9 posts tagged “holidays”

When do you start your holiday shopping?

I love the holidays, and I love giving gifts.  But I don't really do "holiday shopping" except for a very few people.

Or maybe it's more accurate to say I do holiday shopping all year.  If I'm out shopping (horrors!) and I see something and think, "Oh, John would love this!" then I get it, regardless of the season (assuming I have the money to buy it).  Depending on what it is, I may just go ahead and send it to him, but if it seems appropriate, it is more likely that I'll save it for a holiday.  Might be birthday, might be Christmas (or Hanukkah for a few of my friends!), but it will be sitting down in my basement until then.

I don't like the whole, "Oh, it's almost Christmas, and I have to have a gift for X, so I need to go shopping and find whatever little thing that they will probably hate just so I can give them something, because you have to give a Christmas gift!" attitude.  To me, that isn't the spirit of Christmas or gift-giving.  I don't think it should be an obligation; I don't think gift cards are an appropriate gift most of the time; and I hate the thought that I would give someone something they didn't like just because I felt I had to go buy something.  Yuck.

Of course, this means that sometimes I find myself at Christmastime without gifts for everyone.  There are two options at this point.  The first is that they just don't get anything from me other than a card and warm wishes, and that happens.  It's happening a lot this year since we don't have a lot of money.  The other, preferred option, is that they get jam and pickles, or some nice baked goods.  Most people are actually pretty happy with jam and pickles.  I mean, who doesn't love jam and cookies?  Some people get jam even if I also have another present for them.

Basically, what I'm saying here is that few things please me more than giving gifts, but I don't feel that giving gifts is obligatory, not even seasonally obligatory.  There are few exceptions.  One is obviously my son, but it is very easy to find gifts he'll love anyway.  Another is my husband, but we only fill stockings for each other which means we only buy small things for each other.  And then, of course, my parents who are increasingly difficult to find gifts for.  They have virtually everything they want, and they have enough money that if there is something else out there they want, they just go buy it.  I do occasionally score a coup by finding something they would like that they don't even know about or have access to, like when I bought my stepdad a chess set in Vietnam (handcarved stone--and it cost, like, a dollar!).  But they're pretty hard.  Last year I got them a subscription to GreenDimes to control their junk mail.  Their junk mail situation had been spiraling out of control, and they seem to appreciate the GreenDimes.  This year I may get my mom some vaccinations for some kids in developing countries.  I think she'd appreciate it.

I guess what I'm saying is I don't participate in the consumerist hype around the holidays.  If I find a great gift for someone, I will buy it if I have money.  If I don't, I send jam or just a sincere card.  Christmas isn't supposed to be about this shopping frenzy.  Besides, wouldn't you rather have a sincere hug and a box of cookies than another freakin tchotchke or holiday-themed sweatshirt?  Yes, that's what I thought.

So, today was my 33rd birthday.  And as we were driving into the big city to see a movie (at a movie theater, even!), we were listening to the classic rock station.  I had not yet started considering myself old, but when the classic rock station is playing songs that you can remember being released in your youth, you must consider that someone out there--not you, not your husband, certainly not your friends--thinks you are becoming classic.  Not hip and cool, but classic. 

The song was Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love."  It's not only a classic but downright iconic.  But, c'mon people.  This is the same station that was just minutes ago playing "A Horse with No Name" and "Hey, Jude."  It was 1985? 86? something when "Addicted to Love" came out.

Damn.  Classic rock.

It makes me wonder if someday my son will be watching late-night TV and there will be a commercial for an album of the greatest hits of the 1990s.  They won't be able to call it "Freedom Rock," I guess.  What would they call it--"Self-Loathing Rock"?  "Narcissism Rock"?  And there won't be hippies sitting out in front of their tie-dyed VW bus; instead, there will be "hipsters" sitting in a Starbucks somewhere shooting heroin and the soundtrack will be Nine Inch Nails and Nirvana, and the kids will laugh at how rebellious and deep we thought we were.  How funny.  Because they'll only know us as their parents and their parents' friends, and your parents and their friends are never really that cool.  We obviously never grappled with the complex emotions and radical ideas of individualism that our dear children will be grappling with. 

So, yeah, I'm 33, and I'm a total fogey.  Actually I don't feel any different from when I was 32--yesterday.  Remarkable.

