Out of stock already, sadly (https://www.laborsofloveneedlepoint.shop/shop/c/p/Heres-to-2020-x50194553.htm), but you could always find your inner avid needlepointer and rustle one up for yourself.

Which is all to say, I think we can all agree that 2020 has long since surpassed 2016 in total fabulousness.

That year, in December, a friend of mine sent me a link to a great way to lick the wounds of the year: get some colored felt, some glue, and some shiny embroidery thread and turn the awful events into Xmas ornaments.

https://www.startribune.com/dear-2016-i-made-you-this-ornament-it-s-a-dumpster-fire/402757886/

OK, we haven’t lost as many beloved rock stars this year, but I think you could go with a tree covered in nothing but felt ornaments of face masks, hand sanitizer, rolls of toilet paper, and spiky viruses. If you want to dip your toe into icky political waters, there’s no shortage of possibilities there either, starting with a certain orange-faced man and his minions and not even vaguely ending with a kneeling policeman, and it’s still just the beginning of September (as I write this). Who knows what the next few months will bring. Given that we need to get through the next two months leading up to the first Tuesday in November, the next few most certainly bring things we’ll all need to get over.

Speaking of processing grief, trauma, and disappointment, the coup de grace, where safe, sane, and legal to do so, would be to take the tree, ornaments at all, and burn it in the backyard on New Year’s Eve. Barring that, I suppose you could sacrifice the ornaments in the fireplace or a campfire. Then, lighter, we’ll all be in better shape to face 2021.

Oh, yes, this most definitely sounds like a plan. Not to hit you with Xmas stuff eight weeks before Halloween, but I, for one, will have to hit the craft store later this week. Because I’m not the sort of person who has sheets of colored felt just lying around and, on top of that, I’m a slowpoke who will definitely need the next three months to make a sufficient set of ornaments for purging the pain of the year from my psyche.