Feeling Christmassy

I have had several people ask me lately if I'm feeling "christmassy". I guess I'm not sure what that means - that I'm warm with eggnoggy goodness? That I am aglow with the delights of Christmas lights and red and green tchotchkes? Blow-up snowmen? Life-size snowglobes? Swooning with the pleasures of lines at the post office and people crammed en masse at every store I enter? Is anyone else enjoying this?
I am not a scrooge. I am not a grinch. But I dislike what Martha Stewart has wrought on the holiday we call Christmas - perfect snowflake ornaments, perfect gifts to give, three-story gingerbread houses, piles of fluffy homeade Christmas candy to give your neighbors. And I also dislike what seems to be an insidious marketing scheme this year by certain franchises - the suggestions in their catalogs on what to give your babysitter, your paperboy, your garbageman, your postman, your dogwalker, and apparently anyone you've met on the street in the past year. Ouch! I am not rich. I do not aim to EVER be rich. I can't afford to buy all of these people gifts. Also - why is it expected that I should give all of my friends and acquaintances gifts? Since when is that a thing? Am I tying myself to all kinds of financial obligations every time I make a new friend, or my children make any friends? Well why not MAKE a bunch of homeade gifts to give out - ding ding ding, still expensive AND my time is quite well spent above and beyond making crafts and candies for everyone who lives within a mile's vicinity.
How to get out of this conundrum? Well I think it requires some positioning. Positioning among greater goods. What is this season for? It is for celebrating, with friends and family, the wonder, the beauty, the tenderness of the nativity. It is also for giving. Giving to those we care about and, hopefully, to the needy. Let's just take it down a notch: After we've purchased or made gifts for our family and good friends, let's just call it good, and wish each other a Merry Christmas with a warm smile and a handshake or hug. Then, let's volunteer, and give some money to charity.

Snax Galore

My friend Rebecca has this joke - that healthy snacks are "snacks" but the comestibles of the dorito variety are "snax" with an "x" because they're more fun. It is a nice little jab at junk foodulation.
Here's the thing: it should be bothersome to everyone (yes everyone) that we have adopted the (strongly marketed) idea that chips, "fruit" snax (the only thing resembling a fruit or a vegetable in said snax being the corn syrup), candy bars, processed cookies, spreadable cheesefood with crackers, and their ilk qualify as snacks at all. I've seen the billboards for snickers, "hungerectomy" in the snickers logo and colors. I can count one food item that could be considered a quasi-healthy snack in the ingredients of a snickers bar: the peanuts. Folks: nougat? I'll tell you what it is - hydrogenated oil and corn syrup, whipped to a froth. Milk chocolate - dark chocolate is a good antioxidant, but add a bunch of sugar to it and you have milk chocolate. Sugar is a toxin to our bodies. Caramel - more melted sugar, and butter if you're lucky but more likely it's a cocktail of semi-digestible oils. Yes, all of this is speculation. But it was with horror the other day that I overheard a mother talking to her toddler, saying "Honey? You're hungry? But you've already had your cheetohs and your fruit snax - I guess I could give you your oreos." I almost had a coronary right there in the aquarium. Your. daughter. is. hungry. because. there. is. no. nutritional. value. in. the. foodproducts. you. just. listed.
I'm not on my trailmix high-horse over here, I just want to red flag this idea. What we put into our bodies, and our children's bodies, feeds our blood, our organs, our tissues, our nerves, affects our digestion, our teeth, and our bones. Why not offer our hard-working frames, and our kids' fast growing ones, something with some vitamins, fiber, calcium, potassium, etc.? If not fruit, then cheese, if not cheese, then nuts, if not nuts, then try dark chocolate. But please, just try.

Going Gray

Gray areas. They make me uncomfortable. Make it sharp, clear, definitive, so I can understand whatever it is and move on to the next thing. It's not that I'm a black or white gal (though, speak with any of my friends from college when I was new in the faith and they would remember me as such - hopefully I've grown), it's just that I want a firm place to stand, not a shifting sand dune. I always want to know where I'm at, that it's safe to go forward.
Well. I have a few friends who are friends with Gray People - people who are sometimes nice and sometimes mean. And for my part, I'm not sure where I'm supposed to stand with my friends when they talk about the Mean Moments of their Gray friends. Should I balk? Should I say something in defense of the Gray People? Hard to know. But then I started thinking. Gray People are all there is. Some people are just better at controlling the inner-meanies, or at least hiding them under lock and triple bolted key.
All that to say, I admire my friends' flexibility in this area. They are neither soiled nor vindicated by their Gray friends' grayness - they just continue to love them and don't seem to take too much offense, or get bent out of shape by the Gray peoples' fickleness. This takes patience, and an ability to see the forest - not just the trees. It also assumes the position in regards to human beings that we're all kind of a mixed bag. So true. And you take the good pieces, and you pick them up and dust them off, and set them up on the shelf one at a time. It's what good friends do for one another.

In Praise of Indoor Plumbing

Just a thought -
I would make a terrible pioneer wife. That said, I appreciate indoor plumbing sooooo much. The fact that I can get up, and take a warm shower in the morning is a luxury that I enjoy. I can wash my dishes in warm water at the lifting of a lever. I can bathe my kids by turning the faucet, and in moments a warm, clean bath is drawn for them. These are exquisite goods. And now that the weather has gotten downright cheeky in Evanston (glorious sunlight but skin searing cold) I am so thankful that I don't have to hike to the outhouse when the need arises. How did those wonderful women do it for all of that time - no running water, no electricity, no central air, no indoor toilets? Their toil must have been great. They cooked and cleaned and ran their homes and put up supplies sufficient for winter by canning and smoking and salting and drying. On top of all of this, most of them endured rustic conditions for childbirth, and in fact did so multiple times. Incredible.