Christmas Magic

Comparison is often a gauge for how we rank a day. Christmas is one such popular holiday where people have some bias as to what constitutes a good or bad Christmas. Never mind the starving kids for a moment and allow yourself to just go on a personal bias. It's way too easy to ruin your day by virtue of sweeping comparison. In order to enjoy any day, it often comes down to your expectations for it.

And yes, it's often a damning milestone holiday but it doesn't have to be. I've gleefully worked Christmases when my family didn't have anything planned. My childless, single self was able to remove expectations and at least be grateful I was healthy enough, free enough, to work for those double or triple rate wages. We're not all disgruntled workers ripped from the arms of our sobbing family. Work on Christmas is a great way to validate goals on a day where most businesses are closed and most people have someone to celebrate with.

That's not to down on my family. It's often through grief that holidays were just too hard to put on a happy face for. Sometimes you know you're just going to be a wet blanket. Lonely days are great days to find a new hobby. Instead, I'll see those posts about lamenting being single or without family or broke etc.

So why don't he choose joyous times to announce it? Misery loves company? I wish I could say it was that simple. I think I was just being plain stupid (yes, I've been one of those people that does it). Was it some subtle ploy to be included or spoiled? That's likely. However, if you really feel you don't want to be alone on the holidays, start talking earnestly to your friends about plans. If someone has room in their day, ask to pay them a visit. Find a group or an event-- if you're depressed, there are low-key options like concerts or performances. If you're down on your life you may not want a highly social event, especially with the usual round of high school reunion questions where people ask questions they want to brag about themselves.

I get it. The established live-in partner, the steady job, the family-- the less effort the better. However, when you don't have the luxury, don't waste it on the lamenting. 

It's okay to have a shitty holiday. Don't get so low you want to die, but understand that it's okay to not have a social media worthy day to share. Over time, I've even become very private with the quality of my days. I don't want to notice patterns or lock in moods that don't really represent what I'm about. Really-- be at peace with highs and lows but don't get stuck there. It may be a good time to reassess your expectations.

By the way, and just my opinion, it's extremely creepy when people lament being single. Not only is it unattractive, it also tells people you have expectations for a person you think you deserve. People aren't prizes for good behavior. Finding someone is often a side effect of self love and sheer dumb luck. 

Come on-- if you're my age, you damn well heard Jasmine on Aladdin throw it down. She is NOT a prize to be won!

I'm going to have a great Christmas this year. Not only because of gifts but because my family is getting along, we have food to eat, and I wanna see their faces when we finally do get to see them open our thoughtful gifts. No-- this ain't no Charlie Brown Christmas. We busted our asses to buy or make gifts and managed not to stress out or lose sight of holidays being fun.

Make your own magic. It doesn't have to be the best nor does it have to be the worst. I lost my Grandma two Christmases ago (to the day) and my mom two months later on her birthday. I've had hard holidays. It doesn't mean the world stops. If you can't have the best ever, then it may take effort.

Or none at all. Fuck it. Make it another day. A day of rest and reflection. A day of food and sleep. A day of great wages. Treat yourself.

From my family to yours, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Enjoy all the other holidays of your choice at leisure.

Christmas Comes

Things crocheted yet another weekend of working awaits. Yet as the work is done, the dream only strengthens. I feel my worlds beckon and it's almost time to absorb myself in those places they offer once more.

I think fondly of my flagship series. I wonder what it can become once I find it a wider audience. It's been the crux of a massive change in my life. Like becoming a college graduate, becoming a published author is something I carry with me always. It's one of those titles I kind of want to blurt out every time I meet someone. I had the courage to turn a long time dream into a medium I could share. I was able to become more than just another person who is writing a book. Not that I'm not always writing a book-- even when I finish one, there are five more in various stages of completion.

Right now, I'm anxious to let everyone see the gifts I made them. Crocheting is tough on hands, time and delicate fingers, not to mention posture. Yet the time I put into it makes me proud to suffer and sacrifice to make these things, to make people happy through what makes me happy.

The creation process is just as much frustration as it is joy. I can't tell you exactly what makes self abuse through creation so irresistible but I'm always looking a few steps ahead, anxious to make it something tangible. There are these tiny moments in there where I perfectly understand the insane magnetism and it must be those moments that make the hundreds of hours worth it. Yet when people use words to say they can't do what I do, I still don't quite understand why they consider it focused or disciplined or that they're too restless. Creation is chaos, turbulence, always transforming. I'd understand it more if they said that taming it is like trying to scoop dry sand with a fishnet. You can eventually pile it up with what you've got, but you'd get there quicker if you think of what needs to happen to make it work better. Wet the sand and the castles fall into place (although honey or glue are a few tricks of the trade too).

