Madonna is on the move – at long last for those of us fans who recall the album-every-two-years pace of her earlier work. It’s been an eternity (in Madonna years) since her last studio album ‘Madame X’ – which came out way back in the summer of pre-COVID 2019. This stretch marks the longest span between original albums in her entire career.
Anticipation is running high for her long-ago-announced upcoming (2026) album – which she has been billing as a sequel to the smash fan-favorite ‘Confessions on a Dance Floor’ from 2005. Two decades is a long time for a follow-up, but if anyone can conjure magic no matter how much time has passed, it’s Madonna.
These recent shots are spectacular – and a step up from the heavily-filtered Instagram nonsense she seems to have favored of late, so I’m hopeful about this new era. Pink goes well with more than you think it will.
There was a day this past summer – after a stretch of several 90+ degree days – that I found myself walking languidly through the greenhouses at Faddegon’s Nursery, melting and sweating through a tank top and shorts, cursing the extreme heat and humidity, and ducking intermittently into the air-conditioned gift shop section while seeking out a friendly Australian tree fern that wouldn’t instantly expire after a single missed watering (to no avail).
I think longingly of that discomfort as I pull a chunky cable-knit cardigan tighter to my chest today.
The greenhouse is deliciously different at night, especially in the winter months. Cooler in atmosphere and hue, it carries a more hushed vibe to it, quieter and more somber somehow, even with the vibrant poinsettias and flaming heads of cyclamen.
Being in the greenhouse around Christmas, especially in the early evening, always brings to mind the melting scene in ‘Frosty the Snowman’ – one of the more traumatic Christmas moments for a kid just trying to find joy in a song brought to animated life.
A little preview of tomorrow morning’s greenhouse-inspired post, this is a specimen of stephanotis, sometimes called the Madagascar jasmine. Sweet of perfume and swirling of tendrils, it is a white flowered scent of summer, one of those heady tricks of the greenhouse while the snow spins wildly outside.
Intended to be both trendy and timeless, this card is hopefully everything you expected, dreaded, and wished for from the questionable depths of my creative prowess – equal parts amusing, offensive, inflammatory, ridiculous, porny, obscene, silly, grotesque, colorful, wonky, wanky, and wildly un-Christian. The very best of Christmas past, present, and future to come, with enough innuendo to erect the highest of holiday spirits.
Speaking of erecting things, this isn’t the first time my North pole has held up a Santa’s hat in service of a holiday card – somewhere around 1999 there was a photo card that featured a fully-naked body shot save for the iconic hat hung only by all that nature gave me – a card that has since been lost to time (and if ever I dig it up I’ll add it to the pantheon).
As for a few behind-the-scenes tidbits out of which you may get your own rise and chuckle, test shots for this year’s image were conducted on a birthday trip to Boston with Suzie, who had no real idea of what was going on behind the closed bedroom door, and who wouldn’t have batted an eyelash even if she had. That original concept had a full body and face shot, with Santa hats on both heads – the first working title being ‘A Hat for Every Head‘, but my body was not quite fit for such a full reveal, and my artistic eye wasn’t happy with such a blatant display when good erotica is all about seduction and mystery; it all fell a little limp until I played around with things in the following days, in which this more coy concept firmed up, giving a bigger hint and some mystery for the viewer to spin their own holiday fantasy about what happens when the hat comes off.
Hard copies (pun absolutely intended) of this card were mailed out December 9, 2025, and scented with ‘Overture’ by Amouage – a boisterous oud-heavy stomper designed to be as potentially off-putting and repellant as the card itself. That’s how we’ve rolled for thirty years ~ Happy Holidays!
Tonight marks the calm before the storm of this year’s online holiday photo card reveal. Sitting before the tree, a green candle throwing its warm light over my meditation space, I begin the slow breathing that constitutes my daily meditation. A necessity for the winter months, it also comes in handy during any stresses that come up during the holiday season (of which there are often many).
Here, the noise of the day – and the noise of the season – immediately cease. Externally and internally, the world quiets. The atmosphere slows. The motion of time stills. Only the breath marks any sort of temporal movement. Even there, it feels more measured, more calm. Within ready grasp, the opportunity for meditation is a portal to peace. The importance of this presents itself more distinctly at this time of the year. How strange, this being the Prince of Peace’s time to shine and be born, that we should find calm and tranquility so elusive.
When I think back to those high school days when I used to shred certain people, all I can say is that it was kind of like the French revolution: things just got out of hand.
Thirty years ago I sent out my first Christmas photo card as documented in this blog post. It probably went out to be about 25 people if my increasingly-bleak memory serves, and I probably thought that was a heavy lift. It made as much of a splash as such things did in the late 90’s, which was a kinder, more quaint time in our history – more seemingly innocent and soft – and ripe for the sort of hard-edged bondage shot that went out that first year. It was the start of a tradition that has reached its 30th year, and this season’s offering is coming up tomorrow, so bookmark this blog if you don’t want to miss out.
