Wants.
I hate working within a Christmas budget. The things I want to give the people I love are not things I can afford, and, in some cases, are impossible. Christmas is hard on me for this reason.
I want to give the Food Bank enough food to last all year, even with the burgeoning number of impoverished and homeless people around here.
I want to give my friends who have families, or families on the way, houses for their growing families. I want to give them moisture-free basements as playrooms and big, bright spacious nurseries. I want to get them big, sunny backyards for barbecues and kids’ soccer games.
I also want to buy my house and give it to my landlady, so she doesn’t have to contemplate moving from her home, just because the investor who owns the house wants to sell it. The bastard.
I want to buy my dad a wetsuit and scuba lessons and all kinds of diving things, so he can dive here and doesn’t have to go off to Hawaii to dive.
I want to find my brother a tenure-track job at a university where he will be happy, gets on with the department, has a nice house, in a place his girlfriend can also get a tenure-track job. Oh, in a place where there are lots of good vegetarian restaurants.
I want to find a way for E to jam with Jimi Hendrix. Jimmy Page or Jeff Buckley, at a pinch.
I want my aunt to feel less lonely and isolated.
I want my grandmother’s dementia to recede, leaving the vibrant, quirky, independent woman whose spirit was never crushed by being born sixty years too early.
I want Peace on Earth.
I want to feel happier about a season that is supposed to be chock-full of joy.
No dice.
Some Stuff | Liz December 13, 2006
By anoymouscoworker, December 13, 2006 @ 8:10 am
I’d say your best bet for E would be Jimmy Page. I think those other two fellas will indisposed for a while.
By Arwen, December 13, 2006 @ 8:48 am
I’ve always loved the Steve Martin sketch about Christmas, where he starts wishing for Peace on Earth and kids singing together in harmony and ends with wishing for 30 million dollars and a 31 day orgasm.
By Liz, December 13, 2006 @ 12:11 pm
See, ACW, this is the problem with the budget. Page is alive, but on the other side of the planet. I’d need a lot of money for stalking.
Arwen, I think I vaguely remember that skit. But then, I am also thinking of pigs. Don’t their orgasms last for a half an hour or something?
By Deb, December 13, 2006 @ 12:20 pm
Thank you for that lovely mental-image of a pig having a half-hour-orgasm…..what a mess.
By cheesefairy, December 14, 2006 @ 1:27 pm
Good lord with the pigs already.
Jimmy Page is barely hanging on, better hurry.
Commentary aside, I read this yesterday, which might help with the enjoying of the season. (not the ‘holiday’) She writes ...Yule is not an intrinsically happy holiday. It (and Christmas, IMO) is a distraction from the inevitable stress and fear, especially for our ancestors, of the darkening days. Against the loss of life and light we throw up candles and evergreens, celebrate our bounty by making feasts and exchanging gifts. It becomes a symbol, then, of life in death, light in darkness, hope in despair. Of how all dark times come to an end, of how the worst and most irredeemable of us can change. At the darkest time of the year, we throw the biggest party, and sing of joy and peace and hope.
By Liz, December 15, 2006 @ 1:46 am
Sorry, Deb. Didn’t mean to fill your thoughts with pig jizz.
Cheesefairy, thank you. That’s about what I try to remind myself of. But then I hear some elvator-music rendition of “Wonderful Christmas Time”, which you loathe so much, and I become despondent. As for Page, he’s on the Old Rock Star Preservation Plan. I think he’ll be around a while.
By Pam, December 15, 2006 @ 11:55 am
I lurve it, Cheesefairy!! Blogged.
By Gecko Bloggle, December 16, 2006 @ 9:58 pm
Found the skit on YouTube (it’s work safe, but surfing YouTube on the company dime isn’t always a good idea)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrlzQV7TW-g
By Liz, December 17, 2006 @ 12:10 am
Man, when Steve Martin is on, he is ON! Thanks for finding that, Mr. Bloggle.