Elegantly Random

Lucky duck.

Forgive me, for this is probably going to ignite a bit of a rage in some folks, but I want to share with you a little pet peeve of mine. I can't stand it when people say "I'm so blessed" or "We are so blessed" or "What a blessing." It's a peeve that I get to put up with all year round, but during the holiday season these phrases are dropped as often as snow on Vermont.

Wow...that was such a weak simile.

Anyway. You're probably staring at your monitor in horror right now, wondering how anyone can be such a Grinchly curmudgeon as to actively hate phrases that use the word "blessed." But I promise you, this is not entirely due to the fact that I'm not religious. Although I don't attend church or participate in organized religion, I certainly respect the choice of others to do so. And I'm not slamming God in any way. If there is a God, I'm sure God is fabulous and drives a wicked sports car. With the top down.

Here's my beef. The word "blessed" implies that you have been sanctified or consecrated, that you are worthy of adoration or worship, or that you are blissfully content. Those meanings are usually not what people have in mind when they say they are "blessed." They're usually referring to another definition, which is "divinely or supremely favored; fortunate." 

In other words, you are saying that you are fortunate, which is not a bad thing. It's good for people to recognize and appreciate that they have it pretty good, and be thankful and humble. But the word "blessed" means that God has made you fortunate. And if you believe in God, an all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful God, do you think that God hand-picks some people to be fortunate and others to be screwed? 

Put a different way: when you recount a story about how your boss gave you a $5k bonus and finish it off by saying "I'm so blessed," are you saying that your friends who didn't get a bonus aren't in God's cool-kid clique? That God thought you worthy to receive cash and not them? I don't buy it. Sorry.

So that would be gripe #1 - people basically saying that God picked them to have it good, and if you believe that God has granted you good and happiness, you must also allow as to how the opposite of that is that God intentionally denies others happiness and good.

The other issue I have with the word is that it removes all personal responsibility and accountability from a situation. When people say, "I've got such a good kid, I'm so blessed," it drives me up a wall. You're not blessed! God didn't pause, look around and go, "You! You get to have an awesome kid!" YOU raised that kid and he turned out awesome. You did that. You get a gold star. As far as I'm concerned, you're not blessed. You're fortunate, yes, that your instincts and labor resulted favorably, but you're ultimately reaping the benefits of your own hard work. Pat yourself on the back, because you deserve it. 

Fortunate means having good fortune; receiving good from uncertain or unexpected sources; bringing or indicating good fortune; resulting favorably; auspicious. Fortune means by some miracle, you lucked out and things went well for you. You picked the right guy to marry. You picked the right job. You turned left instead of right. Whatever. I believe that everything happens for a reason, and I believe some people just get lucky - often, in the case of my husband, who is an alien. But, essentially, you make a decision and then you wait and see how it turns out. And that's life. 

I don't believe there is a God who picks certain people for good fortune and others for bad. I think humans are creatures with free will, which some would say is a gift from God. And with that will, we make choices every day that affect our lives. When bad things happen to us, we aren't damned by God. When good things happen, we aren't blessed. We're just people stumbling around trying to do the right thing every day. But take a little credit, folks, for your own hard work and good decisions. Sometimes you're not blessed - you're getting what you deserve because you worked for it (the athlete who wins the race after years of training and hard work). And other times, you're just damn lucky and should thank your stars that things turned out as they did because they could just as easily have gone the other way. Either way, you had a hand in it, didn't you?

This year, I am pausing often to appreciate my many successes and fortunes, while also reflecting on my shortcomings and missed opportunities. I'm weighing the good with the bad, but for the most part, I have to say, I feel incredibly LUCKY and thankful to have a husband and family (and dog) who love me, a job to go to every day, and enough money to buy food and vodka. Because who am I kidding? I'm not special. I'm just a chick who lucked out. I am thankful for these things every day, and my heart is full of hope for those who are in need this holiday season. May their fortunes improve in 2010.

The best kind of gift...