Top 10 awesome things today:

10.  Talked to Zack!  Yippee!

9.  The man and I have, I think, after 2+ years of being married, finally reached an agreement about the ring issue.  I wear on the appropriate finger a ring he gave me, that my friend in Japan designed and made for me, for my birthday several years ago.  He wears no jewelry at all and would prefer to keep it that way.  We can't afford any rings anyhow.  And yet we have both thought there should be something.  I think we finally settled on what that should be.

8.  The asparagus has finally deigned to show itself.  I spent a long, hard day getting that shit in the ground, and I was beginning to fear it would never respond to my ministrations.  Finally! it has.  Altogether, our garden is rocking.  There are also many weeds growing in it that are edible, including two spinach relatives and one type of salsify.  Yum.

7.  T's parents called me from Japan to wish me happy birthday.  They have never previously done so, and they don't usually call for T's birthday either.  I seriously doubt they will call for his birthday this year either.  Anyway, it was nice of them.

6.  My mom babysat the kid for us all afternoon and evening.  My mom was thrilled; the kid was thrilled.  We were able to see a movie (in a theater!) and have dinner (sushi!) and actual conversations that were uninterrupted by shrieks and howls and requests for me to, once again, sing "mata aeru hi made."  Wow, conversation with my husband.  I had almost forgotten he was capable of speech.

5.  Sushi for dinner.  The sushi was pretty good, although the effect was somewhat dimmed by my husband's commentary:  "Why do Americans insist on putting avocado in sushi?  Why do Americans put the nori inside the roll?  This is powdered wasabi.  Do Americans put the nori inside the roll so that it doesn't stick to their teeth?  Americans are really obsessed with their teeth.  This soy sauce tastes strange."  And so forth.  Then he launched into tales of his time as a roe technician in the Alaskan salmon industry.  I would say that if you prefer not to have a large insect jump out at you, you might ought to stay away from the sujiko and ikura.  Mmmmkay.

4.  My husband totally didn't think I was insane when I launched into my theory of Japan and Japanese people.  It was less pretentious than it sounds there.  Indeed, he agreed with me and apparently came to the sudden realization that I had actually learned something during my three years there.  He denied, however, that he would be completely miserable if we returned there as he contends that he didn't care at all what other people thought of him when he lived there before, so why would he start now?  He has a point.

3.  A movie!! In a movie theater!!  With the most excellent eye candy, George Clooney, even.  What the hell, man?  How can he be so delightful and lovely and utterly perfect?  How is such a person possible?  Yes, the movie was Ocean's 13, which is--like George Clooney--stylish and--like Brad Pitt--utterly without substance.  It was fun, but I was really there for George.  My husband, less impressed with George Clooney than I am for reasons that are understandable, found the movie baffling in its vapidity.  I think if he were bisexual, he might have liked it better. 

2.  The long conversations with my husband today have demonstrated that I have not forgotten quite as much Japanese as I thought I had.  It's still there--at least, the grammar is.  I forgot some key vocabulary items, but I can still use all the various types of conditionals appropriately.  Sweet.  I so totally rule.

1.  The kid scrambled into bed with me this morning, sprawled himself out over my torso, and said, "I love you, mama."  That's the best--that's the absolute best thing ever.

And, hey, at least I'm not 35, like some of my cousins I could mention.  And at least it wasn't "Smells like Teen Spirit" on the classic rock station, sandwiched between "Three Steps" and "Crocodile Rock."  And at least the Japanese restaurant, whose katsudon really sucked, had Sapporo beer (although not shochu).

What am I "at least"-ing about?  It was a great day.  And thanks to those of you who emailed and all that--I love you guys, too. 

My parents are coming to brunch tomorrow.  I don't know what I was thinking when I invited them.  Apparently I was thinking I don't have to work tonight until 3:00 a.m. and I didn't have a sick, sick child all week.  So, in the spirit of the holiday, I am going to organize my chores by asking, What Would Jesus Do?

Would Jesus clean that bathroom?  Yes, I'm afraid he probably would.  He would even be unlikely to skip cleaning the shower and just close the shower curtain, because then you're just a Judas to The Clean.  OK, so I'll clean it.  Damn.

