Uncanny: Holiday Design Don't #1

Since the first day of fall - September 22 - I have felt justified in beginning my holiday planning. To start this planning of right, I of course had to check out all the upcoming holiday merchandise online. Some retailers had not yet embraced Christmas in September much to my dismay, but Halloween filled a few gaps until my Oct. 1 Christmas paraphernalia buying deadline was lifted. After all, this year I have an entire HOUSE to decorate. Including the outside! Well... assuming our HOA will approve any of our decorations. I'm about to war with them about some stupid rules that never actually appear to be enforced except against us, so we'll see what happens.

Regardless, I'm almost trembling with excitement and anticipation of all the Christmas glory that will transcend upon my house. Assuming the dogs don't eat it first... I'm working on solutions to that though. Including boarding them for the entire month of December... I kid... kind of. Once they're sufficiently gated out of festive areas all I need is a new Christmas tree for the living room, some (pine) garland and lights for the railing and I'm ready to go. And the props for my North Pole Scene that is going to be outrageously decorated for the delight of my next door neighbors just in case they're the ones who reported our two 5-inch tall, solar powered mini walkway lights to the HOA. See, they can't tell us how to decorate the backyard... only prevent us from letting our dogs go out there unleashed. I'm guessing there will be an amendment added after my Christmas scene is set up. Nothing like a 5-foot tall inflatable reindeer to bring about good neighborly cheer.

In the midst of my holiday scheming, I came across these little guys on the Pottery Barn website and all I could was shake my head and try not to burst out in hysterical laughter.


You see, these cute little Woodland Creature Candles draw an amazing resemblance to the Woodland Critters in South Park's infamous Woodland Critter Christmas episode. If you have seen this episode - which I cannot recommend to anyone who actually likes Christmas unless their festive affairs were ruined by something, then it's perfect! - you understand why cute little woodland creatures cannot under any circumstances be brought into your home's holiday fold. After all, they are evil. Very evil. So quintessentially evil that Santa has to blow their brains out. (Seriously.)

Stan stunned by what the creatures are telling him.

So, Pottery Barn, maybe you should take time to actually look at the world around you. It might improve your sales efforts. Unless your goal was to make these little guys in hope of South Park fanatics buying them by the truck load and thinking of different ways to obliterate them graphically at Festivus parties throughout America. Because that's all that is going to be achieved unless someone unknowingly purchases them and invites a South Park fan over. That could get messy.

Holiday Rant

(I'm in a ranting kind of mood... and feel like airing my holiday season grievances. Unfortunately, the best forum at the moment is here. Oh well... better to blog than to throw a frozen turkey across the room, right?)

Here they are in nice list form:

1. Shopping... especially in malls or discount places like Wal-Mart. I mean, a person was actually trampled trying to get into Wal-Mart on Black Friday. No thanks. I'll employ the internet and pre-Thanksgiving shopping hours as much as possible to minimize the chance of death/injury by stampede or shopping cart.

2. Bad food. I'm not talking about "bad-for-you food" like cookies, candy, and other tasty Christmas cuisine with way too much fat and sugar. I'm talking about bad food - food that is not well-prepared, is made with poor ingredients, or is leftover from Thanksgiving and served after being frozen for a month. Yuck. Even more than Thanksgiving, I feel like Christmas dinner should be a special meal that took many heart-felt hours to prepare. If a host is unwilling to put forth this effort, or allow others to do it in their stead, then go to a Chinese Restaurant (I can never in good conscience recommend Denny's and Chinese restaurants are typically open on Christmas day.) Better yet, order dinner from the Honey-Baked Ham store... or even Boston Market. If you don't care, be honest and embrace it. Don't make your family members suffer.

3. Drivers. In a way, I mean traffic, but would like to assign the horrendous traffic blame to the responsible parties - drivers who are in a rush to get to the mall, grocery store, work, present wrapping kiosk, Grandma's house, pictures with Santa, whatever. I know everyone is in a rush which causes courtesy to go out the window. However, it shouldn't. That isn't in the spirit of the holidays. And it's dangerous to you and your kin.

4. Making assumptions about other people's schedules. Generally, assume that people are busy. This isn't a bad thing, but don't get upset if someone can't re-arrange their schedule to go to a party or family gathering. Try to be understanding and see if you can maybe get together after the holidays when things calm down a bit.

