What makes a Christmas?

As I was driving out to my aunt's this afternoon and listening to a song called "The Secret of Christmas" (gotta listen to the Christmas music before tomorrow right?),  I was considering the lyrics and wondering what actually does make a Christmas for me. I'm sure it's a little different for everyone, but here are some things that are essential parts of Christmas for me.

#1 - The album "Brand New Year" by SHeDAISY. (Yes, they capitalize all but the E like that. Don't know why.) But this is my favorite Christmas album of all time, and usually my Christmas season starts sometime after the Chamaco's birthday on the 9th when I pop in this CD and sing along while putting up the Christmas tree.  Disturbingly, the Chamaco's favorite song on the album is "Santa's Got a Brand New Bag". He probably doesn't realize it, but the premise of the song is that Santa has basically had an extreme makeover and now the girl singing has the hots for him.

#2 - The shopping trip with my sister. At some point not too long after the first event, my sister and I will go out on a big shopping expedition. I always think I'm going to get all my shopping done that day, and it never happens. But generally we sing in at least 3 stores. And the car. And generally we find stuff that we would like for ourselves that the other agrees to buy and wrap on the condition that the other acts surprised on Christmas morning.

#3 - The Ladies' Ornament Party/Cookie Exchange. This is where the season really starts hopping... nothing says Christmas quite like laughter, theivery, and multiple exclamations of "Oooh, shiny!!!" And most of the time I bring home an ornament that isn't even hideous! My Christmas tree does not have a nice set of themed ornaments, oh no... it is a random mish-mash of stuff my kid made, stuff my mom gave me over the years (she's been giving me an ornament every year for years, on the premise that when I grew up and moved out I would have some... she's still giving them to me), and mostly ornaments garnered from Ornament Parties over the years. Also the all women singing of Christmas carols is pretty awesome.

#4 - Smashing candy canes to bits with a hammer. No, seriously. I do this every year. There's a reason. A few years back one of my co-workers at MES made this stuff she called "Christmas Bark" and we all demanded the recipe. It's easy enough that even I can do it, so I made some that year, and have done so for the family Christmas gathering every year since then. One of the requirements is smashed up candy canes, and I have found the most effective method of smashing is to put them inside a couple of plastic bags and then have at them with a hammer. Fun and festive. : )

#5 - Wrapping. I almost don't know why we bother, because by the time we've helped Mom wrap everything, we've seen pretty much everyone else's gifts and maybe one or two of our own, but I guess it takes me back to the days when I was the only one old enough to wrap presents so I'd help Mom wrap everything for my younger siblings and my dad. This year I did it while wearing reindeer antlers, which was a new twist.

#6 - The annual "me singing 'Police Stop My Car' and someone else looking at me like I'm nuts. Many years ago when I was in Community Chorus and we sang at Zoolights, one of my choirmates taught me this song (to the tune of "Feliz Navidad") and we ran about through the zoo in the dark singing it. Instant holiday classic. Lyrics follow, so that you may all be educated. (This should be sung in a fake Mexican accent, ideally.)

Police stop my car
Police stop my car
Police make me stop
Walk a straight line and blow a balloon up

(chorus)
He wants to wish me a sober Christmas
That's why he always pull me over, Christmas
He just wants to make sure
There's no open bottles in my car

Police, road they block
Police, road they block
Police, road they block
And I can smell the donuts as they smell my breath

(chorus) 

Police lock me up
Police lock me up
Police lock me up
'Cause when I blew, I blew a 2.1 

(chorus)

Item #6 leads us to...

#7 - Unconventional Christmas songs. To me, Christmas isn't Christmas without at least one listening of each of the following: "Merry Christmas From the Family" (Montgomery Gentry), "Merry Christmas from the Whole Fam-Damily" (Cledus T. Judd), "Leroy the Redneck Reindeer" (Joe Diffie), "'Twas the Day After Christmas" (Jeff Foxworthy), "Christmas at Ground Zero" (Weird Al Yankovic), "The Night Santa Went Crazy" (Weird Al Yankovic), "Spice Girls Got Run Over by a Reindeer" (no idea), "Grandpa Got Runned Over by a John Deere" (Cledus T. Judd)... Not to mention the aforementioned "Santa's Got a Brand New Bag" (SHeDAISY). There are probably more, but I have to hear all these plus three "normal" Christmas carols... "Angels We Have Heard on High", "Carol of the Bells", and "O Holy Night" (as sung by Martina McBride. Josh Groban or whatever his name is can just zip it.)