Yesterday my office had a little Christmas shin-dig - we all brought food for a pot-luck lunch and then we went to the small town next door and volunteered for a few hours at a Christmas gift donation site. It was a really fun day; we helped move more than a hundred bikes that had been donated that morning, and also helped sort and arrange packages for pick-up. It was pretty awesome to see all the boatloads of gifts various families had donated. Think of all those children who will get gifts after all on Christmas morning. It really reminded me what the season is all about.

However (there's always a "but" with me, isn't there?) the whole experience got me thinking - why is THIS what the season is all about? Forgive me, but isn't the season about celebrating the birth of Jesus? Or the miracle of Hanukkah? Or the winter solstice? Why is the season about gifting? And suddenly I stood there looking around and thinking, wow. This is depressing. Not that there are so many people in need, but that it's EXPECTED that everyone wake up to a slew of gifts on Christmas morning.

I hope I'm explaining this well, but basically, I just find it sad that Christmas has become about giving and receiving gifts. I know I've talked about it before, and I have some friends who have entirely abandoned gift-giving. In some ways, I'm really starting to see the beauty in that. In general, I think we Americans are way too entitled - we feel that we are owed a lot of stuff. You combine that with the greedy commercialism of the season and it's just a recipe for gross overspending.

The trouble for me has always been that I truly love giving gifts to others. I've tried to combat the commercialism of Christmas by focusing on finding gifts all year, rather than in a crunch at Christmas, and by avoiding commercial traps like Black Friday. Sure you can get a deal, but are you really getting something that will mean anything? Will Mom remember those gloves in 15 years? No. It's just a thing that means nothing at all and was given because a gift was expected. I at least try to pick things up that I know will resonate or mean a lot, and get them when I find them, not between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

But like some of my friends before me, I'm starting to wonder what the point of it all is. What if instead of giving gifts, we just spent time with our families? Or took a trip together - all that money spent gifting could be put to use on a cruise ticket or something we'd all remember. Or we donated our money to a charitable cause? But again - I love gifting. And every year, my family says, "Look at all this junk - who needs it? Let's downsize next year..." and it never happens. We just love giving presents too much.

I know I won't solve this problem this year, but the more I think about it, the less I feel like I need and the more I'm thinking of downsizing. Case in point - the best gift I've gotten so far this year was from my coworker. She gave us each a card and it said, "A gift has been given in your honor - four Safe Motherhood kits to mothers." The money goes to mothers in Rwanda, Tanzania and DR Congo to buy clean equipment needed for one birth. That gift makes me weak in the knees. That's what we should be teaching our kids above any Littlest Pet Shop or Star Wars action kit.

I've been struggling to find a happy medium here. Buying gifts when you see something that really suits someone, and not because you're obligated. Doing more handmade gifting. Doing more acts of generosity like sponsoring a family or a kid for Christmas. But I don't know. Something about it still just doesn't feel quite right. And I'm not saying I don't want my kids to someday wake up to gifts on birthdays or holidays, because I do think that's nice. But there's got to be a way to do better. Because I want my gifts to mean something. I want Christmas or whatever holiday I celebrate to be about love and family, not presents. And ideally, I wouldn't be broke or stressed. And maybe parents with low incomes wouldn't feel guilty and depressed because they can't buy each kid 12 new toys.

Mad at Maine.

I'm really pissed off at Maine.

Six months ago, the state of Maine passed a bill that would allow gay marriage. Yesterday, the voters of Maine headed to the polls to make sure that wouldn't come to pass, and they succeeded. The law was rejected. This follows a similar incident last fall in California, when voters in that state passed Proposition 8 banning gay marriage. As in Maine, the state's decision was overridden by the public at the polls.

I'm not gay. I don't have any family members who are gay. But to me, this issue cuts straight to the heart of human rights and human decency. Who am I, who is anyone, to say some humans should be denied fundamental rights? This isn't a question of religion - it's a question of humanity. And sometimes it is the role of the law to make decisions on behalf of citizens. I know, I know - government intervention is evil. But the general population doesn't always get it right. If government hadn't ever intervened, how long might it have taken for people to opt via general election to grant women or black citizens their basic human rights?

