Happy things (day seven?)
Dec. 21st, 2008 06:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
melliciousI haven't been specifically doing the "happy things" list the last few days, but I was aware of it, and all my entries have contained something that made me happy. The pictures I've been scanning make me happy. The idea of going to Las Vegas next month (and mostly for free!) makes me happy. That picture of me wearing a crown made me particularly happy - it's funny, I remembered that picture but I had completely forgotten about the crown. (I suspect that it was a Sunday School thing - it might have been regular school, too, but Sunday School was particularly prone to resort to the silly arts and crafts projects.) The thing we did this afternoon made me happy, too - fighting the crowds to go shopping, even though we didn't have anything we particularly had to buy. I don't know why, but it's not Christmas if I don't get shoved around in Macy's (or some department store, it doesn't have to be Macy's) for a bit.
It also feels pretty Christmassy. A white Christmas isn't what I expect, after all - the only one I've ever seen is once when we spent a Christmas in Telluride. And it didn't actually snow that day, even; there was just snow already on the ground. But it's plenty cold here, for my taste. Yesterday it was 80 but today we were wearing our heavy coats. We are suppposed to have a near-freeze tonight.
We were discussing the concept of a "Jewish Christmas" in my comments a couple of days ago, and actually that Christmas in Telluride was the closest I've ever come to one - we had to eat Chinese that day because it was the only restaurant that was open. I don't think we got the movie, though! We were staying in a condo but I guess my mother didn't want to cook. Maybe they didn't realize everything would be closed. (I don't remember what I ate, exactly, but I think it might have been the first time I ever had Chinese food, even though I was already in college at the time. I grew up in Alvin, Texas, remember. We hardly had any restaurants at all, and certainly not Chinese.)
I also remember that my mother had dragged toothbrushes - among other things - all the way from Texas to put in our stockings, and my sister and I were really indignant about it. She had a different idea than we did of what constituted a reasonable stocking-stuffer - I think she was a child of the Depression when it came to things like that. (Although she was too young to remember the Depression; she was born in 1938.) We weren't all that well-off when I was growing up, but we weren't nearly poor enough to think that a new toothbrush was a special treat.
In fact, the kind of affluence that let us spend the holidays skiing in Colorado was a pretty new thing to us, at that time. Both of my parents always worked and that in itself made us better off financially than a lot of people, back in those days when it was still pretty unusual - but it wasn't until my dad quit teaching school and became a commercial fisherman that there was really money for luxuries like ski trips. (I'm not recommending commercial fishing as a secret path to financial freedom, though. I hear it ain't what it used to be. Just ask my dad.)
It also feels pretty Christmassy. A white Christmas isn't what I expect, after all - the only one I've ever seen is once when we spent a Christmas in Telluride. And it didn't actually snow that day, even; there was just snow already on the ground. But it's plenty cold here, for my taste. Yesterday it was 80 but today we were wearing our heavy coats. We are suppposed to have a near-freeze tonight.
We were discussing the concept of a "Jewish Christmas" in my comments a couple of days ago, and actually that Christmas in Telluride was the closest I've ever come to one - we had to eat Chinese that day because it was the only restaurant that was open. I don't think we got the movie, though! We were staying in a condo but I guess my mother didn't want to cook. Maybe they didn't realize everything would be closed. (I don't remember what I ate, exactly, but I think it might have been the first time I ever had Chinese food, even though I was already in college at the time. I grew up in Alvin, Texas, remember. We hardly had any restaurants at all, and certainly not Chinese.)
I also remember that my mother had dragged toothbrushes - among other things - all the way from Texas to put in our stockings, and my sister and I were really indignant about it. She had a different idea than we did of what constituted a reasonable stocking-stuffer - I think she was a child of the Depression when it came to things like that. (Although she was too young to remember the Depression; she was born in 1938.) We weren't all that well-off when I was growing up, but we weren't nearly poor enough to think that a new toothbrush was a special treat.
In fact, the kind of affluence that let us spend the holidays skiing in Colorado was a pretty new thing to us, at that time. Both of my parents always worked and that in itself made us better off financially than a lot of people, back in those days when it was still pretty unusual - but it wasn't until my dad quit teaching school and became a commercial fisherman that there was really money for luxuries like ski trips. (I'm not recommending commercial fishing as a secret path to financial freedom, though. I hear it ain't what it used to be. Just ask my dad.)
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Date: 2008-12-22 10:46 am (UTC)In LA, we had a local station that always showed a Twilight Zone marathon on Christmas day. In my mind, Christmas is now unbreakably linked to "To Serve Man" as much as the Grinch.
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Date: 2008-12-22 10:44 pm (UTC)My husband regularly grumbles about the fact that we never get to watch TV at Christmas - my aunt Linda always says, "Oh, let's don't watch TV, let's just talk," which drives Rob crazy. (He doesn't see why you can't do both!) Usually the main time she gets outvoted is when there's football on, though.