Would Jesus move all the strawberry plants that have not yet been planted off the kitchen table to give his guests room to eat?  I don't know.  I think Jesus would want his guests to cast off their worldly concerns over such ephemera as table space.  He would want his guests to regard the glorious strawberry plants purchased on sale from Fred Meyer and the miracle of strawberry birth.  So, the plants stay.

Would Jesus serve bacon?  Sure, Christ loved him some pork.  I don't think that's the official Bible story, but who doesn't love pork?  No, I can't get behind a spiritual leader who doesn't eat pork. 

Would Jesus have made a single- or a double-batch of Indian pudding?  Somehow I doubt Jesus even knew about Indian pudding, let alone the divine miracle of Crock-Pots.  I am forced to conclude that Jesus would have made a single batch then used his divine powers to multiply it into exactly the right amount to feed everyone, without a lot of annoying leftovers that would exacerbate the starving-children-in-Africa situation.  Because Jesus is way cool.  I don't think I can do that, though, as my experience with divine miracles is more limited than his.  So, I will make a double batch.

Would Jesus fill the plastic eggs tonight or in the morning?  I don't see Christ as a procrastinator, so I suppose I will have to finish filling them tonight. 

Would Jesus send out Jesus e-cards?  I like to think Jesus had both better taste and enough etiquette sense to realize that a handwritten card always means so much more.  Since I sent no cards at all, I guess Jesus has bested me. 

Would Jesus have purchased a chocolate bunny for his child?  I did not.  I think Jesus might have though.  Jesus cared and would have wanted to see the eyes of the child light up in wonder at this feat of technology.  Then again, Jesus would likely have been puzzled by the connection of bunnies and chocolate to Easter.  As Bill Hicks would say, "I've read the Bible, and I can't find the words 'bunny' or 'chocolate' anywhere.  Do y'all have different books of the Bible?  Are y'all Gideons?"

Would Jesus work or write stupid things on his blog? 

Apropos of RPM's terrific post, I want to say a couple of things about singlehood.  I have talked at length about how happily married I am but not how happily single I was.  I would still be happily single--indeed, I was sure after my divorce that I would always be single--had not this man who does not speak my language, who buys me no gifts, who does not tell me that he loves me, who cares not at all for what colors I paint the house as long as I leave his garage alone, come along and stolen my heart, yes, like a bad outlaw. 

I don't miss being single, but I never missed being married either.  Both have good parts and bad.  Overall, if you get a good marriage, the good parts of it will far outweigh the good parts of being single; if you get a bad marriage, you will hate it every waking second and long to be single again, even if it means months without sex. 

I got married for the first time when quite young; I was only 20, and he was, too.  That was a mistake.  I think you need more time alone between the time you leave your parents' house and the time when you are again living with someone who will hold so much sway over your future.  You need time to "find yourself" and gain the self-confidence and self-knowledge that will allow you to never be completely whipped.  You should always know that, even if you choose marriage at some point, you could have been happy alone.  You should have dreams that are only yours, some of which you should have fulfilled before getting married.

I had a lot of self-confidence and self-knowledge for a 19 year old, but I had not yet fulfilled any of my dreams.  My husband lacked the self-confidence and self-knowledge and also the fulfillment of his dreams, and so he was utterly dependent on me in crucial, emotional ways.  If we're being honest here, I grew to hate him for that.  I hadn't wanted a child or a pet.  I wanted a full partner in the game of life. 

When I left him, I was in grad school.  One of my friends, who called upon returning from his summer vacation and finding out we had split up, said, "You sound...you sound really happy."  And I was.  I was very sad by having broken my promise of forever to him, and I wish him only well.  I was also, though, happier and freer than I had been in a long time.  Suddenly the whole world was open again, and I rushed at it.  I went a bit, erm, Samantha Jones for a while and loved it.  I started making plans to go live overseas.  I learned to cook Vietnamese food.  I did go live overseas with just a smile and a phrasebook and spent an entire year being so giddy I could have peed my pants--a whole year, people. 

But, you know.  Things happen.  I had to come down from the high sometime, and when I did come down, I found this Japanese guy still hanging around, still loving me even when I was down.  I found us growing into something more substantial than anything I had ever experienced.  I felt our hearts gradually intertwining until I couldn't find my way out.  So we married, had a kid, etc.  You know.  The usual.

I went from Samantha Jones to Charlotte, just like that.

