Christmas is so weird…

Well, it’s here. I have friends who have been playing the tunes of winter festiveness since two seconds after trick-or-treating… the slew of red and green, blue and white, (and what have you) shiny and lighted things are blinking and glowing everywhere… in fact, the batteries are starting to die and the electricity bills are sky-rocketing. Everyone is especially grumpy and frustrated – that’s how you know it’s especially close. Yes, two days ’til Christmas and you can definitely grasp the spirit of it.

The perversion of Christmas extends beyond the the gross over-commercialism in this wildly-capitalistic society. This year, all of my favorite shows (a string of fantastic comedies on NBC) all poked fun at the religion of Christmas. Now, I am definitely capable of taking a joke and a realize there is MUCH about pop-American Christianity that more than deserves to be roasted, but this year the “joking” seems trite and intentionally caustic. It seemed that the theme was that people who find the birth of Christ to be important are simpletons, hypocrites, and incapable of celebrating the “goodness of mankind” to the fullest.

I know, I know, I know, that I should expect the world to hate God, and therefore Christ and his bumbling followers. Jesus was very clear that he was hated and his true followers, therefore will be hated also. But this doesn’t mean that I can’t be a bit annoyed that in a place as “tolerant” as America, it is actually becoming offensive to say “Merry Christmas”. Christmas, after all, is the actual holiday. I don’t get annoyed that Muslims celebrate the month of Ramadan. I certainly am not offended that the Jewish population celebrates Hanukkah. If I were with or near a group of either who were celebrating, I would not be offended is someone wished me good tidings related to the respective holiday.

I suppose we deserve it though. I don’t like Christians who get their panties in a bunch (a favorite expression of mine) and demand that the government, or someone important, enforce our “right” to say “Merry Christmas”. Yes, it is bothersome that it has become offensive to wish a happy holiday by the name of the actual holiday, but we have so embraced the American noise that has been layered on top of the true purpose of Christmas that we don’t really deserve to demand others to respect “our” holiday. We love Santa Day, and Goodwill to Mankind Day, and What Did You Get ME Day as much as those who don’t have a reason to cherish the birth of Christ. In fact, I almost wish that we would just surrender Dec. 25 altogether and let it be Consumerism Day, and celebrate Christ’s birth at a time closer to when he was possibly actually born. Afterall, the Christ’s Mass was proposed by the Roman Catholic Church, not by Christ himself!

I’ve been mentally swirling around all these competing thoughts and feeling a bit at a loss for explanation this year, mostly because my oldest son is 2 and I now feel the responsibility to begin the conversation about why we have Christmas. It’s hard to explain that we are celebrating Jesus’ birthday, who is God’s son… these are very intangible (albeit important!!!!!) beings! It’s much easier for him to grasp the Santa idea. After all, he sat on his lap at Disneyland and will probably get the toy he asked him for. So weird. I think after this year I will be over the Santa thing and will explain Santa as a sort of game most kids like to play, in honor of the kind, historical St. Nicholas. But then there’s the fact that we do have a Christmas tree… do I can that too or just explain that it’s just a weird American tradition and it’s pretty and festive? I can’t make sense of it all.

I personally love all of my childhood Christmas memories. However, I can’t decide if my desire to impart a similar experience to my children will be benign and fun or detrimental to their spiritual health. I suppose that no matter what we make of Christmas, it is most important that I teach my kids that at some point, God, the creator of all that is, who is justly wrathful toward mankind who spurns his sovereignty, did send his son, Jesus, who being God, humbled himself to live as a human, to show us how to live, and to ultimately die as a substitutionary death for those who will believe, and conquered death and sin with might and finality. The coming of Jesus is the incarnation of a most holy, priceless, and mighty grace and I beg God that my kids will one day understand that. It’s going to take more than one short season of the year to explain all that… and I plan to make a habit of it… so I guess Santa, trees, lights, family dinners, etc. will eventually fade into the background when compared to the daily pursuit of knowing God.

Ok, I feel better about it now.

Random Observation on the Day #7

People get MEAN when they know they are wrong. Ew.

Random Observation of the Day #6

We should all take a lesson from the Kennedys… live to make a difference and as if you don’t have much time to do it in.

Real Love

Our society has a lot of interesting ideas about love. If you ask a Disney movie, love is meeting someone beautiful or handsome, singing a song, marrying, and living happily ever after (which is often left to the imagination as some sort of unimportant, vague concept), with an emphasis on being happy. If you ask Akon, “love” is a word you substitute for the f word in order to make your song playable on the radio. So love and “unabashed monkey sex” (to quote Michael Scott) with strangers are essentially the same in that context.

In my random life, I have recently witnessed an intense, realistic portrait of what love really is.  (The human kind, from one person to another). My grandma recently passed due to liver cancer. She was diagnosed some time a go, and thankfully, she was only bed ridden for the month of July before she was gone. We spent some time visiting her, watching her body sort of disintegrate from the inside out. I was amazed as I watched my family rally around her. My grandpa, cousins, uncles, and dad took turns giving her hospice care so she could have her wish to be at home and not alone. They also took care of my grandpa, making sure he didn’t get so focused on my grandma that he forgot to eat, take his medicine, or whatever. He didn’t have to cook a thing, wash a dish, or fold a scrap of laundry. My family loved my grandma and my grandpa through her last moments with such a natural tenacity, I was blown away.

