#125 - Quit Your Stalling

snow is falling
friends are calling you

I am kind of scaling back Christmas this year. My wrapping paper budget has shrunk significantly, for example. Having said that, I still love Christmas. I love it so much. I know for a fact that some of the people reading this don't feel the same way, and that baffles me. Is it really so hard to just embrace the spirit of the season? Is it? NO! And once you do you will be happy, goddammit. So fall in line and get cheery.

My favourite things about Christmas are the lights and the food and the togetherness, but I also enjoy presents. I like giving them, I like getting them, I like wrapping them. What I do not like is thoughtless, forced gift giving. I don't really believe that Christmas has a dark side but if it did, that would be it. I think the pressure to find gifts for every single person you know is the worst. I believe it is best to give presents sparingly and to give them well. This is a difficult proposition, and something I often fail to do, but it is important to have goals in life.

The ideal present is one that the receiver would never think of to ask for, but once they have it it is something they cannot imagine living without. However, figuring out what that thing is can be difficult, and so sometimes I think cheating is okay. That is where wishlists come in. Wishlists are almost as fun as presents themselves, frankly. You can learn so much about a person by seeing what kind of gifts they want, and you can learn so much about yourself by thinking about the things you want. It doesn't even have to be things that you think you are likely to get, it's just kind of an interesting excercise. Often I am pleasantly surprised by how few things I want or need that I don't already have and that, in itself, is very Christmas-y!

I just love Christmas so much.

Things I Would Like for Christmas, 2009 Edition

• wool socks
• a external disc drive, because poor Lavinia's is broken
• a large piece of burlap
• a haircut
  
• a book you think I might like that isn't too difficult or school-y
  
• Hilroy notebooks
• a round trip ticket from Ottawa to Toronto
  
• a typewriter
  
• long underwear
  
• a copy of The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
• a bulletin board for my wall in Ottawa
• a cheapo CD player so I can play music in my bedroom
• an armchair

That's all I can think of. See? It's not a very long list, and some of it is ridiculous. I think you guys should all make lists too, because of how fun and interesting it is.

#124 - In The Wintertime

keep your feet warm

Dear Whoever Is Reading This (which I hope to God is not very many people),

Hey, everyone! It's me! Remember me? I used to write on this thing all the time. There were a lot of lists, and typos (a lot of typos), and lame jokes. Sometimes I would write about a funny thing that happened. Remember when I did that, guys?

Anyways, I always felt kind of ambivalent about the whole "having a blog" thing. Like, I would always call it a blurg, or a blarg, instead of a blog. And when I found out that people read it that I didn't know about I would get kind of embarrassed and uncomfortable. And if someone asked me if I had one I would always lie. Because it is embarrassing. Like, I don't waste enough of my time thinking all these inane thoughts, I have to record them and post them in a public place, too? And I expect people to be interested? It's completely ridiculous.

That being said, I also kind of like having a blurg. I like being able to talk to all of my favourite people at once, I like making stupid lists and lame jokes, I like picking out song lyrics for the titles, and I like being able to add as many stupid footnotes as I want. Also, I like looking over all the posts I've made over the past three years and remembering things that happened, even of a lot of it is really boring and kind of mortifying. I like reading the stuff you guys write, too.

So I think maybe I will start doing it again. If you guys promise to read it, and also promise not to tell anybody else about it. And if anyone is reading it who I don't know about, please tell me that you are here. Otherwise I might accidentally say something mean about you, or give out my social insurance number or something. I hope no one is here in an effort to gather enough information about me that you can steal my identity, because you will probably succeed and then I will be left to find myself a new identity, which would no doubt be exhausting.

See how I'm rambling and over-using italics? It's my first post in eight months, but clearly everything is exactly like it was before!

Sincerely hoping you don't steal her identity and italicizingly yours,

Clair



P.S. Pretty much the entire reason I came back here was to post a Christmas wish list because my sister requested one, but I got all distracted by my earnestness and the disconnectedness of my thoughts. So a Christmas list tomorrow, I guess.