Category: Christmas

Holiday Card Swap

My friends, Donovan Beeson and Kathy Zadrozny over at 16 Sparrows  are extremely talented and you should all go look at their blog and buy their products. They are also the founders of The Letter Writers Alliance, whose mission statement is “…dedicated to preserving the art of the handwritten letter, neither long lines, nor late deliveries, nor increasing postal rates will keep us from our mission.”

I used to  write letters when I was younger. When my dad lived in Erie, PA few a few months before my mom, sister and I followed him out there, we used to exchange letters weekly. He wrote his notes on this stationary that had little tanks on the front of it and the inside of the card read “Many Tanks.” He always crossed that line out. I also wrote to my best friend, Jo-Anne Venezia, after we left Hartford, CT for Erie, PA. As is the case with most things, I stopped writing letters because life got in the way blah blah blah…

Anyway. Donovan and Kathy are inspiring me to begin writing letters again, which has lead to a couple of projects over the past few weeks. However, while reading the The Letter Writers Alliance blog, I stumbled across this: The 5th Annual Card Swap. I love this idea, so a few weeks ago I made my cards.

I’m not an artist but these were really fun to make…

Noticing a theme? I really like this stamp 🙂

I also really like water color pencils. 

This was a fantastic idea and I just received my list of recipients tonight. I can’t wait to write my greetings and get these out in the mail.

Amusing Happenings at the Mall During the Holidays

At the risk of sounding a little grinch-like, I’m not real big on the mall during the holiday season. This is  because on most regular days during the non-holiday season, I feel pretty good about humanity. I don’t mind navigating people to park my car or to look for a new sweater or return a table cloth. However, when the holidays roll around, all bets are off. It seems that in name of Christmas, seemingly normal people turn into raging, greedy consumers. Call me a wimp, but I’d rather just avoid seeing that side of people all together.

All of this being said, a few days ago I found myself here:

Indianapolis Fashion Mall.

I had some errands to run and I am pleased to report that during this trip to the mall I did not lose all faith in humanity. In fact, rather unexpectedly, I got some free entertainment. Below are some of the  hilarious things I witnessed while moving among the masses at the mall:

1. While at Anthropologie*, I overheard the following conversation between a group of middle aged women:

Woman #1: I have these weird red splotches on my cheeks. I just saw them in the mirror.
Woman #2: Do you have dry skin? I have some moisturizer in my purse. [Digs in her purse].
Woman #3: Your skin can get chapped from the cold. I heard that on the Today show. Did you see it?
Woman #1: No, it’s because I’ve been drinking. I have this problem where my cheeks turn pink after I drink wine.
Woman #2 & #3: Are you allergic?
Woman #1: Maybe. There’s something in wine that makes my cheeks turn bright red. I shouldn’t drink while I shop.

*I am not making this up. Also, it was 1:30 in the afternoon and finally, do you think that the mysterious substance that turns your cheeks red could be oh, I don’t know, alcohol?

2.Yeti boots are making a comeback in a big way. If you are not familiar with “yeti boots” see the picture below:

What makes this really funny is that I thought I coined the term “yeti boots.” But a Google search proved otherwise. Although, if you’re hip, you spell it “yeti bootz“

3. At The Gap a very pretty young woman and her  husband have the following conversation:

Woman: Babe, I need some new jeans.
Man: OK. What kind?
Woman: I’m not sure…[she pauses to look through a pile of jeans]
Man: How about these? [he holds up a teeny tiny pair of leggings]
Woman: NO! No, no, no, no…[voice is rising in pitch]
Man: OK [he drops the leggings and backs away from her]
Woman: I can’t wear these! When have I ever worn a size 4? [voice is still rising]*

*I walked away at this point. There’s only so long that you can watch a train wreck.

Also at The Gap I realized that they still have Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” on the  Christmas soundtrack, except in an attempt to show diversity, it is now sung in Spanish? Yeah, I don’t know. 

4. At Crate and Barrel there were two little girls wearing these:

 They were dancing, and I mean for real dancing, in the middle of the store to Jingle Bell Rock. It was awesome.

5. Outside Saks Fifth Avenue some dude says into his cell phone, “Just what the f*ck is a pashmina and where do I buy one?”

Merry Christmas!

Happy Holidays from McSweeny’s!