Every parent has a favorite child, admitted or not (according to several parents I know) and I absolutely have a favorite holiday card. I won’t play coy or beat around the bush as that is definitely not my vibe, so I’ll direct you to 2016’s ‘Little Baby Jesus‘ shot to end the suspense. That one came with a trigger warning for the graphic content. (It remains my most controversial, as the first proposed printing company actually returned payment and canceled the order once they saw the picture – the first and thus far only time that’s happened.)
As you might surmise, it’s the supposedly-shocking cards that touch my heart the most, such as the ‘Disco Ball Jock‘ pose from 2005, or 2012’s ‘Eat Your Holiday Heart Out‘.
Not that I didn’t sometimes have a softer spot for more sentimental fare, as evidenced by the cards that featured more family-oriented and sweeter fare, such as the 2010 ‘Wedding Card‘ from the year we got married, the easy-way-out redux of a childhood photo for 2013’s ‘Baby Brothers Ilagan‘, and the touching ‘Family Affair‘ recreation with Mom and Dad for 2020. Also of tender note was 2022’s tribute to my godson Jaxon which included a play on ‘The Godfather‘, as well as 2011’s ‘Uncle Al’s Radio Flyer‘ which featured the Ilagan twins, Emi and Noah.
Then there were the wild randos that still manage to surprise – the 2014 faux-cocaine pic entitled ‘Let It Snow‘, the ‘Bad Dumpster Santa‘ of 2007, and our most recent ‘Shitter’s Full‘ pic from last year – an homage to ‘Christmas Vacation’.
Before this year’s incendiary reveal, it seems right to point out some of the softer and more demure images to grace my friends’ mailboxes and mantles, such as the ‘Beautiful Christmas By the Sea‘ in 2008, or the following year’s ‘Angelic Ass‘, 2021’s cardigan-clad ‘Winter Slumber‘ or 2023’s gray-shaded ‘Father Time‘ treatise on the passing years.
All of those were mere appetizers for this year’s main platter, which is easily the hardest photo card I’ve ever shot, and it shows; I worked my proverbial ass off for this one, so come back and see tomorrow!
When a bank calls you at 8 o’clock in the morning, asking if you can get in touch with a former family member that you haven’t seen in at least a year, someone may not be living their best life (allegedly).
(I don’t want to write a long-ass post about this, much as everyone would want to read it… so hopefully my name won’t be connected to this person in the future.)
You sometimes don’t realize how much the quiet people are part of our holiday traditions and histories until they’re not there. Dad was one such person, choosing mostly to stay to himself in the family room, watching his OTB and perusing his papers while the rest of us went about our holiday antics. He’d join us for dinner, and gift opening, but even there he was often quiet, blending into the background and going through the motions. At the time, I didn’t understand it, and wanted him to be more present; now I see things very clearly his way, and very much relate to wanting to be a quiet but not wholly participatory in the mayhem. All that noise, noise, noise… the Grinch wasn’t wrong about everything.
As I got older, and especially in the last few years he was cognizant and aware of what was going on, I would tend to spend more time next to him. Not actively talking or taking part in his betting operation, but just to be out of the line of sensory overload. He had a calming aura to him, despite his occasional outbursts, and I sensed a kindred spirit there that I never quite appreciated when I was a kid. I miss that.
The other morning a pair of cardinals insistently made themselves known in the seven son’s flower tree. As I sat working at the dining room table, they fluttered and flew – bright bits of scarlet in the sky and in the branches. I wondered what they wanted me to understand, what message they brought from their world to mine.
It has come to my attention that very few people saw my first Christmas Wish List when I put it up early here for everyone’s convenience, so I’m re-upping it, with a few new additions since there is still time to order anything based on how good I’ve been this year in the face of such adversity. (There’s also my Amazon wish list here, still in effect.)
We begin with the latest Tom Ford Private Blend – ‘Figue Erotique’ found here – which sounds extremely promising given my penchant for all things fig, and somewhat prohibitive given the exorbitant price tag – I’d settle for a 30 ml size to blunt that edge.
I’m a sucker for a duster, and this one in turquoise and gold velvet from Soft Surroundings is simply too dreamy; a size XL would work well. I can see this helming a winter dinner party with a few select guests, and you can totally see me in it too.
These blog posts are getting away from me – as is this holiday season – and I’m taking it all with a lighter touch. Laughter induces warmth, so I’ve been embracing the silliness at hand now, the absurdity of life, and all the things that once annoyed and bothered me to the point where I simply had to speak out are now fodder for chuckles and giggles. Nothing worth getting upset over, and no harm to anyone other than myself when I overthink them.
In a fall season that found things getting entirely too serious, when a darker turn of the world and the people I knew in it caused consternation and concern, I found myself in the unaccustomed role of empath, and that’s just not a role I’m equipped to handle. Nothing personal, and that’s really the best way to move through the world right now – not personally.