#8 - Christmas morning with Mom and Dad. 28 years now and I have not missed a Christmas morning with Mom and Dad. Sometime if I ever get married again and/or move far, far away (or even move near-ish but have in-laws), I might have to miss one, but I haven't done it yet.

#9 - Christmas afternoon get-together with extended family. Sometimes this happens up to a week after the actual Christmas, but when it does it's Christmas all over again. And it always leads to...

#10 - Hilarious family game. It just wouldn't be a family get-together at all if we didn't have at least 4 or 5 of us sit down to play what seems like a perfectly innocent game and then have some sort of hilarity ensue. This is often Apples to Apples, but can also be Mexican Train, Outburst, Taboo, Chicken Foot, or any of a host of others. Today it was a new game called simply, "What?" And I learned that my relatives are all so weird it's hard to tell which wacky idea came from who... I love that about us.

With the top ten list out of the way, I also wanted to share something... maybe it's a week early for this, but the title track of "Brand New Year" is a song that I always like to listen to a little bit after Christmas and as I head into January. I'm going to put up the lyrics for you, and I suggest you consider them...

Learning to turn the outside inside out
Having the courage to find what life is all about
Loving so purely can surely melt a frozen heart
Knowing sometimes all over's the perfect place to start

(chorus) 
Welcome to my revolution
Lucky you, lucky me, the way we were meant to be
This is my one resolution
And I make it with no fear
To live, to love, today
'Cause it's a brand new year

Seeing the world through rose-colored eyes
Yeah, this is my one big chance, and I'm gonna take it twice
With the past down below I know love lifted me up here
So I'll take a breath, kiss the sky, toll the bell
'Cause it's a brand new year

(chorus) 

Resiliently reclaiming me
Refining my recovery
Untwist my fate, unlock the gate
Let's make a little noise
'Cause it's a brand new year!

I mention this song because, as a career pessimist, it has always been my inclination to say something to the effect of "Hey, a whole new year.... just like the last one!" in a very sarcastic tone when January 1st rolls around. But maybe, just maybe mind you, it would be okay to look at New Year's with a little optimism... like the song says, "sometimes all over's the perfect place to start" and there's just something symbolic about taking last year's calendar down off the wall and tossing it in the trash... last year is over and done, and you get to start all over fresh in a brand new year. This is probably why people make new year's resolutions. I make new year's suggestions, but that's another blog... ;-)

Song o' the Day: "Bury Me Alive" by We Are The Fallen. It keeps being stuck in my head. (Bet you thought it was going to be "Brand New Year", didn't you? Ha!)

The changes TWO years can bring...

Last year I wrote this blog comparing Christmas season '08 and Christmas season '09. I figured I might as well keep the chain going and compare Christmas season '10. And since I'm a great fan of color coding, 2008 will be in red, 2009 will be in yellow, and 2010 will be in green. :)

2008: We lived in a falling-apart house with no heat.
2009: We live in a pretty nice apartment with gas heat.
2010: We live in the same apartment as last year. Have somehow managed to keep paying the rent. Praise God!

2008: I was unemployed. All year.
2009: I sometimes wish I worked less, but I am blessed to have a job surrounded by good, godly poeple who are passionate about what they do and make working with them so much fun.
2010: Same job situation except it has dawned on me that I really don't like teaching. Okay, so I knew that all along, but now I'm really starting to get the urge to move along... still like the people I work with, though!

2008: I did nearly all my Christmas shopping at the Dollar Tree, because it was what I could afford.
2009: I did most of my Christmas shopping at Wal-Mart... moving on up!
2010: Primarily Wal-Mart again. No huge change in this department.


2008: We got food boxes from a couple of different local organizations.
2009: An organization called to offer us a food box and I told them they could probably find someone who needed it worse than we do. After I hung up I realized what I'd just been able to say and I almost cried.
2010: Nobody even offered us a food box this year.

