And the insanity goes on...
Posted By: PAMT~MDM on 2007-03-29
In Reply to:
...and Sanjaya is still on American Idol.   
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Boobs still sell. Insanity
.
I'm avoiding the entire holiday shopping insanity this year. - sm
My family and I have all reached the point where it's nearly impossible to find anything that the other person would really like or can really use. The last years have been just the stupidity of us all trying to buy gifts on a limited income, which after all the shopping-mall challenges, wrapping challenges, and Post Office lines (as everyone is scattered all over the country), just to send each other things that end up being white elephants, we discussed it and said, 'Why are we doing this?' I had come to dread Christmas time like no other time of year. Even tax time was better!
So instead, last year we said enough of this commercialism is enough. We just kicked back and enjoyed the season. Went to the ice rink in the city and looked at all the lights on the buildings. Wrote cards (with actual LETTERS in them, not just printed names & greetings, which in my mind are a waste of postage), donated toys/gifts to kids or families who really could use a Christmas gift, and maybe got a few small things for close friends. I cut my Christmas card list down to just a few close friends who live far away, family in other parts of the country or the world, and skipped all the ones on the list who haven't bothered to return a phone call, note, or email in the past 5 years.
I spent Christmas Day with my best friends, then decided to go climb the hundreds of steps up the steep hill to Coit Tower in the city, and marvel at the view of the bay on a clear winter evening.
It's amazing how stress-reducing it's been to give up the Holiday rat-race. A few years ago I 'went AWOL' from everyone and everything on Christmas Eve. Drove up to one of the smaller & less-crowded Sierra ski resorts, Dodge Ridge, which is kind of out in the middle of nowhere up in the mountains, at the end of a dead-end road well off any main highways. After a nice day of skiing, I timed my 2nd-to-last run so that I was the very last person to get on the chairlift before they closed it down. Once at the summit, with the sun starting to set (and my ears turning numb in the wind & snow), I took my time adjusting boots, poles, etc., so that I'd be the very last one down the mountain. And much to the consternation of the Ski-Patrol making their last day's sweep of the mountain to make sure everyone's gotten down okay, I took my sweet time doing that, as well, and was rewarded with an incredible sunset off in the distance in the West, even though it was still snowing lightly on the mountain. And it was incredible to be able to go swooping down the runs alone, without any other sounds or skiers.
On the drive back home, the clouds cleared and there was a huge full moon - (I believe someone said the last full moon on Christmas Eve for 30 years?) It lit up the snow in the canyons like it was almost daylight, and I pulled off the road a few times just to enjoy the view and the silence. (A TRUE 'Silent Night'!)
:)
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