The single times, though, were vital to getting to know myself and what I'm capable of as a person and as a woman.  I couldn't be as good a spouse now if I didn't have them because my husband, like me in my first marriage, wouldn't want a child or a pet.  He wants a full, thinking person, a partner.  Besides, you can't really love a person until you know love, and you can't know love until you love yourself.  I wouldn't voluntarily go back to being single now, but I wouldn't have married, either, had I not just found this particular guy.

So, girls and boys, if you find yourselves alone on VD, use it to celebrate your life.  Don't envy the people getting bouquets, because many of them are trapped in relationships that are not good.  You, on the other hand, can gloriously embrace a good relationship:  that with yourself.

This is why I think you need a real Christmas tree if you celebrate Christmas.  To anybody who doesn't participate in Christmas, this doesn't apply to you.  Go do something else.

Look, there is no question that fake trees are more efficient and easy.  You buy them once, and they last for many years.  Most of them nowadays come prelit, so you don't have the annual cursefest of putting on the lights (at least it always seems to be a cursefest in our house).  They fold up or disassemble for easy storage, so you don't have to find a way to dispose of them.  They are perfect in size and shape--no gaping areas with no branches as you often get on real trees.  They don't need watering, and they don't drop dry needles everywhere.  Yep, definitely easier.

Unfortunately, though, they lack soul and scent.  They lack a folkloric history connecting us to a past and a tradition.  My problem with them is roughly the same problem I have with all such items that sacrifice what was once a family ritual--a focal celebration--on the sham altar of convenience. 

In my family, we have cut our own trees on National Forest land every year since I can remember.  My stepdad used to do this with an old-fashioned handsaw (talk about cursefest!!) while my mom and I stood by with a Thermos of (homemade) hot chocolate and sniggered.  Now he has a better saw, which makes for less cursing, but he still cuts it.  We hike.  We enjoy the beauty and splendor of the Rockies.  We compare the current weather to that of previous years.  We evaluate a wide range of trees, all natural and imperfect.  We bicker and laugh.  We choose the one that seems the least imperfect.  We cut it, haul it, drink hot chocolate in toast to it.  We hang our motley collection of ornaments on it and admire it.  Another tree that will suddenly reveal a maw without branches once we get it home.  Another year.

Even families who buy the trees from a tree farm or tree lot still get to share in some of this.  They still get the convivial discussion and laughter that comes with taking the time with your family to choose a tree.  They still get the imperfections.  They still make a decision, yearly, that they will gather around a focus and celebrate.   They still get the folklore of the evergreen. 

You see already how these tales of two trees differ?  In one story, the season is celebrated by spending time with nature, time with family; it is a story of slowness.  It is a story of deciding that the season is not superficial--it is not about the decorations per se, not about the gifts or the amount of money spent.  It is about celebrating the passing of another year, or the birth of Christ, or the togetherness of families, or the quiet of winter, or whatever it is you are celebrating.  It is a story that forces you to make a decision about what is important and how you will spend your time. 

The fake tree, on the other hand, speaks of busy-ness.  It forces the tree into a superficial role of decoration for decoration's sake, the role of mere gift-umbrella.  The tree that was once a focal point, symbolic as evergreens have been for centuries across cultures, has become a bother, something to dispense with in as efficient a manner as possible.  This is not what Christian fundamentalists mean when they decry the loss of meaning in Christmas, but it absolutely is a loss of the original meaning of Christmas (which was a winter solstice celebration--Christ was almost certainly not born in winter).  This is the zenith of the commercialization of Christmas, both its progenitor and its enabler.  If the tree matters so little to you that you have to just get it up and over with as quickly as possible, then why bother?  If the tree is just another piece of overwrought decoration, then what exactly is the point?  What exactly are you celebrating, then?

I hope to give my son (and husband, who is relatively new to this whole Christmas deal) the best Christmas gifts, and those are memories such as I have of my Christmases past.  Not memories of gifts, because especially for children, most gifts don't really last, and usually they are not remembered clearly even a year later.  Not memories of shopping and overscheduled activities.  Instead I want him to have memories of laughing and drinking hot cocoa with his family, the feeling of accomplishment and joy that comes with hunting down a tree, the celebration of time and nature, the slowing down and centering of life that should go on at this time of year.  I want him, as I did when I was young, to take pictures of each year's tree, because they are never the same, because no two years are the same.  I want him to feel connected to all of this, a part of it all.  I want to always send the message to him that these things are worth making time for.  Fuck efficiency.

