Holiday Meme

Holiday Meme

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Egg nog is specific to the holidays, while I drink hot chocolate throughout the autumn and winter.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Santa does both. Santa leaves a display of some gifts to give pizzaz to the first glimpse in the morning, but there are always one or two from Santa wrapped under the tree.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? My husband is absolutely adamant that they are to be multi-colored. This was not a negotiable item when we got married.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? No.

5. When do you put your decorations up? When the boys were little, I would put up decorations the weekend after Thanksgiving so that we could enjoy them throughout the month of December, but then they came down at Epiphany promptly. Now that they're older, I wait a little since there is only a very small living room area in the house. (I'd put the tree in front of the front door, were it not for the fire escape concerns.)

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Sorry - Christmas is ALL ABOUT dessert (petit-fours, fudge, etc)...But my family is particularly fond of Irish soda bread for Christmas morning. Warm and crumbly and full of raisins. This year, I'm also thinking about trying something like overnight french toast as Offspring #1 loves the stuff.

7. Where do you hide your Christmas gifts? I have generally hidden the gift purchases in my closet. I flattered myself the guys didn't know that all those bags just blended in with all the other "Stuff" in Mom's closet. Then one summer they were comparing notes with their cousins and it came out that the eldest had known for quite some time...

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I'm pretty sure I was roughly about eight or nine and my eldest sister felt it her bounden duty to share.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Always! It was always a set of new pajamas when I was a little girl, but sometimes something else as well. (There was the memorable year my mother had made an entire basket of Barbie doll clothes by hand.) Mom said we didn't go to sleep that night until far, far too late. My boys, when it came to be their turn, insisted that they be permitted to pick out their own gift to unwrap on Christmas Eve. I let them, unless there was something that would give away a surprise on the next morning.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? A mix of simple wooden ornaments and some other store-bought ones that have special significance for the family. My husband, being a comic book fan, has a Superman; I have a gargoyle reading a book; one son has a creche ornament that he asked for when he was only about four and the other has a number of vehicles (snow mobiles, locomotives, double-decker bus, etc.). We also have a number of handmade ones from my mother and mother-in-law as well as some made by the boys in elementary school. It's very much a family tree.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Generally dread it, although now that I can work from home it doesn't bother me as much as it did. Ideally, one gets a great snowstorm with just enough notice to get the house loaded up with food and ensure that the heat won't go out. Once those are assured, you put on your sweats, pick up a good book, and watch it come down.

12. Can you ice skate? Nope

13. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Stockings. My husband was somewhat stunned to learn that we did stockings for everyone in the family (not just those under twelve) and I was not at all willing to negotiate on THAT. On the other hand, I made the mistake of buying very expensive, very large stockings the first year we were married and have frequently regretted imposing such a HUGE burden on Santa and his helpers.
14. What tops your tree? Some years it has been a star and other years it has been an angel. Much, of course, depends on the height of one's tree and the height of one's ceiling.

15. Which do you prefer -- giving or receiving? I really wish I could perfect my giving. I'm afraid I'm that dreadful aunt whose gifts everyone makes fun of.

16. What is your favorite Christmas Song? Angels We Have Heard On High, Good King Wenceslas, and just about every other Christmas song in the Episcopal Hymnal.

17. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum?? I am utterly indifferent to candy canes. I don't loathe them; I just can't get worked up about them.

Also seen at Pages Turned , BlueStalking Reader and In Season

This Made Me (and My Husband) Laugh

It's called the Penguin Show. Type in a short seasonal phrase, press submit, and then sit back and enjoy the show. (via SciFiChick.com whose blog I'd never read before tonight). Movement, music, and everything. I even sent it to offspring #1 and #2, both of whom are enduring exams and who need to be reminded that life can still be fun.

Mind The Gap

I was toying with a blog entry for today (one related to my Amazon wish list) but just at that moment when I teetered on the edge of selfish, consumer-driven holiday thinking, I read this blog entry by Rev. SongBird.

I love eggnog, Father Christmas, and Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. But, like everyone else in the midst of the secular "stuff", I suppose, I need to be reminded of the more genuine element -- humility. Thank God for clergy who blog (and for RSS feeds).

