Feast of Burden

I have seen the future, and it is HoneyBaked Ham.

My grandmother would shudder at the thought of it: buying a pre-made meal for the holidays and serving it to guests on the family china. But that’s just what it may come to this year.

During the holiday season, simplification is a must, and that occasionally means cutting corners. When the snow is falling, the traffic is thick and slick, you have presents to buy, groceries to pick up, family traditions to savor, powder to attack and football to watch, do you really want to tackle 30-pound bird?

Our editorial and art departments began working on this issue in late September, which means our staffers are drunk on the holiday spirit by Nov. 1 and bogged down in a painful hangover by the time Dec. 26 arrives. I happen to love the holidays, and I actually enjoy having them stretched out over a three-month period (it’s like living in a Hallmark store!). But, alas, even I become overwhelmed with the idea of tackling another winter in Colorado.

Still, this season is about savoring the special moments and letting them lead you through the stressful ones (i.e., stopping by the Whole Foods cheese section the weekend before Christmas). And it’s about creating new traditions that make life a little more exciting each year.

And that brings me to our cover this issue: A whimsical scene of a couple cuddling up next to their tent with cups of hot cocoa, gifts and a lit Christmas tree. Our brilliant art director Brittnie Wigham is the brainchild behind this concept; she also trekked through the Colorado mountains to find the perfect location. We wrangled our associate editor Greg Campbell and his beautiful wife Rebecca to be our models, scored the photographic geniuses at Gray Box Studios to capture the image and grabbed a few interns as we caravanned up to the YMCA outside of Rocky Mountain National Park and
Estes Park.

For a publication with a tiny creative budget, crafting a perfect photoshoot often seems like we’re attempting to do the impossible. But as we stood there in the creeping cold of the impending night, the scene looked as perfect as it could: a beautiful snowy mountain backdrop and a lovely scene of comfort, love and self-determination. What you won’t see while looking at this photo is the hard work that was put into it—our graphic designer Katie crouched behind the tree to keep it from falling in the wind, the power inverter we overloaded with seven or eight strands of lights, the sheer happenstance of finding this location, the miles accrued, the anxiety over bad weather and fear of
stampeding elk.

Because of all this, I love the cover of this issue with a particular vigor. It’s likely one of my favorites over my nearly four years as the editor at Yellow Scene Magazine. And so, I feel like the moral of the story must be: When the holiday season eventually stresses you out, buries you in credit card debt and takes you up into the middle of nowhere, HoneyBaked Ham is not
a solution.

Hard work pays off, so get cooking.