If you have not ever looked at the McSweeny‘s website, you’re missing out. I was first introduced to this website by my husband, who also encouraged me to read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by David Eggers.  This is part of the blurb on their website:

McSweeney’s began in 1998 as a literary journal, edited by Dave Eggers, that published only works rejected by other magazines. But after the first issue, the journal began to publish pieces primarily written with McSweeney’s in mind. Since then, McSweeney’s has attracted works from some of the finest writers in the country, including Denis Johnson, William T. Vollmann, Rick Moody, Joyce Carol Oates, Heidi Julavits, Jonathan Lethem, Michael Chabon, Ben Marcus, Susan Straight, Roddy Doyle, T.C. Boyle, Steven Millhauser, Gabe Hudson, Robert Coover, Ann Beattie, and many others.

These are some of my holiday favorites (new and old):

Stopping By Woods on a Bro-y Evening

The Twelve Days of Christmas*

The Corporate Christmas Party As Told By My Cocktails


 
Staff Editorial from the Who-Ville Picayune, January 1958


Donner Looks Back

*Hilary Knight’s The Twelve Days of Christmas is one of the best versions in print.

Thursday (on the road again) Musings

We arrived back in Indy yesterday around 5:30. The drive was uneventful weather wise, which is usually the only big news this time of year. We rang in the New Year last night at a local bar with some friends and today we’re hitting the road again for the final leg of our holiday marathon. Around noon we’re heading to Murray, KY where I’ll defend my thesis tomorrow at 1:00. I’m hoping all goes well.

Updates to follow.

Saturday (Pittsburgh) Musings

We arrived in Pittsburgh yesterday afternoon and the entire drive was plagued by torrential rains. This is very odd for this time of year, but it’s better than what we drove home in last Monday.

Christmas at the Pike house was excellent as always. I finally got my new “bike” aka. camera and I’m going to post some pictures here. I love it. The pictures are so clear.

We’re going to be here in Pittsburgh till the 31st and then we’re heading back to Indy.



Sunday (packing for the holidays) Musings

Yesterday R and I did nothing. We decided we don’t really like doing nothing. All day we kept looking at each other and saying, “Don’t we have something to do?” We made dinner, went and looked at lights, and then went out with some friends for a little bit. A day like this on the weekend is rare.

Today, we’re making lists and checking them twice…ok, I’m done. We’re doing laundry, packing the car, and getting ready to head back to PA for the holidays.

These are some highlights from our Christmas Light tour (Part I) last night:

Saturday (I’m done!) Musings

I am done with grading. I went in this morning to finish a couple of things and now I can get ready to head east for the holidays. Our Christmas/New Years is going to be a hectic one, but I’m looking forward to it. We’re heading to Erie the 22nd through the 26th. The 26th we’re heading to Pittsburgh and we’re leaving their the 31st to come back to Indy. The 1st we’re heading down to Murray for my defense, which is on the 2nd. Phew. Luckily, I don’t have to be back at school till Jan 6th.
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A Yale University professor whose poetry is published by St. Paul’s Graywolf Press has been chosen to write and read an original poem at the Jan. 20 inauguration of Barack Obama. Elizabeth Alexander has published four collections of poetry, and her book “American Sublime” was a 2005 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. In 2004, Alexander was a poetry mentor with the Loft.

Blues

I am lazy, the laziest
girl in the world. I sleep during
the day when I want to, 'til
my face is creased and swollen,
'til my lips are dry and hot. I
eat as I please: cookies and milk
after lunch, butter and sour cream
on my baked potato, foods that
slothful people eat, that turn
yellow and opaque beneath the skin.
Sometimes come dinnertime Sunday
I am still in my nightgown, the one
with the lace trim listing because
I have not mended it. Many days
I do not exercise, only
consider it, then rub my curdy
belly and lie down. Even
my poems are lazy. I use
syllabics instead of iambs,
prefer slant to the gong of full rhyme,
write briefly while others go
for pages. And yesterday,
for example, I did not work at all!
I got in my car and I drove
to factory outlet stores, purchased
stockings and panties and socks
with my father's money.

To think, in childhood I missed only
one day of school per year. I went
to ballet class four days a week
at four-forty-five and on
Saturdays, beginning always
with plie, ending with curtsy.
To think, I knew only industry,
the industry of my race
and of immigrants, the radio
tuned always to the station
that said, Line up your summer
job months in advance. Work hard
and do not shame your family,
who worked hard to give you what you have.
There is no sin but sloth. Burn
to a wick and keep moving.

I avoided sleep for years,
up at night replaying
evening news stories about
nearby jailbreaks, fat people
who ate fried chicken and woke up
dead. In sleep I am looking
for poems in the shape of open
V's of birds flying in formation,
or open arms saying, I forgive you, all.

Elizabeth Alexander

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