Addendum

My husband tells me that I got it wrong and that the version of Christmas Carol with the Cratchits that looked too prosperous was actually the 1938 version...I beg pardon of the Sim version fans and will more thoroughly check my facts in future. (You know, I thought his vast store of classic movie trivia was charming when I first married him...)

It's the annual discussion.

I rather enjoyed this True Confessions of an Egg Nog Addict. It appears he's rather partial to the store-bought brands, but I did come across this recipe for a single serving Egg Nog for those who feel that store-bought just isn't quite right. Personally, I opt for sherry with my nog if I'm not drinking it plain, but other people say that rum or cognac is good as well.

Nog in hand, one can then consider which interpretation of Ebenezer Scrooge rings the most true: George C. Scott (1984), Patrick Stewart (1999), Michael Caine (1997) or Mr. Magoo (1962) . The two Offspring are partial to the Muppet version with Michael Caine, my husband really prefers the George C. Scott version, and I love the lyrics to the music of the Mr. Magoo version (...with razzleberry dressing...). We mean no disrespect to the 1951 Alistair Sim version, of course, but we did think that the Cratchits looked rather too prosperous in that one.

Meanwhile, my husband bought the tree and now we have to negotiate the decorating of it. Now or wait 'til the boys come home?

How Can They Do That?

The question isn't posed on the basis of outrage, but sheer mystification, quiet admiration, and a certain level of plain bone weariness.

(1) For example, this morning in the New York Times, I read a news story about women carrying bags that are too heavy for their shoulders and thereby creating for themselves physical miseries. I was sympathetic 'til I got down to the closing segment of the story. A woman had to explain to her insurance company what she usually had with her in her handbag and she was quoted as saying this, "“I had over $2,000 worth of stuff in that bag,” said Ms. Thompson, who works in retail analysis for Cynthia Vincent, a fashion company in New York, “my iPod, digital camera, cellphone, glasses, sunglasses, makeup kit and a ton of other belongings, including a Care Bear that I’ve had since I was born.”.

Forget the implied rampant consumerism of the must-have electronics. A 24-year old woman is still carrying around her CARE BEAR? A. CARE. BEAR. Even if I put those words in bold italics and underlined them, I don't think my incredulity would be adequately conveyed... A graduate of Brown University (the bag was stolen at her reunion) with a job that sounds faintly glamorous, and she can't bear to leave the house without her childhood teddy? Who's nuts here? Her or me?

(2) Then I was over on DoveGreyReader's blog and I suddenly realized that she manages to include either a photograph or a book cover in almost every post. They're really nicely done and add to the attractiveness of her blog. So the question is then is asked more in a tone of wistful admiration. How do you do that? I mean, are you allowed to just snag a cover off Amazon to include on the blog? Am I not required by law to link to them when I do that? Or at least hand over a first-born child? I don't have a scanner or a digital camera, but I would like to snazz up the text a little bit...

(3) UK-based Reading Matters references her Other Half being off on a business trip to New York and how sorry she was that she couldn't go with him. I assure you, my dear woman, that you truly are better off staying put! I was in New York yesterday on a day-trip for business and tonight, still feeling the effects of fatigue, I sit at the computer and wonder "How do people survive that town? How do taxis not crash into one another every other block? I saw the tree in Rockefeller Center, but how can anyone carry Christmas in their heart when they're so rushed, pushed, crushed and otherwise mentally assaulted?". How did I survive there for seventeen years?

Please believe me when I say that one of the great mercies of our time is the Quiet Car on Amtrak. No loud conversations and no cell phones. An hour and a half of relative calm on the Northeast Corridor...

So, yes, I'm still befuddled and bemused, still asking the question in all honesty, How can they do that?