I'm sure many of you have heard the phrase "tyranny of the majority" - and if you haven't, take heed. The basic idea is that, left to their own devices, the majority will gang up on the minority and the minority will lose. But the majority isn't always right (i.e. CIVIL RIGHTS). And sometimes it is the DUTY, yes the DUTY of those in charge to stand up for the little guy.

And right now, gay and lesbian citizens are the little guy. Here's a fantastic argument for why the right to a civil union should never even have been on a ballot to begin with.

Some of you have heard me talk about a certain friend who has not once, but TWICE de-friended me on social media sites for making political comments. More than 100% of participants in a recent poll on my Facebook page concluded that de-friending someone for speaking up is LAMER THAN LAME. The first time it happened, I was really crushed. The second time, I didn't care.

Last year, during the presidential election, some things came to the surface with a black man and a woman running for president that just sickened me. Issues were stirred up that I hadn't had to deal with among friends before. And I had a sort of personal epiphany. While I absolutely respect that some people's views won't line up with mine, and I am fine with that, I'm no longer going to give hate a free pass.

What I mean is this. If you truly believe that gay marriage is evil, that gay people are going to hell, then fine. I'm not going to try and change your mind. I think you're wrong, but I'm not going to argue with you. You are entitled to think that. But the minute you cross the line from "I personally think this is wrong" to "I am going to vote to remove someone's rights," I'm done. Go ahead and think gay marriage is evil - you have fun with all that hatred. It's probably exhausting. But if you voted against gay marriage, you are hateful.

HATEFUL.

Because who CARES? Why does it matter to you if your neighbor is gay and gets married? It changes NOTHING about your life. But your vote absolutely changes your neighbor's life. Who are you to say, to judge? What's the big deal? Are you scared your kid is going to go to school with a kid who's got gay parents? And they're going to hang out and your kid is gonna TURN GAY? Get a grip! This is the world we live in - gay people are people too. 

Should I have been denied marriage because I married a Jew, or he married me? Because it's the same thing. Should black people still be sitting at the back of the bus? Should women still be denied the right to vote?

This has nothing to do with religion. It has to do with ignorance, fear and hate. And I'm not going to stand for it. I can't force people to wake up and become better people. But I can call it like I see it. Hate. If you don't want to marry a gay couple in your church, don't - but there's NO REASON I can see to deny them a civil ceremony and the same basic rights as any heterosexual, committed couple.

And one more thing - this whole notion of tolerance? That has to go. Tolerance doesn't help. Acceptance helps. Don't just deign to tolerate those who are different from you - accept them. Open your heart, accept it and MOVE ON.

From now on, anyone who moves to strip a person's rights as a human or to prevent them from gaining basic human rights that have previously been denied them is a HATEFUL person. There's no sugar-coating that. You do your thing, I'll do mine - but don't take my right to my thing away from me. Not till I've hurt or killed someone should I EVER have to worry about my rights being taken from me. And having your kid exposed to gayness, or having to work with a gay person is absolutely not murder or hurt. It's REAL LIFE. THIS IS THE REAL WORLD - join it ANY TIME. You can keep voting it down, but it's not going away.

I do believe in spooks! I do I do I do!

This morning on my favorite radio talk show, Bob & Sheri opened the phone lines and challenged callers to convince Bob of the existence of paranormal activity. Several people shared stories of strange occurrences in their homes, on vacations, etc. I'm not sure whether skeptical Bob was convinced or not, but it was definitely a fun kick-off to the Halloween weekend. It's a holiday I've always enjoyed, aside from the obnoxious trend of chicks using it as an excuse to dress like whores. Like they don't do that on any other weekend night. But I digress.