Having been married to her for 62 years, my grandpa really deserves the focus of this musing. My grandparents met and married young… she was 16 and he was 21. These days, people would probably say they were too young and didn’t know what they were doing… but their story speaks louder than any speculative criticism ever could. Together they owned and operated 3 different restaurants, raised 4 boys, buried 2 babies and many relatives, moved across the country from Virginia to California (leaving their families behind), weathered my grandma’s alcoholism in her younger years, survived each other’s selfishness and orneriness, saw the birth of and loved 8 grandchildren and 3 (she almost made 4) great-grandchildren, traveled all over the U.S., managed my grandpa’s diabetes and my grandma’s lung & bone problems, and through it all continued to exude love and warmth to each other, their family, and all they encountered.

When my grandma really took a turn for the worse and was restricted to bed, she had to wear adult diapers – which I’m certain was a bit humiliating for someone as vivacious, stubborn & independent as my grandma. We were there the day a priest came to pray with the family for healing, strength and peace (a more modern version of last rites). My grandpa sat with her and held her hand through the whole thing. The look on his face was not of sadness, but love, devotion, concern, and strangely, peaceful acceptance. After the priest had gone, my cousin and my dad’s cousin were helping change my grandma, and in that moment, possibly one of my grandmas worst, my grandpa came in and kissed her, calling her by his typical pet names, showing her the same signs of love that I’m sure he did early in their realtionship. That moment struck me as one of the most intense examples of real love that I’ve ever even heard of. That is the kind of love many pledge in the line “til death do us part” but few really mean. Even in her last days as she slowly lost all muscle control and lay nearly lifeless in her bed, mouth gaping, my grandpa still looked at her as his dear bride and spoke and interacted with her in the same way.

I am so thankful that in all the random messiness of life, I was able to observe this fantastic thing. My grandparents are no where near perfect, but they didn’t need to be to demonstrate love… real love. The kind that fights through even the worst times, is active and specific, not lifeless and vague… the kind of love that grows despite lapses in personal happiness or temporary dissatisfaction with one’s spouse. Thanks to both of you, Grams & Gramps, for showing us this.

Random Observation of the Day #5

Is it just me, or are gas pumps increasingly complex and confusing? Whenever I am forced to use a new station, I stand in front of the pump like an idiot for like 5 minutes… which way does my card go in? Can I pay outside? Do I slide my card and then push buttons or vice versa? There is a “Yes” button and an “Enter” button… why? Which one means, ok, please start the gas now? And then, they all switch up the order of the octane levels… so you have to be very careful not to fill up with premium gasoline when you just need regular. And then I have to be careful to not accidentally purchase a car wash…. seriously, I just need to put gas in my car!

As Opposed to an Un-Average Rutabaga?

Being pregnant is mostly hilarious… and pathetic… and uncomfortable… but I choose to dwell on the hilarious here. There is an over-abundance of information on how to care for oneself while pregnant, how to most effectively deal with the curse of childbearing, and of course, the details of fetal development. BabyCenter.com is one such wellspring of information that upon request will send weekly updates about pregnancy to your e-mail inbox so you don’t even have to try to research anything. You just check your e-mail as usual, and poof, knowledge streams into your eyeballs. I received these updates for both of my pregnancies and sometimes I read them, sometimes I don’t. Mostly I enjoy the reminder of how far along I am (which appears in the subject) because people are always asking me and I never know.

Something funny about these e-mails just occurred to me tonight. The brief informational section always begins by telling you the approximate weight and length of an average fetus at your current week of pregnancy and giving you a practical, non-womb-bound object to compare it to.  Some of these things have been fairly common (to me) and therefore useful, such as the length of a banana or carrot, or the weight of a head of cabbage or a cantaloupe… it wasn’t until recently though, that I noticed that the non-womb-bound object has consistently been a fruit or a vegetable. Now, if you ask me, this is not only supposed to be useful for universal comparison purposes, but also to serve as a subliminal message regarding what one should be eating while growing a baby. Pregnant women (if you’ve never been one) are highly suggestible when it comes to eating things you know… so if they compared the fetus length to a bag of M&Ms or a carton of ice cream, that would not be helpful for the nutrition of anyone involved. The thing is, however, choosing to stick with the fruit and veggie theme calls for some very creative thinking. I mean, there are 40 weeks of pregnancy, and very specific sizes and weights to be compared. So this has forced the Baby Center people to do some clever and specific research on produce. Some of my favorite comparisons are:

19 weeks: weight of a large heirloom tomato
25 weeks: length of an average rutabaga
26 weeks: length of an english hothouse cucumber
31 weeks: similar to carrying around 4 navel oranges
37 weeks: length of a swiss chard
38 weeks: length of a leek

Yes, I actually went back through the “trash” folder of my e-mail to compile these… it was that funny to me in the moment of realization.

