Have you seen the quote going round the internet about Yule Boasts? It begins, “Yule boasting is an old Norse tradition of getting [drunk] at the winter solstice feast and standing up to proclaim all the great, infamous, and wildly improbable deeds you will perform in the coming year.” It goes on from there, and it’s a truly exciting idea.

The thing is, it doesn’t seem to be an old Norse tradition at all. It’s an error-laden paragraph someone wrote to get people fired up at Winter Solstice. The paragraph on Yule Boasts— which contains the only words you will find anywhere on the internet explaining Yule Boasts— states, “…these are not plans. they’re not even goals. they’re the things you’d do in a self-insert superhero fanfic.’”

I did a bit of research, and it looks like the Yule Boast is predicated on the Norse tradition of swearing Yule Oaths during the three nights beginning with Winter Solstice— only these boasts are meant to be raucous and self-aggrandizing. The Yule Oaths were solemn, iron-bound agreements however ill-conceived, and achieving one’s Yule Oath would bring great honor.

I said “however ill-conceived,” because the one swearing the oath would, indeed, be drunk. Very drunk. (It evolved to “shitfaced” in the circulating Yule Boast myth.) According to scholars, Hakon the Good, the Christian King of Norway (934-961) required everyone to celebrate for three nights, whether they were celebrating Christmas or the Pagan holiday of Yule, a celebration of the returning of daylight.

Hakon the Good (who seems as mischievous as the person who made up Yule Boasts) required every free man to drink a minimum amount of alcohol over those three nights— at least four gallons. Things could get ridiculous real fast, however earnest and sincere those oath makers were.

This Yule Boast tradition that I am about to take part in is pretty meta, considering how unlikely the boast is supposed to be, coupled with the tradition of the boast being entirely made up.

Mission accomplished, oh stranger who made up the myth of the Yule Boast! I’m fired up! So I’m going to make a Yule Boast here that will fix your life, even if it’s not miserable. (I didn’t think your life was miserable. I used that word because it made a better headline to draw more readers. And that’s the only reason I used the word “amazing,” too. It’s vastly overused.) But your life will be better than it was— if my Yule Boast comes true. And I don’t want to brag too much, but I think it will.

‘Yule boasting is an old Norse tradition of getting shitfaced at the winter solstice feast and standing up to proclaim all the great, infamous, and wildly improbable deeds you will perform in the coming year. can range from an unlikely but technically possible claim, like “I’m going to rob 300 banks”, to something you’d have to bend the laws of the universe to actually accomplish, like “I’m going to punch a god in the dick and steal his horse”. these are not plans. they’re not even goals. they’re the things you’d do in a self-insert superhero fanfic.’

-The Yule Boast myth, the exact and only words you will find on the internet claiming that there is such thing as the Yule Boast.

If you know me, you might know that 2025 is the year when my writing is actually going to happen. This is the year when my life becomes uncomplicated, my health clears up entirely, and I again have the energy I had when I was 36, headed to law school with four kids in tow, feeling invincible, bounding into a new, challenging world with zeal and zest— and energy enough to power a small town. Yes, my writing is not just going to happen, it’s going to be magical.

When I say “magical,” I don’t just mean that the writing will be good, I mean the words I put together will form the most engaging stories, and my sentence structure will make your head spin because it is so good. But you won’t realize that the sentence structure is a reason you are so immersed in what you are reading, no; the text will have you in such thrall that you wouldn’t be able to escape the experience and think of something as (usually) mundane as sentence structure.

Best words, best order? Uh.. yeah— and then some. The words themselves will sneak into your brain and find a comfy place to stay. You’ll feel better than you have in years. The words will transform you, and you will begin thinking and speaking in such purely lyrical syntax that your whole life will seem better— and it will be. The words I write, the stories I tell, the mere letters and punctuation, will change your actual DNA so that you no longer have ordinary thoughts or concerns, no pet peeves to niggle at you.