Being an agnostic type of gal, I don't really have any beliefs in particular about what happens to us when we die. And I think maybe that's why I can't discount the possibility that there IS such a thing as ghosts and spirits and the like. I've talked with several people over the years who have shared personal accounts of noises and activity they couldn't explain, eerie happenings in their homes or workplaces. There are dozens of shows devoted to the paranormal watched by people all over the world. Every historic town on the globe makes money giving ghost tours. If there's really no such thing as ghosts, would so many people have so many stories?

I guess the same thing could be said for religion, huh? If there were nothing to it, would so many people believe in some form of God? Digressing again!

I have only ever had one experience that falls into the paranormal activity category. When I was a senior in college, I was a resident advisor. Our college owned many houses that lined the perimeter of our campus and used them for student housing. That year, I lived on the first floor of a big, 100+ year-old brick mansion on the very outskirts of campus. It was sort of isolated and sat on a huge lot, back from the road and with wide acreage around it. The house was three stories tall and 16 women lived in it. It had a legitimate stone cellar, which no one enjoyed doing laundry in. It had been updated to make it user-friendly for so many people, with several added bathrooms, the kitchen transformed into a bedroom, and the fireplace covered to avoid hazard.

At the beginning of the year, I was alone in the house for two weeks during RA training. I had a key that opened all the doors in the house, so that I could check and prepare each room before the girls arrived for move-in day. On the first night I was living in that house, I woke up in the middle of the night because I heard sounds above me - footsteps on the stairs two floors up. It really startled me, because there was no one there yet aside from me, and all the room doors were locked. I had purposefully checked every single room that day to make SURE the house was empty and re-locked each door, trying each handle. When you're 21 years old and a female living alone in a big house, you do NOT forget to lock every door and you make SURE you're alone before you go to sleep. That house was EMPTY.

So I decided, well maybe it wasn't the stairs. It's an old house, and I have lived in a LOT of old houses over the years. It could have been "old house noises." I tried to go back to sleep, but then I heard it again. Footsteps. I got up out of bed and cautiously made my way to the door, the keys in my hand. I was determined to re-check the house to be sure I was alone. As I unlocked my own door and started to open it, I heard a BANG above me - a door slamming. Hastily, I re-locked my door and grabbed the phone to call my boyfriend.

"What it is?" he asked sleepily.

"I think there's someone in the house with me - will you come over?" I whispered.

(Sure, I could have called campus security, but boyfriends trump rent-a-cops, right?)

So he came over, and I let him in the (locked) back door. We went around the house and we opened every single door to every single room, checked thoroughly for humans and spirits, and re-locked them. We also checked windows, fire escapes, bathrooms, the basement...Nothing. I made him stay the night, I was so spooked.

I would like to say that was the only time I had an experience like that in that house, but it wasn't. Off and on for the two weeks before move-in, and the days I was alone in the house between semesters and at the end of the year - basically anytime I was the only person in the house and it was all silent - I heard noises. Footsteps on the stairs. Water running. Laughing and talking. Doors opening and closing. Strange creaks. It was seriously like there was a family living in the house that I just couldn't see. Other girls told me they had heard similar things when the house was relatively empty. I asked the residence life staff and - get this - they all acknowledged there were some stories, but refused to tell me more. Which is pretty ominous if you ask me. I thought about going to the library and researching the house, but I decided that since nothing hostile was going down, maybe it was better NOT to know and get even more spooked.

I never saw anything, and I know sounds are suspect, but all I can say is, I would not be surprised to learn there were ghosts in that house.

So, heading into Halloween, a great time for playful spooking, I'd love to hear from you, my awesome readers. Do you believe in ghosts? Has anything eerie ever happened to you?

Have a safe and Happy Halloween weekend!

Hiding the God Squad.

Dude! It's September! How the heck did that happen? I have been so busy, I haven't even had time to play World of Warcraft! SAD! What will become of my awesome warlock? I've hardly had the chance to work with her! Not to mention my rogue, Wendypeff! I miss you, Wendy!

*pause for air* Wow, I'm a nerd.

Don't worry though, all's not lost. I'm still knitting.

