2026?! Sure, why not.

Ho ho ho.

Hey there cats and kittens,

Let’s dive right in.

In November, I wrote something about my dad. I shared deeply personal emails about our broken relationship, and it sounds insane to say this now, but I didn’t think much about it before I hit publish. I just wanted to get out of my own head, so… I did it.

The fallout was predictable: a lot of people said very nice things, the media wrote about it in ways I found incredibly insulting, and my dad never reached out.

I knew he wouldn’t. But obviously, I hoped he would. Life is filled with disappointment.

The “tabloidness” of the situation, combined with the silence from the one person I actually wanted to hear from, sent me into a touch of a spiral. But I’ve come through it. I’m back to my effervescent self, or at least a functional version of it.

Callooh callay, oh frabjous day!

I have two very fun posts coming this week that you’ll like (one of which required me to read a bunch of stuff in a very silly language called Danish) and a new episode of CENTRAL AIR is dropping tomorrow.

But I wanted to say something now that I usually say on Christmas. I missed the window this year because I was a bit too locked in my own head.

I was reading recently about how they celebrate the holidays in Italy. Instead of Santa, they have Babbo Natale, but the real hero is La Befana—the Christmas Witch. The story goes that she was a woman in Bethlehem who met the Wise Men. They told her, “We’re off to see the baby Jesus! Want to come?” And she basically told them she didn’t give a shit about some baby and went back to her business.

By the time she realized she’d missed the Son of God, it was too late. She panicked. “Oh dammit, Befana! You screwed this one up! Not again! Stupid, stupid.” She went off searching for them, but she never found them. She’s still out there, haunting the world, looking for a moment she missed.

To make that story less depressing, the tradition says she gives presents to children on the night of January 5th instead. Why? Because in the liturgy, the Wise Men didn’t actually find Jesus until January 6th—the Epiphany.

I felt a lot like Befana this year. I felt like I’d screwed up, like I’d missed the mark, and like I was wandering around in the dark while everyone else was celebrating. I felt like an idiot for making the same old mistakes.

But the timing of the Epiphany reminds me that you can be late to the party and still be part of the story. So, I’m showing up now to say thank you. I’ve made so many mistakes, and I’ll make plenty more, but I’m incredibly lucky to have supporters like you who stick around for the aftermath.

Merry Christmas!

Ben