The most pain you will ever feel again will be no stronger than the disappointment of having just missed a green light and having to sit and wait for ninety seconds. But even that won’t bother you, because you will have nothing to give your attention to other than your thoughts, which are glorious, indeed, even the thoughts about which screws you need from the hardware store to properly install the broom rack in your garage. I mean, life is going to be good!

And all because I will sit down at my desk under a sloped ceiling on the top floor of a house, my fingers tap-tapping out the words that will change your life.

You know how we thought the Hubble Telescope was so amazing, and then came along the Webb Telescope and it was like the Hubble was only a little more effective than one of those coin-operated telescopes at tourist sites that resemble fire hydrants?! The Webb came revealing mystery and wonder and mind-blowing detail! The Webb will show us the secrets of the Universe!

That’s like what my writing will do to your DNA.

We used to think that CRISPR was the cat’s pajamas. You know CRISPR, right? It’s the tool Jennifer Doudna helped to discover. It allows scientists to cut and insert small pieces of DNA at precise locations in a DNA strand to actually change someone’s DNA to correct genetic errors like those causing sickle-cell disease and create gene therapies for cancer (among many other mind-blowing things). It’s the tool for which she was awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Well, my writing is going to change your life even more than CRISPR! As I said, the most discomfort you will feel will be less than or equal to missing a green light.

You will be happy. You will thrive. All of your thoughts will propel your life forward in meaningful ways. You will have no more enemies. You will feel like you’re partying all of the time— almost as if you’d drunk four gallons of alcohol in three days and nights, but without any of the ill effects! That is what MY writing will do for YOU in 2025. You’re welcome!

However, there is one wrinkle— and be sure, I am going to fix it. For a reason no one can explain, my writing will not have that effect on people who have to read using corrective lenses. But not everyone can afford lasix or cataract surgery. See the problem? Our healthcare system is the problem. It was a problem before, and if people can’t read my words on their own, they can’t become healthy on their own. So what are we going to do to fix this wrinkle? I can tell you what we are not going to do: we are not going to shoot healthcare executives. That’s not going to help anyone.

I have to be honest. Until the last couple of days, I didn’t think there was a fix, but then something unexpected (well, not entirely unexpected) happened. Jimmy Carter died. He was such a good human being. He would have fixed everyone’s eyes and the rest of their bodies if he could. He traveled the world trying to help sick people get medical care, among his many other valiant deeds. Yes, people, Jimmy Carter is the answer.

My writing will be so wonderful that even rotten, greedy healthcare executives and crooked politicians will want to meet me, the same people who don’t care who falls at the wayside and dies without proper healthcare. So I will hold a magnificent buffet, inviting all those people who have played a part in keeping good, honest, necessary (and some elective, why not) healthcare from being freely available to everyone who needs or wants it.

While planning that soirée, I will look in one of the many intellectually stimulating while also kind of magical books I have written, and I will find the most simple spell for making bad people into good people. I will think to myself how following that spell I wrote is one of the best ideas ever in the history of humankind (I am not just bandying that about; the idea is that good), and I am certain Jimmy Carter would not mind, because he would help people any way he could.

Yes, I will sprinkle the ashes of Jimmy Carter over every dish in that buffet, spreading the intrinsic good of the 39th President of the United States and making sure it gets to the people who need it most.

Just one speck of Jimmy Carter contains enough goodness that it will transform the very worst person into a good person. And the day after my feast with the horribles, every one of those transformed people will go into their offices and DO SOMETHING about our healthcare system. And the next week, everyone will have recovered from their eye surgeries, and everyone everywhere will be able to read my books, and everyone everywhere will have the most amazing lives ever, from that point on.

This is my Yule Boast. (One of my daughters-in-law asked if I imbibed in the obligatory four gallons of alcohol before writing this. Nope. It’s all me. I told you I was fired up!)

And now it’s. your turn: I’d love to see your Yule Boast in the comments!