Recently, I made an awesome discovery on Facebook - the "hide" function. You would think, since social media is a huge part of my life and my livelihood, I would have realized this capability existed much, much sooner, but I didn't. Because I now have someone working with me who is paid to pay attention to the functions of Facebook, so I just go on there with reckless abandon, clicking around with eyes wide shut, not paying much attention to the new bells and whistles that are added every day.

For those of you who, like me, are a little slow on the uptake, here's what I'm talking about. If you are looking at the news feed, and you click your mouse to the far right of a person's name in the news feed, a little button that says "Hide" will come up, and you can click it. AND HIDE THEM.

Here's what prompted me to seek out and find this awesome, life-altering function: the lord.

I don't think I'm shocking any of my readers when I inform you that I don't talk much about God, nor do I read much about God or think much about God. So, for me, one of the most irritating things about social media is how people use it for proselytizing and spreading the gospel of Jesus. I hate to pick solely on Christians here, but I have yet to see a SINGLE person post something on Facebook about Krishna, Moses, Allah or anyone other than J.C. When I do, I will come back here, edit and apologize, but I'm not holding my breath.

Note to self: I should really ask my Jewish husband why he doesn't update with posts in Hebrew, straight out of the Torah, several times a week. What gives?

I'm happy for any of my Facebook friends who feel one with their god and take joy in the spiritual, blah blah blah. Glad you've found what you're looking for. But the thing is - I'm not looking for it, and I don't much want to hear about it. I don't want to hear ten Bible verses a day. I don't want to know what you're praying for, or that you think the Lord is doing great miracles today. Does this not belong in specific groups formed for that purpose? Does it really belong in your news feed? It's one thing for a person to post the occasional update about religion, and I don't mind, but I have noticed that several of my Facebook acquaintances post Jesus-related propaganda to their news feed ten or more times a day, and I'm over it. One I can handle, ten, not so much.

And that's not even including the INVITATIONS I get from people to take the "Which Disciple Are You" quiz or become a fan of this or that church or pastor. Seriously? If you live in LA, chances are I'm not going to become a fan of your church. I don't even go to church HERE, where I LIVE. Why would I become a fan of yours all the way across the country?

So that was really starting to cause a dilemma - should I de-friend someone because they're Twittering and Facebooking incessantly about Jesus? That seems pretty...harsh, right? Sinful? Heathenish? Ok, fine, I guess it's all of the above. And I absolutely don't want a single one of my friends to feel that he or she cannot post about whatever they want to - it's a free country, and we all know how much I love to exercise my own right to freedom of speech. I've had someone de-friend me because of the liberal rants I posted, and it sucked. It made me feel terrible. I don't want to make anyone feel terrible. Isn't there a way we can co-exist here?!?!

And so I started poking around...and LO! THE ANGEL OF THE FACEBOOK APPEARED TO ME AND SAID, I GIVE YE HIDE! AND IT WAS GLORIOUS.

So NOW, whenever I reach the breaking point with the folks who really just can't seem to write about anything else other than their spiritual breakthroughs and epiphanies, I don't have to de-friend them (I never actually did that, but I was honestly considering it). I just HIDE THEM! WIN! And I'm so not the only person who's doing this - I have talked to several other people, some of whom are VERY religious Christians, who are equally sick of this stuff and have hidden friends guilty of over-the-top Jesus-posting. And it's not just religion - others I've talked to hid people when they grew tired of hearing about this that and the other thing - politics. World of Warcraft. Cooking. Sex. WHATEVER! Hiding is the new friending.

And I INVITE YOU to give it a try. If you're sick of hearing about how my latest knitting project is going, by all means, HIDE MY ASS. HIDE THE HELL OUT OF IT! I don't mind! I totally understand! Sick of my liberal views? Don't delete me - HIDE THAT SHIT! No reason we can't be friends. I seriously think the "Hide" function is a milestone in the process of bridging the gap between people of different religions and political affiliations. Why can't we all just get along? Well, now we can!

