Love, Life, and Christmas

Hello good people!

After two years of being completely devoid of thoughts, meg's thoughts have returned. I'm inspired by Maddie and Reagan/Chris and find this a fairly successful way of keeping up with the lives of my friends (as if I didn't spend enough time stalking them on facebook of course).

This month has been insane. I've been swamped with learning the grants process at UW, putting together my very first art show, and of course doing everything within my power to enjoy the holiday spirit.

As always I picked out a tree that is too large for my living space... but that's the way I work. It looks so lovely and I get such a sense of pure joy every time I plug in the lights. The same goes for each present I wrap, each stupid snowflake cutout I put on my walls. Yesterday I watched 'The Snowman' on youtube (you know, the horribly depressing animation with sad piano song with the kid and snowman flying over the world??). I am currently listening to Jose Feliciano's 'Feliz Navidad,' Steve is dancing at me from the kitchen, my cat is sleeping under the tree (her new favorite place of course). Overall, I feel so incredibly satisfied.

I do struggle with this whole holiday situation. There are many things that cause me a bit of moral unease about Christmas. I'm not terribly religious (and by that I mean that I don't subscribe to a particular organized religion), but I believe in sharing good fortune, forgiveness and I tend to harbor a generally karmic sense of consequence. I do think that this holiday provides a reminder for such things, but Christmas in particular puts me in an odd place. I do not feel that I'm celebrating the traditional beliefs, so I don't really fit there. I hate being subjected to popular Christmas marketing strategies. I do truly enjoy buying gifts for strangers from the trees with tags on them, and like many, increase my level of giving to the community on a whole. I wish it didn't take shiny lights, music and songs including sleigh bells to elicit this sort of caring. I encounter many who find my love of this holiday sickening and find Christmas as a whole alienating and wasteful. I can't say that on the whole I blame them.

Steve has done a pretty good job of helping me find my balance (something I naturally lack, I'm finding more and more each day). I can't fight my nostalgic love of Christmas, but I can do more to cut my wastes (such as not purchasing those super ridiculous snowman potholders at Crate & Barrel), and I can focus on what this holiday really signifies for me which is giving to family, friends and community. I know, I'm super sappy right now, but I don't think I've ever tried to articulate why I am so insane about this holiday and I think it's fairly important to have reasons for the things we do.

Alright, enough seriousness. I'm considering making cookies for my neighbors as an excuse to get to know them. Does anyone know their neighbors anymore? We've pretty much made up everything we know about our next door neighbor whose front door is directly across from ours. We kind of failed at meeting some neighbors the other night. They parked in our parking spot and left us a note with their phone number. Some jerk parked in their spot and didn't leave a note. They joked "well, we figured it was a way to finally meet our neighbors!" they were a nice young couple that moved in last June and we discussed in the elevator how bizarre our lack of community is here at the Melrose. However, where we failed was inviting them for a drink or even finding out what apartment they live in. I don't even remember their names. This was the perfect opportunity and we, like shy and unassertive Seattle-ites generally do, passed it up for fear of seeming too forward. So, I guess a new goal for myself is to at least attempt to get to know the people who I share a living space with.

Alright, back to Christmas cards and chasing my cat.

Peace.

meg