This is a rutabaga.

Perhaps this makes me a poorly nutritioned pregnant person, but I am not automatically familiar with the length of an average rutabaga… and I’m not sure I really know what a swiss chard is. Now, suppose I went to the produce section of my local store and picked up a rutabaga… how am I to know whether it is of average length? Should I measure all the rutabagas and find the mean? What if it was a bad year for rutabagas and they were all smaller than average… or a good year and they were all larger than average? Visions of confused pregnant women in grocery stores, holding up obscure vegetables to their bellies in attempt to understand more about their developing fetuses make me laugh so hard my taut womb, currently bearing a leek-length baby, hurts!

See – all of this veggie talk and now I’m craving salad.

Random Observation of the Day #4

Do not record yourself having sex. Just don’t. If it’s good enough, it will be memorable; no need to capture it on film.  Nothing good ever seems to come of it!

Teacher Gives Sex Tape To 5th Grader Students: CBS News

Random Observation of the Day #3

I heard the other day that animal rights activists were upset with President Obama for swatting a fly on camera during an interview… are there really people out there with that little else to worry about??? I wonder what they’d think about the 2 million ants I’ve killed in the last week…

Life Lessons From Movies…

So I found this while sifting through my unfiled Word documents. I can’t remember where it came from – must’ve been a silly e-mail forward. But – it’s hilarious and fits the vibe of finding random humor in everyday things. I’ve added my thoughts in italics. Enjoy.

What movies have taught us about life…
# During all police investigations, it will be necessary to visit a strip club at least once.

# When they are alone, all foreigners prefer to speak English to each other.

# All people living in medieval or earlier times spoke with a British accent, no matter where they were from.

# If being chased through town, you can usually take cover in a passing parade – at any time of year.

# All beds have special L-shaped cover sheets which reach up to the armpit level on a woman but only to the waist level on the man lying beside her.

# The Chief of Police will almost always suspend his star detective – or give him 48 hours to finish the job.

# All grocery bags contain at least one stick of French Bread.

# It’s easy for anyone to land a plane providing there is someone to talk you down.

# The ventilation system of any building is the perfect hiding place – no one will ever think of looking for you in there and you can travel to any other part of the building undetected.

# Police departments give their officers personality tests to make sure they are deliberately assigned to a partner who is their polar opposite.

# The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window in Paris.

# All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts so you know exactly when they are going to go off.

# If you need to reload your gun, you will always have more ammunition, even if you haven’t been carrying any before now. (unless you’re the bad guy or the self-sacrificing hero…)

# You are very likely to survive any battle in any war unless you make the mistake of showing someone a picture of your sweetheart back home.

# Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German officer, it will not be necessary to speak the language – a German accent will do.

# If your town is threatened by an imminent natural disaster or killer beast, the mayor’s first concern will be the tourist trade or his forthcoming art exhibition.

# A man will show no pain while taking on the most ferocious beating but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds.

# When paying for a taxi, don’t look at your wallet as you take out a bill – just grab one at random and hand it over. It will always be the exact fare.

# Kitchens don’t have light switches. When entering a kitchen at night, you should open the fridge door and use that light instead.

# If staying in a haunted house, women should investigate any strange noises in their most revealing underwear.

# Mothers routinely cook eggs, bacon and waffles for their family every morning even though their husband and children never have time to eat them.

# Cars that crash will almost always burst into flames.

# All telephone numbers in America begin with the digits 555.

# A single match will be sufficient to light up a room the size of Dodger Stadium.

# Medieval peasants had perfect teeth.

# Any person waking from a nightmare will sit bolt upright and pant.

# It is not necessary to say hello or good-bye when beginning or ending phone conversations.

# Even when driving down a perfectly straight road, it is necessary to turn the wheel vigorously from left to right every few moments.

# It is always possible to park directly outside the building you are visiting.

# A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from duty.

# It does not matter if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts – your enemies will patiently attack you one by one by dancing around in a threatening manner until you have knocked out their predecessors.

# When a person is knocked unconscious by a blow to the head, they will never suffer a concussion or brain damage.

# No-one ever involved in a car chase, hijacking, explosion, volcanic eruption or alien invasion will ever go into shock.

# Television news bulletins usually contain a story that affects you personally at the precise moment that it is aired.

# You can always find a chainsaw when you need one.

# Any lock can be picked by a credit card or a paper clip in seconds – unless it’s the door to a burning building with a child trapped inside.

# Once applied, lipstick will never rub off – even while scuba diving.

# There’s no reason to fear hostile aliens or monstrous beasts… usually something simple will kill them or scare them off… like water, loud noises, or dogs.

Random Observation of the Day #2

Why is it that Southern Californians complain about the weather unless it’s 75 degrees and sunny with a light breeze? Seriously; we are having abnormally cool weather for June (low to mid-70s) and people are complaining! When it gets up to 110 I’m sure longing for sunshine will be completely forgotten.