5. Inappropriately addressed Christmas cards. This is more personal than general, but certainly irks me. I decided to keep my maiden name when I got married - not because I don't love my husband or don't plan to stay married for the rest of my life. I kept my last name because I really love it and it means a lot to me, so I did not feel like I could just get rid of it to take on a name with no significance to me personally. This is not that uncommon these days. Back to the point, some people don't know that I didn't change my name. That's fine, I don't mind having things addressed to "Mrs. ******" when they genuinely don't know any better. However, I do not go by Mrs. Afterall, I am only 25 and am my own person, not simply the "other half" of my husband and certainly not his property. One day if I have children, I will go by Mrs. Not until then. So, why is this a problem with Christmas cards? Because certain people insist on addressing me as Mrs. And not just "Mrs. *****," but actually as "Mrs. [My husband's first and last name.]" ARGH!!!!!!!! This is not 1956. I am an ardent feminist. Certainly family members know this and choose to ignore it which is more maddening than I can even begin to express.

6. Family drama. I could write a lengthy book about this. But, really people... spending time with your loved-ones is one of the fundamental precepts of the Christmas celebration. Don't use the holidays as an excuse to advance a family feud. Or to make a family member feel guilty for not seeing you more often. Or to cause a new rift because aunt so-and-so's ugly Christmas sweater offends you. If you have a problem with someone, by all means have a Festivus party the week before Christmas to air all your grievances and MOVE ON. Or, if you don't feel like having it out with the family that annoys you so, be considerate enough to keep it to yourself and not make passive-aggressive stabs at others because it makes all parties present either angry or at the least incredibly uncomfortable.

Alright, there's my rant. I'm doing my very best to make this Christmas an enjoyable one. If it's not, at least I can honestly say that I tried my best.

Long Time, No Post

First, I must chastise myself for not posting sooner. I try to post fairly regularly because I don't necessarily see the point of blogging if it only occurs once a month. Yet, there has not seemed to be anything worth commenting on compared to real life events (and by real life, I mean things that actually affect me or the people I love. Not that other things aren't "real," but they don't matter as much to me. Adam Smith explains this reaction well in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. ) And, those real life events are too tragic and deserve too much respect to flippantly write about here.

So, I'll post some random thoughts to get the writing juices flowing again.

1. The Mumbai terrorist attack. How awful. I had vaguely heard about it over Thanksgiving, but didn't actually read a newspaper until today. Reading about it just made me sick. There are enough ills in the world without attacking innocent people. Also, people somehow blaming this - in any way - on America is utterly preposterous. Maybe it will incite the Indian government to implement some much needed reforms... or to gain some more legitimacy in governing period.

2. The holiday of Thanksgiving. I understand why Thanksgiving can be a person's favorite holiday; however, I've always struggled with it. First, growing up we only celebrated it when my birthday fell on Thanksgiving day (this happened twice I think.) The reason being that people were "deer hunting" which obviously took precedence to family time and giving thanks. Also, while I am deeply thankful for many things in my life, I have hard time recognizing the good without first examining the bad. Unfortunately, this year happened to have much loss in it - much of which was unexpected. So, while I jubilantly try to celebrate other holidays, Thanksgiving is always tough especially in a year that was eclipsed by many sorrows.

3. Road rage. My husband and I had to carpool to work today. As a result, he experienced first-hand my morning ranting (in all its pre-coffee, Atlanta stop-and-go traffic glory.) His comment was that they could create a TV show solely based off of my comments during the morning commute because I am essentially a younger, female version of Lewis Black. This morning was entitled "I'm Cancelling Christmas." Why? Because I saw the maintenance workers in front of the Governor's mansion hanging garlands and wreaths while disdainfully muttering that I'm not celebrating Christmas this year and continued to mutter how stupid they were for hanging the wreaths. If you know me at all, this is an utterly preposterous statement since Christmas is my favorite time of year and I try to extend it fully from the end of October to MLK or Valentine's Day. It fully illustrates my morning moods though. Maybe I'll start a segment of weekly statements issued by me in traffic. Let's just say it would not be G-rated.

So, if there are any readers out there, I apologize for failing to post for so long and for the poor quality of this entry. Hopefully it will get the gears working again though and I'll be back to my normal cynical, dry-humored self this week.

Did I mention that my Christmas tree is a black (and silver) theme... I guess my personality creeps through in even the most festive occasions lest anyone worry too much.