The theme of this year’s Sheraton Gingerbread Village “25 Years of Cheer: A Celebration of Seattle,” which basically divides Seattle into four cardinal directions and showcases historic and future neighborhoods. The gingerbread displays are designed by youth with childhood diabetes and built by chefs, which is pretty rad.
In addition to highlighting Northwest (or your local chapter) of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), I want to drop some links here about healthcare and food insecurity, particularly here in Seattle:

 “Hungry families: Seattle communities ranked by food insecurity” (Seattle PI)

The Seattle/King County Clinic is a volunteer-run free pop-up clinic that happens every October and is open to all. You can read narrative comics and illustrated interviews about the clinic here and how it helps underserved communities. (AND WHY WE NEED UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE.)

Mary’s Place – an NPO day/night shelter that connects women and families experiencing homelessness with resources. In addition to monetary donations, they have a list of goods needed as well as

“Jack Monroe on Christmas living in poverty: ‘I unplugged the fridge, turned the heating off, took out the light bulbs’”
“Non-binary chef Jack Monroe on the ‘heat or eat’ crisis”

Are you following Jack Monroe (they/them // she/her), a queer nonbinary British food blogger who writes Cooking on a Bootstrap? They’re a badass.

On to the gingerbread!

Just a quick note at the end of my penultimate post of the year: Hulu has been showing me endless commercials for multi-room home stereos and smart-home devices. My Hulu has currently hopped off its prior algorithm of constant “buy jewelry and cards and decorate the house for your wife and also get engaged get that BIG DIAMOND RING FOR YOUR GIRLFRIEND!”–which is not how you 1-800-PAY-A-FEMME and is firmly rooted in bullshit capitalist marketing from the 1930s and basically here are my feels about Christmas-engagement marketing; no, I do NOT want to assimilate into your cisheterosexist nonsense, good DAY, SIR.

All the smart-home ads, though, remind me that we are living in the future, and that the future isn’t just about Alexa saving your bumbling husband’s ass from frostbite when he locks himself in the garage; the future has to be about dismantling the systems that oppress marginalized folks. So, enjoy your robots if you’ve got ‘em, but don’t forget that we need YOU to vote out your reps who voted to take away our healthcare and tax the poor, to actively fight to stop voter suppression, to raise the minimum wage, to build actually affordable housing, to protect our right to protest, and to ensure everyone–not just white cis straight women–has access to reproductive justice.

See y’all next week for the year-end wrap up.