Third Entry for From-The-Stacks

Formal Entry for From-The-Stacks Challenge (#3)
The Splendor of Letters: The Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World

Title: The Splendor of Letters
Author: Nicholas A. Basbanes
Publication Data: 2003 (original publication in hardcover); 2004 (trade paper); [See information at LibraryThing]
Length: 442 pages
Category: Non-Fiction

Summary: Basbanes completes the trilogy he began with Gentle Madness and Patience & Fortitude. I believe Basbanes' ultimate intent in writing this book was to emphasize the importance of the printed volume in communicating human constructs of self and culture to later generations and make clear his concern that, were we to lose the printed book by embracing too rapidly the digital information environment, we would incur great loss for future readers, scholars and researchers. The blurb on his website indicates that the text focuses on the "efforts to preserve books and other printed matter from the ravages of deterioration, destruction and obsolescence" while a review quoted from the Washington Post indicates, "Basbanes focuses on the transmission of texts, whether on clay tablets or compact discs, and ranges up and down history. He discusses University Microfilms, the Warburg Institute, the deacessioning of books from libraries, acidic paper, the need for new editions of classics, archival storage, e-books and much else." He writes well, and I found the book to be instructive even as it irritated me because Basbanes addresses all but one of the most significant issues facing the institutions he praises and criticizes. Libraries, museums and archives are resource-intensive operations whether you're discussing staffing, operations, or public access. Basbanes never discusses how we're to pay for all of this; he only notes that it is worth paying for.

Extract: (Selected at random) "Written in black ink with a split-reed pen on sections of bark that had been glued together to form long strips, the fragments, sixty altogether, represent about twenty-five texts, including some sermons of Siddhartha Gautama, the religious philosopher and sage known as the Buddha, who died about 485 B.C. The texts are thought to have belonged to a long-lost sect that dominated the region of Gandhara two thousand years ago, and helped to bring the religion derived from Buddha's teachings into central and east Asia from India, where it has since disapppeared. Pushing back the calendar as far as possible is of particular significance since so much of Buddha's instructions were memorized by his disciples and passed on orally for close to five hundred years before being written down in the first century B.C." (page 55, Chapter 2, Editio Princeps).

He writes with complex sentence structures and with incidental detail crammed in. Appropriate to the thoughtful reader who is actually considering his arguments, but apt to slow someone lacking background in the field.

Also Relevant: This book seemed dreadfully one-sided to me. Of course, anyone with an interest in books recognizes that they represent a specific experience for the user not found in any other format. Electronic full text downloaded in PDF file format from Google Books just doesn't offer anything like the experience of a leather-bound edition of an old favorite like Rebecca or Don Quixote. Basbanes' discussion of the importance of the book as historical record as well as cultural artifact is absolutely on target. But preserving and archiving physical artifacts takes a *lot* of money -- money for expertise, money for storage space and proper environmental control, money for mounting public exhibitions and other forms of public access. Libraries, museums and archives would gladly provide all of those services but right now, money for these institutions is largely an issue. Budgets are tight. Basbanes takes private and public institutions to task throughout the text for discarding or selling off portions of their collections but never recognizes the economic constraints that put the institution in that unfortunate situation. He seems to think that de-accessioning books is a wicked, thoughtless activity. He seems to suggest instead that librarians and archivists should carefully preserve and provide access to everything, just because the published work exists and because some day someone might have an interest in it. He finds fault with microfilm as a means of providing access (and I would certainly acknowledge that drawbacks exist) but he never acknowledges that limits exist on how much storage space a single institution can support physically and financially. It takes far less physical shelf space to store a roll of microfilm than it takes to store seventy volumes of a bound periodical.

Libraries in this country can be very good, but they can also be very poor. So much depends on funding. At present, all libraries (public, private, research, etc.) are expected to provide access to content via a myriad of avenues, including print, audio, electronic and video. At the same time, neither their funding nor the space allotted them expands at the same rate as the information. Everyone expects their needs to be satisfied by the local library because it is supported by taxes, but no one stops to consider how those needs change over time.

I don't argue with his message, but I think this man lives in a lovely ivory tower. Those fighting in the trenches have to make hard choices.

Fasting in Advent

This article from the Guardian (UK) makes an excellent point -- how we've forgotten that Advent was intended as a season of discipline in preparation for the feast of Christmas. Not your standard rant against the consumerist nature of the modern Christmas season.

Cake and Costume Drama

Last night, I had neither offspring nor spouse at home. So what did I do with my night off? I behaved *badly*. Rather than eat a proper dinner, I nuked one of those Betty Crocker Warm Delights in the microwave (molten chocolate cake!) and watched the first three episodes of the BBC mini-series, Fall of Eagles. It was absolutely, pure wickedness. Cake and costume drama! 1970's BBC television was really not half bad...

