Put Yourself to Bedlam

"O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum! Du kannst mir sehr gefallen!"

I had a wonderful day wandering around in the winter wonderland that has become my city. We're having a Nor'easter - and it's pure heaven to me.

Despite my bah humbuggery, I couldn't help but feel a bit nostalgic today, as the holiday shoppers were few and the snow plentiful, while the lights played their magic on our town's Tannenbaum.

The scene conjured wistful memories of my time in Germany and its grand Christmas traditions; including Weinachtmarkts full of street vendors selling hot gluwein and gorgeous handcrafts, in addition to sweets and bratwurst mit kraut und kartofelpuffers (mmm bratwurst).

I shot this picture at the head of Church Street on my way home this evening. The scene reminds me of an Impressionist painting.

Froehe Weinachten!
XXKHT

And What to My Wondering Eyes Did Appear?

But a combination Jib Jab/Rather Good Holy Daze Greeting Video....starring ME!

Don't send a lame Starring You! eCard. Try JibJab Sendables!

Thanks Jib Jab!

XXKHT

"Take It With the Love It's Given, Take It With a Pinch of Salt."--Radiohead*

I just downloaded Radiohead's album In Rainbows via their website Dead Air Space, and I'm listening to it right now (review to follow in postscript).... but my opinion is not technically what this post is about (for once).

It's for props to Radiohead on several counts:

1. In response to chronic media "theft:" Radiohead's website is the only place you can get their new album and it costs - get this - whatever the buyer thinks it's worth; from a penny to ?$? I paid 3 pounds or a little over 6 bucks, cuz I'm poor, and that's what it was worth to me not to download it for free somewhere else. Also there's a cute little question mark at the check out and when you click it it says, "name your price." and if you click it again, it says, "no really, we mean it."
2. In response to printing, advertising and distribution costs - not just monetarily but environmentally - downloading is the simple answer. Other than electricity, no fossil fuels were used in my transaction. They have the option to buy the Box Set if you must have the artwork, but for most fans, I'm sure just the music will suffice.
3. Radiohead Rocks! I love them.

Support this method of merchandizing and getchyer or giveyer some red hot Radiohead this holiday season. You'll save a fake plastic tree.

XXKHT
p.s. so far so good; mmmm, I love me some Thom Yorke. Here are some more legitimate reviews than mine at UWire.

*Wolf at the Door

"Give a Man a Fish, You Feed Him for a Day; Teach a Man to Fish and You Feed Him for a Lifetime" --Chinese Proverb

Most of us have someone in our life who's impossible to gift - "The man who has everything." "The aunt who's buried in her own stuff."

Many of us, rich and poor, feel burdened by our belongings at times. The more you have, the more there is to clean after all. I have it on good authority that even with maids, stuff can bury you and often does.

Then there's the guilt of consumerism; that feeling that even though new shoes give you a kind of orgasm, to shove another pair in your closet is a legitimate definition for sin.

Personally, I've all but given up allowing anything into my home that is not useful in some way, or that I truly do not need; I'm decorated out and my closet is perpetually vomiting it's excess all over my room (even if much of the stuff came to me used). There is no longer a single flat surface left in my home that I'm willing to use for the display of anything.

I know I'm not alone in this sentiment, and I live below the poverty line! If a poor sap like me feels this way, how many more are out there?

Well, I found one solution: Give a cow (man). Or if you prefer a sheep. Too pedestrian for you? How about some honeybees?

Not to the guy who has everything but to a family who needs it (so as not to starve) on his behalf. To steal from their website, you could give your mom a llama!

Since 1944 Heifer International has been facilitating struggling families around the world with gifts of livestock (and bees and trees!) in addition to teaching families/communities how to improve their lot with them. From their website:

Light Up a Life With a Llama

            

When resources are scarce, it's important that livestock don't use up land reserved for people. At home in rough, mountainous areas of Latin America, llamas are a blessing to families with limited pasture land because they can eat the scrub vegetation that other domesticated animals won't eat. Llama droppings help fertilize topsoil — improving crops and reducing erosion.      

Women weave their llamas' fleece into warm clothing to wear or sell. They load them up with goods for market and trek with them across rugged slopes at high altitudes. As they travel, llamas' padded feet don't damage the fragile terrain and their selective browsing doesn't destroy sparse vegetation.            

Llamas and their kin, the alpaca, provide Heifer families with invaluable sources of transportation, income and wool, which is prized for making blankets, ponchos, carpet and rope

Llamas are remarkably disease resistant and require little care; they can carry small loads for distances over rugged slopes at high altitudes.

The gifts range from as little as $20 for a flock of chicks to $5,000 for "An Ark" of two animals for families from Russia to Arizona (yes, even domestic families are included).