What are some of your favorite holiday traditions?
Submitted by sami711.

When we were all kids (my cousins and I), we were forced to put on a skit every Christmas Eve.  We had to write, produce, and perform the thing.  We could not open gifts until we had done the skit (our family does gifts Christmas Eve, stockings Christmas morning--and Christmas Eve dinner is for some reason always chili and cornbread).  Every year this went on.

I don't remember all the skits, I guess.  I do remember one year doing a take on the nativity story using a vacuum cleaner as a camel.  I also remember jenifer's extremely clever rewrite of that old chestnut, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, that ended with Aleesha trying to steal a gift.  I don't think our parents realized this, but I do believe that was the same year that we had indeed (jenifer, aleesha, and i) stolen our gifts from the grotesque Mrs. Wilmoth (a semi-relative), carefully unwrapped them in the bathroom while everyone else was probably out there playing A Question of Scruples, and exchanged them with each other, rewrapped them making sure that we each got the right nametag on the one we wanted (they were all necklaces, but slightly different--I, oddly, still have mine), and put them back.  Mrs. Wilmoth never noticed, and no one else knew.

My favorite holiday tradition has always been just the gathering 'round of the family.  The board games.  The shouting sadness.  The chile and cornbread.  All of the cousins sitting at the kids' table making fun of the way Mr. Wilmoth chewed.  The skits.  That we have traditions as a family.  That we still keep to many of them. 

For me that's what the holiday season is all about.  The rest of the year--especially spring and summer--is expansive.  Everyone has so much to do.  The late fall and winter are times for hunkering down with the people you love most, reminding yourselves of why you love them so much despite the different courses your lives are taking, laughing, celebrating another year of being alive.  Life and love deserve celebration.  They deserve to have time spent just on being thankful and happy that we have them.

What are you thankful for?

Everyday I am thankful for my family who continue to support me and love me through a lot of bad decisions; for my son who is not only healthy but happy and fun and spirited as well and who brings sunshine to me everyday; for my husband who is really amazingly patient and subtlely funny and knows me so well; for my friends; to be alive and essentially free and healthy and to have enough food and shelter that I know I'll stay that way; for the forests and the oceans and the seasons; for dogs and other animals who bring us friendship in exchange for food; for good books and my ability to read them; for all of that, but especially for my son.

This year specifically I am thankful for the people who sat around the Thanksgiving table with me and the fact that they are all still alive and well and that we are able to celebrate together.  We have lost a lot of people in the last year or so--an aunt, a grandfather, a friend's child--and it's really just enough to be alive and to be thankful that we could all be together.

Well, Jesus Christ Superstar.  We took the toddler to a Halloween carnival at the Elks Club tonight, and it was a nightmare.  Just a nightmare.  It was overrun (I wanted to say "infested" because that certainly conveys the spirit of it, but not the numbers) by people.  There was no space where toddlers might enjoy themselves, free from the 7-12 set who were sort of dominating everything.  That's fine, of course, but it meant that toddlers were slipping everywhere through the crowd's feet, unable to be followed by their much larger parents, and it was just a nightmare.  Ugh, I hate things like that.  I like order.  I like peace and calm and civility.  None of those things were on hand.  So we left and went to the Truck or Treat which was much more our speed.  (The Truck or Treat took place out in front of one of the high schools.  Basically a bunch of people parked their trucks there and decorated them and handed out candy to trick-or-treaters from the tailgates.  Yeah, a Halloween tailgater, minus the beer.  It was there that my son finally had the calm and quiet to learn to say 'trick or treat', although he actually says 'cheeeeee' for 'treat,' and then 'kyuuuu' for 'thank you' and then 'kyan kyan kyan' for candy.)

Anyway, one thing that really bothered me and, frankly, kind of surprised me was the almost total lack of anything homemade there.  None of the cakes from the cakewalk showed any signs of being homemade, and indeed the one we won was cake mix cupcakes with store-bought icing.  Yuck.  Very few of the costumes had even any piece that was homemade.  They all had that "$10 at Fred Meyers" look to them.  And the thing is that those costumes were winning the costume contests over the few there that showed some personality, thought, ingenuity, and time investment. 

