!

I’ve been doing this for ten years now.

Not making the lussekatter; that’s a tradition of longer standing. But writing about the making of the lussekatter every year. About doing the work of the dark of the year, singing the light back into the world while you make the saffron-rich bread. About Santa Lucia Day, how it comes before Solstice so there is more dark to come, and what that means to me. It’s the same every year. It’s different every year. Holidays are like that.

This year in particular I am so glad to have a ritual to fall back on, work that yields to patience and experience and knowledge. The long rise changed my life. This year I made a half-batch, carefully measuring the beaten egg into my tiniest measuring cup, pouring half of it into the dough and half down the drain. (I know. It would have been fine with a whole egg. But I want it the way it’s supposed to taste, not a slightly richer version.) And between the smaller mass of dough and the knowledge gained from years past, it was an easy knead, turning pliable almost as soon as I picked it up.

In addition to Christmas songs, I find myself singing other songs every year, whatever pops into my head. “Lovers in a Dangerous Time” and “This Year” and whatever else feels appropriate. This year I discovered that what I was singing was Paul Simon’s “The Boy in the Bubble,” with a line I never really thought of before: “These are the days of miracle and wonder, and don’t cry, baby, don’t cry.” The days of miracle and wonder, we find out, are not the same as the days of ease and laughter. The days of miracle and wonder make us weep, and not just for joy. Not even mostly for joy.

Sometimes miracle and wonder come upon us all unawares. But sometimes we have to work for them. We have to work our asses off for them, and cry and despair and feel that we’ve come to the end of the line. And some of us have–I don’t want to pretend that it’s inevitable that we always win out, that we always come through the dark times. Sometimes it is just all too damn much. And the people around us, the people we turn to for help, may have reached their point of “all too damn much” in ways and for reasons that we don’t know or don’t understand.

And it’s so easy to feel distant from everyone we love, to see the distances and not the ways in which we’re close. It’s so easy to feel like we’re struggling alone instead of together. But it’s not true. Or it doesn’t have to be.

And still we try to carve out something beautiful, something fragrant and fine. Something we can give, something that connects us. Something miraculous and wonderful. Even in a year where the dark days have taken turns we never imagined. Especially in that kind of year. I’m struggling to remember which rabbi it was, what the exact wording was, who said that the work of the world is neither ours to complete nor ours to abandon. Not my tradition–but one of my truths. One of my great truths.

It’s time to sing the songs and bake the bread. It’s time to find our way kicking and screaming into miracle and wonder. And it’s time to do the work in the dark time to bring the light back into the world in the days ahead.

Happy Santa Lucia Day.

2006: http://mrissa.livejournal.com/380857.html
2007: http://mrissa.livejournal.com/502825.html and http://mrissa.livejournal.com/503100.html
2008: http://mrissa.livejournal.com/596214.html
2009: http://mrissa.livejournal.com/688906.html
2010: http://mrissa.livejournal.com/751599.html
2011: http://mrissa.livejournal.com/798532.html
2012: http://mrissa.livejournal.com/842565.html
2013: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=260
2014: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=659
2015: https://marissalingen.com/blog/?p=1141