Note to self: I wonder if this post will cause people I'm connected to on Facebook to worry and begin praying for me. In their news feeds. Hmm...I'll never know - because they'll be HIDDEN! JOY!

Pansy fasters!

Yesterday a friend asked me what I intended to give up for Lent. I love how the conversation began with the assumption that I would be participating in Lent, but hey - that's the South for you. Everyone assumes you're a Christian till you tell them otherwise, and even still they refuse to believe you.

So I politely informed her that I don't participate in Lent. She looked at me like I was headed directly for the seventh circle of hell (that one's for you, Joan!), then went on to tell me about how she would be giving up candy for Lent. She was just one of several people who've brought this up this week, and it has been simmering in the back of my mind for a few days now, so I just had to come here and say...Lent is dumb.

I do understand the ritual of fasting - I have a Jewish husband, after all. Lent was meant to be a period of fasting and penance, of doing more acts of good will and trying to become closer to God. But nowadays, for most people, Lent is basically boiled down to 40 days of giving up something you like, something meaningless like chocolate or going to the movies.

I'm sorry, but it just riles me when someone says to me, "I'm giving up candy for Lent! How am I supposed to go 40 days without candy? I love candy!" Right...because giving up candy is comparable to the suffering of Christ. Show me some real fasting, people! And also, Lent tends to be a time when wishy-washy Christians come out of the woodwork. Really? You're going to give up meat for the next month? And when exactly was the last time you attended church anyway?

I know I'm biased because I'm not religious, but come on, people. Get serious. If you're going to make a sacrifice in the name of your Lord for 40 days, let's get real about it. Give up something that means something to you, at the very least - something a little deeper than a bag of Doritos. Yet another reason I'm absolutely sure Jesus would be downright pissed if he could come down here and survey the crazy stuff being done in his name.

Now - before you go leaving me some cranky-ass comments, let me just say that if you are one of the devout souls who find true and deep meaning in the practice of Lent, and if you seriously observe the period of Lent with purpose and commitment, then I am not talking to you. I'm talking to all the half-assed idiots who make the whole thing look like a sham. And you good Christians should go and kick their candy asses.

Darwin fail.

This is probably old news to a lot of you at this point, but last week my friend Eric sent me this wildly upsetting survey regarding the American people and their collective disbelief in Darwin's theory of evolution.

According to this Gallup research, only 39% of Americans say they "believe in the theory of evolution," while a quarter say they do not believe in the theory, and another 36% don't have an opinion either way.

*Double-take*

I'm sorry. Perhaps this is my absolute disinterest in organized religion speaking, but are you kidding me? Can the number of people who accept evolution as an explanation for mankind really be that low? Because it seems to me that if that's the case, then probably the same number of people take the Bible literally - about 25% of the American population. Which is another issue entirely - I've never understood how people can take seriously a book that's tons of centuries old and written by a gaggle of dudes who were in complete disagreement with one another. But fine, I'm the heathen in the room so I'll just let that one be.

We have a whole lot of pretty concrete scientific evidence to back up the theory of evolution. And I think you'd have to have blinders on to spend more than 2 seconds around a monkey and not see how closely it resembles a frat boy. So either the American people are in complete denial, or they're even stupider than I thought.

I'm not hating on faith here - I'm just saying, sometimes what you see is what you get. And I think you can have faith in the mystery of God or whatever higher power you want to believe in while still acknowledging the truths of science.

So happy birthday, Darwin! Turns out people think you were full of shit!

Crossing the pond.

We're going to London!

First, I want to thank you all SO much for all your awesome suggestions, travel tips and insight. It was so much fun to read through everyone's comments and it made me want to book a trip to all five destinations on our list. Let me share with you some of our decision-making process.

Jay's work could and likely will take him (and therefore me!) to San Fran, Seattle or Portland - his company has offices in all of these cities. San Fran was going to be more expensive than London, so we decided to wait on that one. Also, I have a dream of attending the 2010 winter Olympics in Vancouver. Who knows if that will happen - but if it does, my plan would be to hit up Seattle in the process. \We crossed Ireland off the list for now because the most affordable flight involved a connection in Philadelphia.