2008: I carried my son upstairs to his bed when he fell asleep on the couch.
2009: I can barely pick up my son, much less carry him upstairs. This only happened in the last month or two. I realized today that soon I won't be able to pick him up at all... my baby is gone. I almost cried.
2010: I can still pick up my nine-year-old boy for brief periods of time

2008: My son was the sort of co-dependent that being the only child of a single mom will get you.
2009: I have an increasingly independent eight-year-old who more and more often wants to do things by himself. I told him that I was going to get Nancy's recipe for play-doh because the stuff we make at work is better than the store-bought stuff. I said this because I thought it would be something fun we could do together. He asked if he could do it by himself.
2010: My son cooked dinner a few weeks ago. I supervised him, but the only thing I actually did for him was turn the knobs on the stove, because he can't reach them yet. He's older but still short... lol.

2008: I had a couple of friends, but mostly felt very lonely and isolated.
2009: I have some very good friends, some less-close-but-still-good friends, some casual acquaintances that always make me smile (hello CTG!), a pretty full social calendar, and sometimes wish desperately to just be home by myself for a few hours.
2010: All of the above, plus a couple of new friends... :-)

2008: I was single.
2009: Still single... no change there. : )
2010: Despite some rumors you may have heard, still single. But I guess there were at least rumors this year. Maybe next year there will be something to them! ;-)

I was remembering that when I started working where I work in September of 2009, my supervisor asked me what my goals for the future were. I told her I didn't feel I'd had enough stability in the last 7 years or so to have made any goals... I'd been in constant survival mode. My "goal" was to create as much stability in my life as possible. Looking back over 2010, it's been actually a pretty quiet year, devoid of any major upheavals. I worked a lot, I played a little... we were housed, clothed and fed. Money was tight but we were never completely without anything we actually needed. Things have been relatively stable. So I guess I got what I wanted. And maybe I'm imagining it, but I have this feeling that 2011 is not going to be anywhere near so quiet... I have the feeling that big things are about to happen. I just have no idea what. So everyone hold onto your hats, because 2011 is just around the corner!!

Forced Creativity/The Quest for the Holy Grail...

Okay, so I did a mini-vacation from the blog because of the whole Christmas thing, and I'm sure absolutely NOBODY actually noticed or cared. Except for me, and that's enough I suppose.

Anyway, the story I want to relate first takes place on Christmas Eve Eve (That's December 23rd for those of you who can't sort this stuff out). The scene: Allison (sister sib extraordinaire) and I are out trying to get all the shopping done. Also important to note is that on December 16th my class made tortillas at work and I learned how, and I was given the leftover masa mix and told where (supposedly) I could buy a tortilla press. Specifically I was told WinCo. So when Allison and I were up on 82nd in Clackamas where there's a WinCo, I decreed that we should venture in and search for the tortilla press. It was INSANE in there... way too many people and no tortilla presses.

This was a scenario that would repeat at Fred Meyer, K-Mart, Haggen, (all in Oregon City) and Wal-Mart and Mega Foods (in Woodburn). Though we were having great fun out running around shopping and trying to make an innuendo of some sort out of every street sign we saw (that was some hilarity there!), the tortilla press had become the Holy Grail of the shopping trip... none were to be found anywhere, even in a Wal-Mart where I can pretty much be the only white person in there.

I was about to give up standing despondently in the Hispanic Foods aisle of Mega Foods when lo and behold, there came a man whose son I used to teach at MES. The kid was also with him and I said hi to both of them. Then I decided there was no harm in asking, so I asked the guy (who happens to be Mexican) if he knew where in the world I might find a tortilla press. He gave me the name of a little Mexican tienda up in the "little Mexico" section of town... that strip where nearly every store and business is owned and run by Mexicans and the majority of the signage is in Spanish. If I didn't speak Spanish I might have been a little freaked about going there, but I do and so we charged on boldly to find the store.

We arrived there shortly before 9 p.m. (we had been out shopping since about 1) and they looked at us a little strangely as we wandered up and down aisles looking at the imported candy. Allison's primary comments were "What's this?" and "Can we buy some?" The place did have a number of tortilla presses, but they were wooden rather than metal and looked more decorative than functional. No Holy Grail. After almost giving up in despair even at that store, I noticed a corner window display area that we hadn't stepped into yet. And there, in a crate on the floor, were about five metal tortilla presses.

Holy Grail found. Much rejoicing in the camp.