Anyways, look forward to a relaxing Christmas and then the return to writing and editing. Castles to build, after all!

The Reason for the Season

I'm positive that not a damn person likes being told how to celebrate a holiday, less so that we have to at all. Yet we're always going to hear dipshit phrases like "War on Christmas" and "It's Murrry CHRISTMAS, not X-Mas or Happy Holidays!" herpy derpy durrr and flippy dee derp. Even though the number of Christians is out-numbered by atheist and 'other', as a nation, the rest of us have always humored all of the Christian holiday traditions usually superimposed rather deliberately over the original pagan traditions they stole from.

I love Christmas. I even enjoy the nativity scenes and Jesus songs, even though I was brought up on the Santa side of things, a fact that didn't change even when I'd fancied myself a Christian through this little gap of my life (from around 8 years old to around 15 or 16, but don't hold me to accuracy because my memory of how old I was for anything is not the best). I have no idea why, but I even found something I wrote when I was younger still, maybe 4 or 5, that said "I love God and Jesus." I was probably told to because Christianity was always the predatory norm. I vaguely remember my mom seeing it and me asking who God and Jesus were after the fact and her laughing. Like most kids, I was pretty trusting, especially if it came from an adult.

So the idea that Christian values are threatened has always been laughable. Despite the fact that religion was indeed where morality saw the first written history, nothing actually skewed my morality quite like religion. I actually have a 'friend' or two on FB that often posts some of the most appalling, hateful shit then, in the same breath, justifies it because they're strong in faith and God's love. In fact, my own experience often meant full-grown adults left me crying in bed at night after telling me to witness to my parents or they'd go to hell. This wasn't Jehovah's Witness crap either, but both Lutheran and Methodist branches of plain ole Christianity. 

Any values outside of Christianity are the ones in real danger. You might get the over-reactive Christian pretending there's actually some chance the whole feeding-Christians-to-lions thing is going to make a comeback but aside from singular psychos blowing themselves up in churches (usually more racially motivated than religious), there are far more incidents of Christians endangered or even murdering atheists and 'other' with the justification of God on their side. But of course, these nutcases are rightfully penalized under the law because, thankfully, justice doesn't have a creed and doesn't care who you worship when you harm another human being. Still, Muslims and Jews and atheists statistically have far more cause to fear a world without separation of church and state and it's not because they're wrong, but because the default is always the Christian way of doing things.

While I don't intend to run through my beliefs here, it does need to be said that I've often said 'bless you too' in response because I know when I see crazy and I'm not willing to die to assert my lack of belief in any god. While that may also be an over-reactive example, I've certainly been physically assaulted by someone (rather, someones) who doesn't much like my atheism in their Christian bubble, so I do exercise caution. Much like I try not to offend strangers I run into on the street because you never know which psychos have a conceal-and-carry and are looking for a stranger to take out their bad day on.

These days, even the most reckless and honest among us are picking their battles. My go-to response for the victim complex when it comes to someone celebrating differently or not at all is the reactionary eye-roll. It's well and good to vent on the internet (although I choose that carefully too), but it's never worth it to make an ego-driven argument on the subject face-to-face. For one, I hate violent confrontation. Yelling not only hurts my ears but it sends my blood pressure soaring with the anxiety. For two, I'm not so invested on people appeasing my ego. That's really all it is. I know I'm not going to change a mind made up so the only thing left to fuel it is the need to show off my supposed knowledge until one of us is too worn out to bother.

No one wins these arguments. Or at least no one really ever walks out of a shitty argument feeling good aside from a deluded narcissist who has the superpower of immediately twisting the facts to create a mental victory.

The reason for the season isn't that important. It's a dumb argument no matter how intelligently made. People who keep trying to enforce this shit are battling some sort of insecurity and want to share the misery and that's that. They're probably even upper-middle class people in most cases, with a surface-level enviable life. They probably did exactly as they were told with their entire belief system and questioning it is something they were traumatized against so they panic at the first hint of anything else. I can't say for certain and if it's that bad, they won't dare to look very closely at it anyway. I'm not trying to judge why they find it acceptable behavior, but it doesn't change the fact that the rest of us just aren't that tolerant of it at some point.

