‘Tis The Season: Authors Talk Holidays is a special seasonal feature on Pop! Goes The Reader in which some of my favourite authors help me to celebrate the spirit of the season and spread a little holiday cheer. So, pour yourself a cup of hot chocolate and snuggle in by the fireside as they answer the question: “What does the holiday season mean to you?”
About Joya Goffney
Joya Goffney grew up in New Waverly, a small town in East Texas. In high school, she challenged herself with to-do lists full of risk-taking items like ‘hug a random boy’ and ‘eat a cricket,’ which inspired her debut novel, Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry. With a passion for black social psychology, she moved out of the countryside to attend the University of Texas in Austin, where she still resides.
Christmas when I was seven…
…meant watching Christmas movies back-to-back on Christmas Eve, while glancing every five seconds at the gifts under our meager tree. Going to sleep early to the smell of buttermilk pies in the oven, or maybe applesauce cake, and never actually falling to sleep. Then getting up extra early to the smell of turkey, only to be forced to wait until seven a.m. sharp before ripping open presents, just for tradition’s sake. And getting yelled at for not picking up the shredded wrapping paper on the floor, but not really caring because toys!
It meant Mom packing up my sister and I and driving us across the countryside to our grandma, A-May’s, house. Bouncing in our seats, because chances were high that we’d see cousins we hadn’t seen since the year before, stoked to taste A-May’s dressing and her green beans and her extensive selection of sweets.
It meant pulling through the food coma to go outside and feed our scraps to the feral cats hiding under A-May’s porch, playing in the dirt, playing in the corn stalks in her garden, and collecting rocks in the driveway. It meant staying at A-May’s house all day and leaving in the night, despite the risk of deer, listening to Christmas music on the radio and looking up at the stars twinkling in the sky. Christmas when I was seven was something to look forward to. It had spirit. And family. And so much food.
Christmas when I was eleven…
…meant strategically waking up at six-thirty and waiting the thirty minutes before seven in front of the television. It meant getting a keyboard for Christmas and not knowing how to play it. It meant occupying my new baby cousin and claiming him as my new baby brother. Going outside with my uncle to chop wood for A-May, so she wouldn’t have to worry about it for at least a couple of weeks. Hearing stories of his childhood and my mom’s childhood and A-May’s childhood. Staying all day and driving home in the night.
Christmas when I was fifteen…
…meant not being motivated enough to get out of bed any earlier than necessary, not expecting much and not really getting much, but holding a smile all the same. It meant being impatient to go to A-May’s, getting bored of waiting on Mom to finally get dressed, and, to keep myself occupied, getting carried away with writing a new keyboard song.
It meant distant cousins and aunts and uncles weren’t coming this year. It meant no potatoes and green beans this year. It meant A-May’s turkey dressing wasn’t as good this year. It meant A-May’s memory wasn’t as good this year.
But we stayed all day and drove home in the night.
Christmas when I was nineteen…
…meant being excited to be done with my first semester of college, but not excited to be home and in such close proximity to my ex-boyfriend — and hating the fact that we shared the same social circle. It meant not expecting much and not getting much. Dreading a day at A-May’s house, knowing there was no internet, no phone signal, no distant cousins, aunts and uncles, but excited to see her after months of being away.
It meant really experiencing, I mean really experiencing the effects of her disease for the first time, because I’d been removed from home for so long, and she was losing so much of herself day by day. It meant taking pictures of everything and everyone. Staying all day and driving home in the night.
Christmas when I was twenty-five…
…meant my boyfriend and I only had a couple of hours in town before we’d have to drive the three hours back, because I had to work the next morning. It meant that there wasn’t much food at A-May’s, because she’d stopped cooking a long time ago. It meant that there weren’t many people at A-May’s either, because her house…well, it felt so empty. But she was still there. She was in her bed asleep from the morphine in her veins, because about a week previous she’d fallen down.
I thought they’d only given her the morphine to help ease the pain of her fall. I hadn’t realized the morphine was to help ease her out of this world. I had the urge to kiss her forehead while she was asleep there on her bed, but our family was never the affectionate type. And just having that urge meant some part of me thought this might be my last time seeing her, but that was an absurd thought.
It meant not staying all day, because I had to drive all night. It meant not being there when she left this world.
Christmas when I was twenty-six…
…meant keeping my mom and my sister and myself busy so none of us could stay on one sad thought for too long. It meant decorating the tree and dedicating it to A-May. It meant not expecting much and not really getting much, but not really wanting much either. It meant it would just be us this year. No distant cousins, aunts and uncles. It meant staying home because there was nothing for us at A-May’s house.
Christmas this year…
…means I’ll be twenty-seven. And everything we do will be dedicated to A-May. Means it’ll be two years since I’ve even stepped foot in A-May’s house. Means that I don’t expect much, and I don’t really want much, but I can’t wait to give and give and give. Means it’ll probably just be us. No distant cousins, aunts and uncles. But I’ve got everything I need. I’ve always had everything I needed.
Title Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry
Author Joya Goffney
Intended Target Audience Young Adult
Publication Date May 4th 2021 by HarperTeen
Find It On Goodreads ● Amazon ● Chapters ● The Book Depository ● Barnes & Noble ● IndieBound
Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry by debut author Joya Goffney is an #OwnVoices story of an overly enthusiastic list maker who is blackmailed into completing a to-do list of all her worst fears. It’s a heartfelt, tortured, contemporary YA high school romance. Fans of Jenny Han’s To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before and Kristina Forest’s I Wanna Be Where You Are will love the juicy secrets and leap-off-the-page sexual tension.
Quinn keeps lists of everything — from the days she’s ugly cried, to “Things That I Would Never Admit Out Loud” and all the boys she’d like to kiss. Her lists keep her sane. By writing her fears on paper, she never has to face them in real life. That is, until her journal goes missing…
Then an anonymous account posts one of her lists on Instagram for the whole school to see and blackmails her into facing seven of her greatest fears, or else her entire journal will go public. Quinn doesn’t know who to trust. Desperate, she teams up with Carter Bennett — the last known person to have her journal — in a race against time to track down the blackmailer.
Together, they journey through everything Quinn’s been too afraid to face, and along the way, Quinn finds the courage to be honest, to live in the moment, and to fall in love.