In the Shadow of the Law (A From-the-Stacks Entry)

Formal Entry for From-The-Stacks Challenge (#2)
In the Shadow of the Law

This was an addition to my published list for the challenge. I offer a monthly book talk/group session at my local library and this was the selection for that session in November. My selected theme for the second half of 2006 was courtroom mysteries/thrillers and according to Amazon, I've had this book on my shelf since April of this year.

Title: In the Shadow of the Law
Author: Kermit Roosevelt
Publication Data: 2005 (hardcover, ISBN 0-374-26187-3) 2006 (trade paper)
Length: 368 pages
Category: Fiction

Summary: In the Shadow of the Law exposes the working lives of eight lawyers at Washington DC law firm, Morgan Siler. Three young associates, Mark Clayton, Ryan Grady and Katja Phillips, have responsibility for pushing a death penalty appeal and a class-action suit through the appropriate legal processes to final decision. Over them are law firm partners, Peter Morgan, Harold Fineman, and Wallace Finn, each with an individual attitude as to practice of the law. Threaded throughout are the activities of two more practiced associates, Walker Eliott and Gerald Roth. Eliott is a former Supreme Court law clerk and Roth has risen from lowly status as paralegal to associate status via the channel of graduating from law school at night. This is *not* truly a legal suspense novel nor is it a courtroom drama; its value resides in being a character-driven, fictional portrayal of the legal profession. As a first novel, it is certainly more sophisticated than most. The narrative style is very complex, slowing the pace of the story. The overview of how the practice of law has changed in the past four or five decades is interesting and there are excellent moments of real humor.

Extract: Random House has posted an excerpt from the audio-book here. In my estimation, the writing style here in terms of vocabulary and sentence structure is not all that difficult with only occasional unfamiliar words popping up. (Quick, can *you* define "velleity" and use it in a sentence? I couldn't. Google defines it this way.) It is the narrative style that makes the book challenging.

Also Relevant: The book group at the library hated it, by and large. Of the seven brave souls who came out last night, only one of them had actually made it through the whole book; everyone else gave up at some point in the first third of the book. Now this is quite unusual for the regulars in this group. Most of the time, as participants, they show up having read the full text even if they don't like it. Of the seven, only one had finished it and actually said she had liked it. The others looked at me with expressions that conveyed a muted sense of bewilderment at and dislike of my selection.

The formal reviews that I could find (a normal part of the way I prepare for a book discussion) were mixed. The Christian Science Monitor said it "combines satisfyingly intricate puzzles with plenty of bite and some musings about the nature of the law" but did acknowledge that the resolution might have been a shade too tidy for realism.

What makes this book satisfying on one level is that the lawyers figure out "whodunnit" without resorting to unlikely detecting activities. Lawyers deal with paper and these lawyers resolve their cases using the paper trail engendered by legal activity. One case is resolved according to the spirit of the law and the other through the use of the letter of the law.

The author's aim, as indicated here at Findlaw, was to provide potential law students with a better understanding of the practice of law as exercised by professionals in a variety of roles. Assuming that he succeeded in his own estimation, I can read Shadow and use it as a gauge to determine whether I would enjoy the law as a profession. Frankly, I wouldn't like the environment, as portrayed by Roosevelt, but I certainly know more about the practice of the profession now than I knew before I read the book. I can even make a guess as to why my older sister *does* enjoy her chosen profession rather than making a face and muttering "because she is just that sort..."

I also think the character development in the novel is fairly strong. You believe in these people; they're not stereotypes. There is the drawback that only one or two are even faintly sympathetic, but they are delineated well and have idiosyncratic aspects. Having said that, his naming conventions bothered me initially in that the names Walker and Wallace are too similar. The eye processes W-A-L fairly quickly, but the next letter is either a lowercase "l" or "k" and that slows the identification process by the reader down. (Personally, I wish authors would think about that as they're writing, but I've read enough interviews to know that the creative process for many doesn't allow that.) But that is clearly nit-picking.

Personally, I still think it was a worthwhile read. It was not a great book, but it was an interesting one.