Lots of you thought that a flight to Europe might be too long for a 5-day trip. The flight to London on Wednesday is at 8:30 p.m. It's a seven-hour, direct flight and when we wake up Thursday morning, we'll be in London. Our return flight leaves at 11 a.m. and gets us back to Charlotte at 4 p.m. on Monday - plenty of time to recover. When we went to D.C. this fall, it took us nearly as long to drive there as it will to fly to the UK.

The suggestion was tossed out that we go on a cruise. I have gone on one cruise, but I'm not sure I would go on one with Jay because we like to travel on foot as much as possible, and we're not much for itineraries. Cruises really just aren't my thing. I prefer to visit a city and immerse myself in it for a few days without the constant moving around to resorty-feeling destinations. Unless it's a girly trip. Then I'm totally down.

A few of you also said that we'd need a week or 10 days to explore London or Dublin. Here's the thing: in any city in the world that's worth a damn, you could spend 3 weeks there and still not cover it all. I've spent what would total up to be about four months in New York, and I still have a huge list of things to do there. So waiting around till I have the time and money for a two-week trip still doesn't mean I could ever do everything on my list. And frankly, I'm not going to have time for a two-week trip anytime soon.

We have been yearning to travel outside North America for years, and what kept happening was that we would envision these long (10-14 day) trips that were all costly and time-consuming. There are several reasons why we can't plan a 10-day trip right now, the least of which is cost, but there's always something preventing us from making the trips we want. We're getting married. We're buying a house. A tree falls on our fence. We need to travel to see family...you name it. I also realized that if we started taking advantage of the deals that are out there right now, even we are only gone 5 days, it's better than not going for another year. And who knows - we may be able to take more than one cool trip per year!

Another advantage to the five-day trip, as we found out in D.C., is that it's long enough to make you feel like you've really been on vacation, but when you come back you're not buried under a mountain of work like you are when you take a week or more off.

In short, I'm sick of waiting to experience the things on my list. I was really starting to feel like I would never be able to schedule a trip because I was limiting myself to only considering long vacations. But now I'm going to make my first oversees trip (terrified of the flight)! Our plane tickets and hotel reservations cost us a total of $1,500 for the five days, which we paid in full, and the exchange rate is a little better than it's been so hopefully we won't go broke trying to eat in London. I could not be more excited. I'm getting to use my passport without breaking my bank and I'll still have more than a week of vacation left before Labor Day. So here's to breaking in my passport - and just think of how much knitting I can do on a seven hour flight!

Again, thank you all so much for your help and encouragement. I love my readers!

A Very Sarie Chryulemakkah

I grew up loving Christmas - absolutely loving it. I love the lights, the decorations, the gift-giving, the baking of holiday treats, and most of all, the tree. I used to spend hours each evening sitting by the Christmas tree, just reading books - mostly just enjoying the tree. To this day, the smell of evergreens is one of my favorite things. We celebrated the hell out of Christmas in my house, my mom's knack for decor really on display (and we're not talking cheesy snowmen or nativity scenes, we're talking high-class, antiquey goodness).

What we didn't really have a lot of in our house was religion. We managed to celebrate Christmas without really ever dealing a whole lot with Jesus. I don't like to use labels, but I'll just say that we didn't attend church (at Christmas or any other time, really) and we didn't pray at home, either. We did sing Christmas carols, and we were taught the story of Jesus, so it wasn't like we were complete heathens - but we weren't practicing anything either. I think my parents decided a long time ago that organized religion just wasn't for them.

