Letter from the Editor: Return the gift

Welcome, dearest reader. This is the December 2024 print issue of The Pitch, dispatched regularly from your home hub here in KC. 

Due to time constraints for the turnaround on getting these issues through the printing press, today’s ‘Letter from the Editor’ has been typed up too close to the election to possibly unpack all the important, bizarre, and confounding moments around it. By the time this is in your hands, I’m sure you can find thousands and thousands of words over on ThePitchKC.com, where smarter people than myself are already putting together what the future of our country looks like. 

Did Missouri voters rush the ballot box to preserve the right to reproductive healthcare while also re-electing Josh Hawley and other politicians who have vowed to undo this work? Yep. That’s a thing that happened. Can I explain why? You’re going to have to give me a few weeks—and some significant hangover recovery time for the rest of the political staff in editorial. 

I’ve written the introduction for a December issue for five years now. In reviewing them, I do spend a good chunk of each explaining why this is a moment to be spent renewing connections to family, setting aside differences, and—in increasingly disparate realities—finding some common ground before embarking on the wide open potential of the year ahead.

We aren’t doing that this year. Unbridled love and forgiveness are not our reason for the season. No one reading this needs to tap dance around the cataclysm that we’re headed for, and the time for turning down the volume dial on all the noise is not on the schedule. This is a goddamned mess, and to brush this aside in the name of unity and family is a form of surrender that simply has not been earned. 

But no one is asking you to raise an angry mob, either. In fact, this is probably the only holiday-themed publication that is going to insist that you forget about everyone else. December is a big chunk of time, and our staff is in agreement: It belongs to you and you alone.

The average Pitch reader did not spend the last year remaining politically inactive; No one touching this page just watched an election season ebb and flow in front of them—blissfully uncommitted to trying to turn the tide of an administration that has promised a campaign of revenge, retribution, and retaliation against their personal enemies. No one holding these glossy pages is ready to pretend this all away.

But this isn’t the copy of the magazine where we say to get pissed, hit the ground running, and throw yourself into the work of protecting the people in our lives that will depend upon us showing up to do the hard shit. It would be irresponsible to dive head-first into all that lies ahead until you’ve recharged your batteries. This December is all about putting on your own oxygen mask before helping secure those around you. It’s the only way to keep yourself safe, and it’s the only way the work gets done. 

So, our traditional Holiday Gift Guide is in this issue. We’ve made a hard pivot at the last minute. Rather than just being a collection of nifty trinkets from local vendors—a list of baubles and merch that would make fine stocking stuffers—we’ve asked KC folks from all walks of life to tell us one thing: “Name a few purchases that fundamentally made your year better.” 

This is not a rote list of quirky shops and manufacturers where you buy “I Heart KC” knick-knacks to send to that cousin you never talk to. Fuck that cousin. Nuke anyone from your list that isn’t you and you alone. This is the Self-Care Gift Guide. This is advice for everything from apps to music to tools to books to spas to mantras to concepts even further outside the box… all from the folks who swear by them. Folks who said “This will help.” 

We’re already assembling our January issue, and our plans for how to highlight the changemakers in KC—as well as how we’re mobilizing and fundamentally changing how we cover politics here at The Pitch—well, you need to be ready for it. You need to be rested up and ready to dive in and get your hands dirty, to prove your humanity and to prove that better worlds than this are possible.

So mourn what must be mourned. Focus on you, and do anything and everything it takes to have your brain chemistry back in place, your wits about you, and the people you truly care about at your side. 

Tis the season for emotional treason.

Keep your teeth sharp and many, and your hearts dark and true.

Pitch in and we’ll make it through,

Click below to read the December 2024 Issue of The Pitch Magazine;