Why do I prefer homemade?  See above.  Personality--a homemade cake or costume says something about the person who made it and the person they made it for, it has the human stamp all over it.  Thought--a chimp can purchase a Spiderman costume, but a chimp cannot sew one.  Maybe with some training he could, and certainly if you had an infinite number of chimps at an infinite number of sewing machines....  Ingenuity--homemade items are not always perfect, but they do often show the signs of a human having had to figure out how to do something, how to make do ("Oh, honey, we're out of sequins again?  What can we use instead?")  Time investment--the currency of love (and by extension, generosity) is time.  I repeat myself, I know.

Not to mention, cake-mix cake tastes like crap.  Seriously.  The sad thing is, I don't know if people of my generation can tell that it tastes like crap anymore.  Of the kids I grew up with, most of their moms didn't bake from scratch regularly, although almost all of them baked from scratch for bake sales and that sort of special event (because, back then taking a mix cake was definitely frowned upon).  Cake-mix cakes are too sweet because they have very little flavor beyond sweetness.  By "very little" I mean that the flavors are very one-note.  They don't give you the symphony of flavors that a real cake does.  Cake-mix cakes are also too fine-crumbed--it's like the difference between WonderBread and a real French baguette--and far too moist.  Fuck.  'Moist' isn't even the right word.  They're like supersaturated or something.  It's gross.  I'm not even going to go into canned icing, because if you use that shit, you have serious problems.  Buttercream frosting is one of the easiest things EVER to produce in a home kitchen.

I know, I know--no one "has time" anymore.  Well, you know what?  Who does.  We all have 24 hours per day, last I checked.  Get your ass off the couch, buy an electric mixer, and make some frosting.  The "I don't have time" thing gets on my nerves.  Everyone has a lot on their plates, yes, I know.  So do I.  So did my mom.  When I was 7 years old, my mom went back to college.  She was, at that time, a single mother, so she also worked full-time (night shift) as a computer programmer.  She went to school full-time in the day.  She was pre-med and kept a 4.0 all through undergrad.  Probably grad school, too, but I don't know.  She never once gave me cake-mix cake.  Not once.  Every bake sale, every Halloween cakewalk, every birthday, every event, I had homemade cake.  Delicious cakes, beautiful cakes, cakes that I got to help bake and enjoy that with her.  I also had homemade Halloween costumes every year, and most of my clothes were also homemade.  I got to pick whatever fabric and patterns I wanted.  I used to love to sit with her and talk while she was sewing, sans TV.  4.0...Pre-med...Full-time job...Single mother.  Fuck you if you think you don't have time.

The average American watches TV for 5 hours every day.  Fuck you if you think you don't have time.

I have never understood this in particular about mac-n-cheese and Rice-a-Roni.  Regular pasta takes no longer to cook than the pasta in the box mac-n-cheese mix, and a simple cheese bechamel can be whipped up in approximately the time it takes just to boil the water.  And then, wow, you have control over how many chemicals and how much salt you do or do not put in.  You can also go nuts and add a small pinch of nutmeg or maybe some garlic and be eating in style, eating nuanced flavor for a change.  Same with rice mixes.  White rice takes 15-20 minutes to cook, no matter if it's from a package or not.  If you don't have the time or energy to cut an onion, OK, use the dried minced stuff.  Personally I love the flavor of dried onion, so I use it a lot.  Use dried herbs and canned chicken broth.  It's still better than the boxed mixes, albeit less salty. 

And there's the rub.  I don't know if your average Joe and Jane have any sense of what 'flavor' means except salty, sweet, and sour.  People don't seem to care much for that 'bitter' thing, although I love bitter.  Perhaps because I am bitter.  I'm also moderately salty and a great deal sour, and I respond well to both of those flavors, too.  Anyway, my point is, that there is a whole world of nuance you can add to food to give it layers and make it much more satisfying (even without adding calories or very much time). 

Hey, sgazzetti, remember how Shannon used to always say he was feeling like a "salty dog" all the time?  As if he were a pirate back in pirate times?  Heh.  Shannon was a bastard, but I have to admit,  he always made me laugh.

