(no subject)

Michigan is so freaking weird. Last week we had a snowstorm. This week it's all melting. I don't remember the last time we had an honest to goodness white Christmas because this keeps on happening. Am slightly vexed.

In other holiday news, auntiemeesh, I got your card! It was delightful! Thank you ever so much, my dear.

Have spent the day cleaning and wrapping presents. I only have one more thing I want to get and I should be all ready. I ventured out today to pick up an equalizing present for the Big Lug and the crowds weren't nearly as bad as I feared they would be. I also tried to frame the LotR poster I got for the Da but realized that it's 25 inches instead of 24 and I can't seem to find a big enough frame. I got one so we'll see what I can do. Stupid New Line, couldn't they make a normal-sized poster?

Had a discussion last night about Santa Claus. It's interesting to me that some kids, when they find out where they're presents are coming from view it as a big conspiracy, their parents lied, to them, OMG! My experience was quite different. I actually believed in Santa for a ridiculously long amount of time. I think I wanted to believe so badly that I purposefully closed my eyes to any other possibilities until I organically realized what the truth had to be. But there's still a part of me that kind of believes, the same part that still believes in Narnia and Middle-earth, and Oz. There is truth and there is reality and sometimes those concepts are not as clear as they may seem to be. I'm grateful for that little bit of me that still clings to concepts like wonder and magic, it helps me trudge through the cold and the dark.

But, anyway, I'm 100% behind telling kids about Santa because Santa is the coolest. Just so long as he's not Evil Santa or the Anti-Clause or anything like that cause no child should ever have to be traumatized in that way.

In sum: I almost bought a magnet today that said, "It took me years but I finally quit dieting." A very wise magnet. I think I might like to make some Christmas cookies tonight. Yeah, that might be fun. =D

(no subject)

I feel like I've completely lost my baking mojo. Ever since Thanksgiving nothing seems to work out right. At Thanksgiving my apple pie's crust wasn't completely done and some of the rolls were still doughy. Now I've been trying to make an old family sugar cookie recipe that's frustrating the hell out of me. It just won't work right. I have wasted more flour, butter, and sugar this week than any one person should ever have to throw away.

I did make a pretty great cake for the Mum's birthday. No wonder I'm not really in the Christmas spirit, I have yet to eat a single holiday cookie. That's it. Tomorrow is dedicated solely to baking. I'm going to produce something, gorramit.

Maybe it's just that I have a shitty oven. I don't know.

There, that's it, enough with the baking OCD. I recently re-read LeGuin's A Wizard of Earthsea. Like most good books it improved immensely on the second read. I noticed so many rich, wonderful layers and truly appreciated the way it represented the overweaning pride of youth. It is such a shame that SciFi made such a hash of their adaptation because there are so many amazing things they could have done with that fantastic story.

I stayed up late last night and watched Patrick Stewart's A Christmas Carol. It was a nice adaptation and he was very good in it. I teared up at the end. I empathize with Scrooge, the world beat him down until he couldn't see the good in other people anymore, let alone himself. I can understand how one could slowly close onself off from everyone else as a protective measure until one was locked in a draughty old room eating lukewarm soup out of a cup. The bravest thing Scrooge ever did was knock on his nephew's door that Christmas morning and ask to be allowed in.

I'm not a huge fan of Dickens but it's no wonder that A Christmas Carol has been adapted and re-adapted so many times in so many different media. We're all of us looking for a way in out of the cold.