So on Christmas Eve, the Chamaco and I made tortillas. Or I should say really he made tortillas... he rolled the dough into balls and pressed the tortillas, and I just fried the suckers up. About halfway through the tortilla making process I realized I had no idea what we were going to put on the tortillas, so I went digging through the cupboards. I found a can of chicken, a can of corn and some cheese and tossed all three into a skillet. It was surprisingly good... the Chamaco said it was the best dinner he's ever had.

Christmas came and went really quick like it always does, and I realized that we have not much food and not much money with which to buy food until approximately the 2nd of January. So tonight I've been digging around seeing what I can find to feed us for the next week or so. I went by Grocery Outlet and picked up those cheap food staples that I don't really know what to do with... dry beans, rice (the regular kind, not the Rice-a-Roni kind with flavors), some corn... going to be getting creative with that and the tortillas during the next week. We'll see how it turns out.

It is most assuredly NOT beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

Around this time of year, many people assume (wrongly) that I don't like Christmas. I groan and cover my ears when I hear Christmas music playing and I make disparaging comments about people who already have their Christmas trees up/Christmas shopping done/houses decorated. This often gets me the "bah-humbugger" label, applied by people who haven't actually picked my brain on the subject.

Let me assure you, nothing could be farther from the truth.

In actual fact, Christmas is one of the precious few holidays that I care about at all (the other three being Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and Halloween... though my love for the latter is diminishing a bit). I never liked Valentine's Day, I'm not even remotely Irish (despite the fantastic American melting pot that is my DNA) and I don't drink hardly ever, so I don't give a whooping funt about St. Patrick's Day. Easter is sort of a throwaway holiday to me... it's when the rest of the world finally gets around to celebrating something that I, as a Christian, try to celebrate every day - the resurrection of Christ. And I still don't get what rabbits and eggs are supposed to have to do with that, especially since rabbits don't lay eggs (with the notable exception of the Cadbury Bunny). I only care about New Year's in the sense that I have a legitimate excuse to stay up ridiculously late and hang out with my friends... which is another thing that I would do at any time of the year. Otherwise, hey, a brand new year... just like the last one. Big fat hairy deal.

No, I like Christmas. What I object to is the overcommercialization of Christmas. I object to the fact that Christmas has become 99% about buying stuff and 1% about being with your loved ones (and forget Christ, because we have taken him out of Xmas). I object to having Christmas goods on display as early as late September (August in Cuernavaca, which I think is funny since it doesn't even snow there). In fact, I object to the general retail practice of having your holiday goods in stock at least two months in advance of the actual holiday. Because I assure you, the day after Christmas they will start putting out stuff for Valentine's Day. And once that one is over it'll be Easter merchandise. I object to the fact that the overcommercialization has, for many people, made the holiday season more stressful than enjoyable. I object to the fact that every year my own mother stresses out because she feels like there's not enough money available for us to have a "good" Christmas. At Christmas of 2006 (right after she almost died) I told her that I thought we would all be content this year with the fact that we still have a mom. I don't think she believed me then, and I don't think she believes me still. Don't get me wrong, gifts are nice, but I won't feel Christmas was a failure if there is not a sufficient quantity of gifts under the tree or if the gifts do not add up to great enough of a cash value. I object hugely to that... if you've let your kid get the idea that Christmas sucked this year because he didn't get the $300 gift he wanted (or even the $100 gift he wanted), you and your kid both need a sound beating.

Let me repeat: Christmas is NOT ABOUT STUFF.

Christmas is about being with your loved ones, showing them you care (be that with presents or presence), getting the whole gang together and letting hilarity ensue. Christmas of 2008 in my family will forever be remembered as the Christmas that Dad tried to melt the ice in the driveway with a crab burner so Grandma and Grandpa could get their car out of the driveway. Thanksgiving of 2009 has officially been labeled "the Thanksgiving of the Coiled Crap Hound". I can't wait to see what Christmas 2009 will do... but it's not bloody Christmas yet! I mean, come on people... you just wore yourself out over one holiday! Give yourself a little down time before launching into the next one, why don't you?

I propose a two-week non-holiday period between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Also that'll give me time to get my son's birthday celebrated and not have him have to deal with Christmas getting all over a day that is supposed to be about him.

So in closing, yes, I do wish you a Merry Christmas... but not for another couple of weeks, all right?