My holiday season starts today.  I like to extend it for as long as possible because it is, for me, really the most wonderful time of the year.  I love the decorations, the baking, the gift-giving, the traditions, the family, the crafts.  I love it all.  We started preparing for Halloween, of course, today.  My son got his costume via post from my mom who is an excellent seamstress.  She handmade every one of my Halloween costumes until I was 18 or so.  Some of them were quite elaborate.  I was a crayon one year, and I think that was the same year that my stepdad was a fig, and she made that one, too.  I always had the coolest costumes because mine were totally unique.  And now, so does my son.  He is a dragon, appropriately enough (part of his name means 'dragon').  It's green fleece with purple spikes on the back.  It has mitts and a hood.  My son loves it.  He wants to wear it all the time--not the mitts, though--so he wears it around the house in the mornings while we're inside, waiting for the rain to abate.

We carved pumpkins, too.  The pumpkins (2, large) had been sitting about for a couple of weeks, and the kid was mightily interested.  He used them as places to sit while reading his Touch and Feel Halloween book.  He learned to say 'pumpkin' and would run to them every time we said the word.   Unfortunately when the time came for carving, 18 months is still a bit young for knife-wielding, so he mostly had to watch.  He does love helping us scoop out the innards, though.  And then, of course, he eats the innards raw.  We actually did carve pumpkins last year, too, when he was a mere 6 months old, but he was no less perplexed by the ritual this year.   Every night we have dinner by jack-o'-lantern-light, and he is baffled by this, too.  Today we also hung a string of pumpkin lights around the window.  He loves them but thinks they are edible.  We also baked cookies, sugar cookies cut in pumpkin shapes.  Homemade because I don't buy premade cookies (and I will sit in judgment right now on those who do and say, "YOU SUCK.  Cookies are so easy to make.  You are not a fit parent.")  We actually baked the cookies yesterday and then frosted them today since the kid has a tendency to eat a lot of the cookies and frosting, and we wanted to spread his sugar load over two days. 

Actually--this is odd.  Usually he won't touch cookies.  Yet for some reason when we are baking them for a holiday he just goes wild and pigs out, especially on the dough (I use a soy-based egg replacer so that he is not eating raw eggs).  And then today he did eat a lot of the frosting.  But then almost always when offered a cookie he will use his powers of persuasion to obtain fruit in place of the cookie.  Smart kid.

Anyway, so it starts today.  We will be preparing Christmas presents for packing and mailing soon (Confidential to Semprini--since we're leaving for New Mexico soon, I'm going to mail your present soon--expect it considerably early; you may open it any time you wish, but don't expect another one to arrive closer to the appropriate date.)  There will be holiday craft fairs to go to and get annoyed and have conversations like (in Japanese, so no one else can understand), "Seriously?  Someone is buying that?  No way.  Idiots.  And do you think they could move it along?  We have more hellishly cute items to sneer at and cannot stand around sneering at this same table all day long.  Move, you cows!"

Then there will be the Halloween party and some trick-or-treating with the little dragon.  Then there will be the Day of the Dead (El Dia de los Muertos, um, only with an accent on the /i/) for which we will bake Pan de los Muertos and stuff.  Then of course we have a little lull until Thanksgiving.  From Thanksgiving onward, though, the Christmas hoo-ha starts in earnest.  We'll kick it off with Johnny Mathis and a nog.  Then there will be the TONS of Christmas baking and distributing of baked goods to all and sundry.  Then the gift wrapping and tree trimming.  Then Christmas.  Then a minor respite.  Then New Year which we celebrate Japanese-style.   All of this will delight and baffle my young son.  The lights, the decorations, the shiny presents, the sudden onslaught of sweets, the profusion of excitable relatives, the Johnny Mathis.

I don't pretend to be doing any of this for him.   Although I think he will grow to love it as much as I do, for now it's still just for me and the other adults.  Someday it will be all about him, and he will no doubt enjoy the new fleet of trucks he is slated to receive this year.  But for now it's all about me.  What a fantastic season.

Incidentally, my husband hates it all.  All of it.  He hates the cookies, the decorations, the presents, the excitable relatives, the expectation of constant enthusiasm.  He doesn't even like Japanese-style New Year except that I make a Japanese feast which he appreciates.  Nope he hates it all, so he and my fairly antisocial stepfather will sit in the living room watching GAC as quietly as possible so as not to be called into duty.  My poor, long-suffering man.