As I write to you, I’m thinking about my grandparents—two Boricuas with tender hearts and questionable beliefs, like your typical abuelo y abuela.

The cup on the counter. Unwashed, days there, your body reflections through the smudge marks.

On la noché de las velitas, the night of the candles, my family was setting up a vigil for my dead brother in the shape of a hawk, his favorite bird.

It was the week of her performance review, and Adrienne was ready for a promotion.

Everybody in our town carries adrenaline shots. Also, they only go under in pairs.

Are you looking for the Instagrammiest #holidaywin for 2017? Come on down to the Lancaster Mall Hobby Lobby, where we can help you recreate the yuletide look-of-the-moment for your house!

Roughly grate the potatoes. You can also do this with a blitzer, but there’s something nice about knowing you’re participating in your culture’s tradition by doing it by hand.

Tell whoever says there’s nothingto do in Fremont, Indiana thatthe Holiday Inn Express hasfree cookies all night anda business center and a Christmas treeall in a row in the lobby.

People who hate this

song are like people who

don’t like candy corn:

loud, everywhere, and

wrong.

It’s the seasonal shift, the boomerang-bending-back to turn and return to the hands that cradled us, once, but also the melancholy of realizing all the things that were supposed to happen during the year and didn’t.

This poem was supposed to be about

Donald Trump playing Dungeons and Dragons,

When you make the fruitcake there are some rules:

You will want to picture it covered in apricot jam, nuts, the fingerprints of lovers, but that is to get ahead of yourself. To put the cake before the batter, as it were.