Well, we certainly do absorb a lot of what we're taught as children - so lo and behold, I have grown into adulthood without a religion. And over the course of the past several years, I have come to terms with the fact that it's deeper than not having a religion - I don't want one. And if I were in the market for a religion, it wouldn't be Christianity. I'm not a Christian. (Incidentally, I do believe there was a man named Jesus of Nazareth, and that he was a great man who taught goodness and peace. I believe in his messages about how you should treat other humans and the kind of people we should strive to be. But to me, Jesus is no different than Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa and other "prophets." And I have decided to be okay with the fact that I don't believe in organized religion, and I don't believe in the deification of human beings. Which is certainly a huge part of why I can get along just fine with my husband, who is Jewish - a faith that, in my opinion, is all about not finding the Messiah - just waiting indefinitely. I absolutely enjoy celebrating his holidays with him - especially Hanukkah.

So I'm cool with not believing in Jesus - but what does that do to my love of Christmas? I'm struggling a little bit to redefine the season in a way that works for me. At its core, Christmas is supposed to celebrate the birth of Jesus - but he wasn't even born on December 25. Christmas is a mish-mash of several holidays at this point anyway, not the least of which is the Pagan tradition of Yule, so the holiday we celebrate right now isn't all about Jesus anyway. Santa Claus wasn't exactly a figure in Bethlehem, you know. I don't think Christmas trees have much to do with Jesus either. I've already talked about how Christmas has become a consumer nightmare, so I won't get into that again now, but it's definitely added to the confusion of the holiday season.

To me, the Christmas season is about "good will to men" - something Jesus definitely taught, and something we should all strive for, whether we're Christian or Jewish or agnostic or atheist or Scientologist or whatever. I think it's a season that can be celebrated by people of all faiths - I don't think it's accidental that Hanukkah, Yule, Kwanzaa and Christmas all fall around the Winter Solstice and the New Year. There's a greater, higher meaning behind this, and I think it's that we're all supposed to pause for a minute and think about something other than ourselves. We get so caught up in religion, but religions are just translations of the same language, which is loving one another.

Anyway - this is what I'm telling myself - that it's cool to heart Christmas trees and Bing Crosby songs even though I lack the lord-on for Jesus. And it's working for me, so don't you judge me! :)

Did you know it's Christmas?

If I look in the mirror and see a tall, hairy, pot-bellied green Grinch staring back at me one of these years, I will not be surprised.

I swear, I'm becoming less and less tolerant of the Christmas holiday - which is sad because I have always so enjoyed the entire holiday season. But in my defense, this shit keeps coming earlier and earlier year after year, so consider this me standing atop Mt. Crumpit with my green Grinchy fist raised giving the holiday Whos a great big GESTURE - enough already!

Ladies and gentlemen, I beseech you. Christmas does not begin in late October. Christmas does not begin in early November. And no, Christmas does not even begin at Thanksgiving. Christmas is December 25, and I'm pretty sure a full month of holiday cheer would suffice, thankyouverymuch. I am so tired of going to Target or Macy's at Halloween and being surrounded by Christmas trees and gift specials. As much as I have attempted to begin shopping early instead of waiting till the last minute, the store doesn't need to be decked out in bows and ribbon and twinkly lights for me to get my shopping accomplished. It's just STUPID.

 And most importantly, I do not want to be inundated with Christmas music on 24/7 holiday stations on November 9! It is absolutely unfair that I have had the song Sleigh Ride stuck in my head all day long, and yesterday it was Deck the Hall - who sings fa la la la la before the Thanksgiving turkey has even been carved?!

In my household there is a strict rule - Bing [Crosby] Season officially begins the day after Thanksgiving. Until that Friday, there is no Christmas music, no decor, no holiday-themed movies, no tinsel, no packages, no NOTHING!

And I realize that stores want to start selling early - fine. But the most lead time anyone needs for Christmas is about 50 shopping days. That means there is no excuse to have a single Christmas-related item in stores until the first week of November. Under no circumstances should I be seeing Christmas trees alongside Halloween costumes!

If we don't stand up and fight the greeting card companies and the stores on this one, I'm not kidding you, we're going to be buying Christmas crap in August. Some places actually do have all-year Christmas sales in their stores as it is. Enough is enough, people. I think a few people need to remember what the entire thing is supposed to be about! I'm not even religious and I get it. Take 'em away, Linus!