The rest of us, we've been pretty damn tolerant. Above and beyond even. Just don't play the victim when you're screaming about Jesus being the reason for the season and someone disagreeing. It's not a war on Christmas. Christmas itself is notoriously salved over many pagan traditions. Pagans managed to take it in stride, secure in their own beliefs. They were flattered, even. Cultural appropriation screechers could take a page from this as well. Personally, I'm flattered when someone tries to copy me. If they do better, then I learn from that too. Really it all comes down to insecurity. Do we sulk or do we exercise some pride that people are inspired by a good idea?

The Christians in my life are all outwardly secure people. I have no problem when they want to say grace or observe rituals that are important to them. They don't insist I join in and I don't ridicule them. The real key to a better humanity doesn't come from assimilation but in being secure in yourself. I won't insult my readers with cookie-cutter simplifications, but it all comes down to being okay with being 'the only one'. In truth, there's no such thing. There is always someone else to share a belief with. But when you're in a situation where you are 'the only one' (and especially learning to embrace periods of actual solitude where you do have to look at yourself), it shouldn't terrify you or send you reaching to recruit someone. Until you are secure in your own reasons, you are the one that is dangerous to others.

'Tis the Season

I'm not really the sort of person that gets excited about holidays. That being said, I'm not the begrudging sort that will ever mumble things about them being commercialized, expensive, depressing, 'just another day' etc. either. I've had a few crappy holidays here and there, but I've never gotten to the point where I've ever felt like shaming people for enjoying them.

I do enjoy watching people open gifts I've gotten/made them. I love how excited kids get. Love doing the crafts. Ehhh, not a fan of Christmas music (I was a retail worker too long to get that excited about the month long 8-hour a day piping of the same 30 songs over and over).

What I enjoy now is the time I'm taking off writing and drawing to make Christmas presents. Of course, I'm daydreaming about going back to it and I still slip over to blog or edit a chapter here and there, doodle on the edge of a page--there really isn't a 'break' from that part of life, any more than I can avoid sleep when I really want to work.

There is also the daily workout of keeping an eye out for the packages coming and the possibility of porch pirates, the inevitable Grinches of the season. Fuck those guys in the ass with razor-sharp candy canes. Yet I'm on those notifications and the sound of every vehicle that comes down the street and, hey, it's only for the next week, so I got this.

No Christmas tree this year. Not a sacrifice, though, since having two rambunctious kittens instead is always better. We do have decorations up on shelves they can't get to. We've been doing Christmas crafts and chocolate advent calendars and hot chocolate, so it's plenty festive. Enjoyable, to say the least.

While I'm not the sort to find some inner pool of excitement for holidays, I find that I often enjoy them based on the moods of people around me. When the kids are excited and the sentiment is genuine, I definitely get into it more. The people who are genuinely grateful for the things I make them continuously end up on my list. Hats are usually the quickest make but we're still looking at AT LEAST 4-6 hours of my time on simple hats, with any kind of off-pattern make taking several days. There has to at least be an excited thank-you in the return or it's deflating to have spent the precious time in making it.

On that note, this is why I don't bother with the business side of it anymore. On occasion, I have a couple of regulars that are happy to pay me fair wages for that effort. On occasion, I even gift to them, free of charge, as a thank-you for supporting me as an artist. However, for most people, I do write patterns and encourage them to learn how to make them for themselves. I definitely do not tolerate being told I'm too expensive. Hop on over to Etsy and see where I'm getting my prices. Considering I usually run my estimates right in the middle of the ranges, my quotes were always generous. Why? Because I'm an expert. No, really. I can admit there are some Russian ladies that free-form most of us to shame, but my custom work is original and a work of art so I have always earned the right to charge for materials, time and labor.

Unfortunately, it is also mostly a hobby now. While my art and writing are always competing for my professional attention, crochet isn't something that takes a top spot in competing with that time. I still have yet to figure out how to squeeze in marketing, but make no mistake, I do seriously monetize my work because I take pride in it. I won't undercut or water down a market for a quick buck so I always deeply consider market value in my decisions.

Well, I didn't mean to stray in that direction, but you know, 'tis the season. All four of them. Because you have to know that the creative brain, while also focused, is a ride that jumps the tracks and flies where it will. I don't monetize my blog so you're definitely always going to get what you pay for.

And then some, because I'm a giver.