What’s on your mind this Friday?

Did you enjoy your Thanksgiving yesterday?  Any good stories to share from the meal?

We are STOKED that we can start playing Christmas music now, which is our favorite music of all…starting with our favorite holiday album of all time, Twisted Sister’s A Very Twisted Christmas.  We’ll take our carols with a side of hair band, please. 

Out of curiosity, are you going to be amongst the crowds strambling around to buy things today, on “Black Friday” (how RAAACIST!)?  

It’s interesting that none of us came from families that made a big deal out of buying STUFF for Christmas, birthdays, or any other present-giving holiday.  Instead, our families all mostly made things.  Our moms, aunts, grandmas, etc. would all make whatever they were best at:  special holiday cookies that you’d only get once a year, given to you in a giant metal tin that grandma picked out special for you; crocheted scarves, hats, tablecloths, afghans, you name it; framed photo collages from all the pictures taken that year, etc.

As kids, we made whatever arts and crafts projects we’d learn at school, to various degrees of success.  Later, as we got older, we’d scan family photos into the computer and use photo-mosaic software to create those pictures-within-a-larger-picture mosaics of relatives or friends.  We’d also write little stories and bind them into books at Kinko’s.  

We never spent a lot of money, but poured more effort into all of this than going down to the store to purchase something in a box that was made in China or Japan.  

As kids, the Sears catalog DID arrive every year, in those pre-Internet days, as a window into this magical world where all the new toys lived, begging you to play with them.  We’d pour over that catalog for hours and hours and hours (ultimately, as the years went by, losing interest in the toy section and discovering what fun the underwear parties seemed to be in the men’s and athletic support sections).  We never asked for any big ticket Christmas presents, though…and we can from families that all did fairly well for themselves.  But, buying STUFF was never what the holidays were about in our houses.

When we see people pushing and shoving to get into stores at six in the morning, we just shake our heads and wish they’d learn the true meaning of Christmas.