Honestly, I don't know what their record is, and I'm always a little skeptical after the perpetual scandals of the big charities with their overpaid directors, poor fiscal management and crappy organization, but they say all the things I need to hear. Even more importantly, they leave the "We're doing God's work and so can you!" out of it.

And they're not attempting to set up temporary refugee camps but rather helping real, struggling communities to institute sustainable change for the people that are willing to help themselves but haven't the resources to get started.

I can totally relate.

XXKHT

What Would Jesus Buy?

...or bomb so he could get more money to buy stuff...

One of my Thanksgiving guests mentioned that she hoped she could get up the following morning in time for a big chain (I refuse to advertise here) store's  4 a.m. opening on Black Friday. I thought she was joking.

My disdain for holiday consumerism is well known to my friends and this is the second and very likely not the last time I'll write on the topic in this infant blogspace (less than a month old, isn't it cute? Yes, it is).

So when I came across this other fellow's political blog Silenced Majority Portal and his post about  Reverend Billy's film What Would Jesus Buy?  I was delighted. I'm more than happy to spread the gospel of staying out of the mall this holiday season.

I also found this other nice looking blog: The Daily Galaxy with the post:

The Consumer Paradox: Scientists Find that Low Self Esteem and Materialism Go Hand in Hand.

I can absolutely relate to this concept. Literally, the only time I ever want to go shopping is when I'm down. I have a handmade magnet on my fridge that says: "You need to get more things. you don't have enough. Go to Walmart and buy something. You'll be happier."

Even without cable*  I feel the pressure to buy stuff over the holidays. I don't want to disappoint my kids. I don't want to be the one that spoils the fun (although I often am). I just want to be normal - but what the hell is normal anyway?!

I know this: it's not normal to get up at 3:30 a.m. to go shopping in the freezing cold for whatever they're offering so you can give it to a loved one just to prove you love them. Love is many things, but definitely not that.

Here's my helpful holiday suggestion: If you aren't creative enough to make something that symbolizes your seasonal love, help an artist and buy something handmade from someone local.

There are plenty-o-craft fairs this time of year, and more and more artists are making useful items in addition to baubles. However, if it's googaws you want, they've got those too. You'll be supporting your community, supporting the arts and doing a good thing for the globe by not perpetuating the abuse of petroleum products, slave labor and ultimately landfills.

Hallelujah and Amen my brothers and sisters...
XXKHT

*that's right, I'm a self-aggrandizing TV hater and I judge it and you for giving in to it's hypnotic powers of manipulative deviation.

“The only reason a great many American families don't own an elephant is that they have never been offered an elephant for a dollar down and easy weekly payments.” -- Mad Magazine

"Christmas is a season of such infinite labour...

...as well as expense in the shopping and present-making line, that almost every woman I know is good for nothing in purse and person for a month afterwards, done up physically, and broken down financially." --Fanny Kemble

Out and about on Church St. today. The Christmas lights are half up and there are throngs of shoppers everywhere. The parking garage sign blinked "Lot Full," and every cash register had a winding line of unseasonably weary shoppers.

I actually went shopping for paper to make a new cover for an exposed light fixture in my bathroom and afterwards was to meet a friend for coffee. While I was out, I was struck by the unseasonably early sense of holiday urgency.

I am a self confessed Humbug. I dread the holidays mostly because I'm almost always separated from my children, and because I rarely have any money.

The last year I was married, I tried to save Christmas and my marriage by hand-making everything I gave away. I asked the extended family to similarly keep it simple, and then sequestered my brood at my father's cabin in West Virginia for the duration.

The kids and I cut a tree and baked cookies for decoration. I made a lovely traditional Christmas eve dinner (just like my ex-husband's German mother) of smoked pork chops, saurkraut and mashed potatoes, begun by a soup course of chicken broth and dumplings - nice comfy, starchy yum food.

That night I read to the family my favorite short story, A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote and choked up like I always do on the last paragraph where he remembers his dead aunt and best friend "Buddy" from childhood.

Regardless of my efforts, my marriage ended the following February. My husband would not be warmed  by my gestures. Ever since, something has been missing, and I've faced the holidays  like a school kid looks forward to a final exam.

Last year, my 19 year old daughter and I tried to cancel it all together. But then the time grew closer, and I had to buy presents to send the younger kids anyway, and one thing led to another....

Before you knew it, our presents were around the tv cabinet. We had our traditional German dinner. We got through it...and here it is again.

Happy Holidays...
XKHTX

"And when that happens, I know it. A message saying so merely confirms a piece of news some secret vein had already received, severing from me an irreplaceable part of myself, letting it loose like a kite on a broken string. That is why, walking across a school campus on this particular December morning, I keep searching the sky. As if I expected to see, rather like hearts, a lost pair of kites hurrying toward heaven." --Truman Capote; A Christmas Memory