Wishing you...

Blogger's been giving me troubles, so I wasn't able to post for a while (here's hoping this one works!).

After meeting with my lawyer I, wish to extend the following message out to all of you:

"Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious/secular persuasions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted Gregorian calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our countries great and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wisher"

Please note:

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher.

This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

No trees were harmed in the sending of this message.







In other words...

Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!!

Leave a big hole...

Yesterday, the girls and I went on a grocery shopping trip at the store I used to work at. Now that dh officially has a new job (all the paperwork is signed and a start date it set) and we have an idea what hours he's working, there's no practical way for me to go back to the job. Since I've left, every time I go shopping, I get staff members I've worked with coming up to me and asking me if I'm coming back, wondering why I had to leave, and commenting on how much I'm missed. My kids laugh and tease me about it.

After the last shopping trip, I found myself remembering one of the seminars on tape I listen to on a regular basis. It goes back a few years, but I still remember it. The speaker's theme was "leave a big hole." He talked about how, when faced with opportunities, many people find excuses as to why they can't take them. One of the more frequent ones he's had is people going on about how important they are at their jobs, how vital their position is, and how much their companies need them. They are under the impression that they have job security. The speaker told of how he had one guy that was telling him all this, so he responded this way. He said to take a glass of water, put your finger into the water, then pull it out again. The length of time it takes for the water to fill in the hole your finger was in is about how long it'll take a company to replace you.

He then went on to talk about how, whatever job you have, it's imporant to do that job to the best of your abilities. A lot of people moan and groan about their jobs. The hours, the work, the people, the conditions... They may start out eager, but before long they're cutting corners and settling for "good enough." (I won't even touch the jobs were people are actually admonished for doing it "too well" because they're making their co-workers look bad) Few people, even those who enjoy their jobs, say positive things about them. The point he was trying to stress was that, even if you're a street sweeper, be the best street sweeper there ever was. Whatever your work is, be the best you can be at it. Constantly try to improve yourself and your skills. Find the joy in your work. Take pride in doing a good job. Do it because it's worth doing, because it's your job, not for external accolades, promotions, or whatever. He then went on to say how, by simply being the best at your own job that you are able to be, when the time comes to leave (and in this day and age, it's pretty much assured that you will), your absence will leave a big hole; one that will be difficult to fill.

I never needed a seminar to tell me to do my work well. This was something I learned from my parents. They never "taught" it to me. They never had to. I simply saw what they did. My parents, "uneducated," with questionable English and no certifiable skills, could do pretty much anything they put their minds to. No job was beneath their dignity; no job was too unpleasant to not do well. While there were certainly some jobs I simply couldn't bring myself to do (like gutting chickens - I could do every other part but that), even at a young age, I knew that it was me, not the job, that had a problem. The job needed to be done, so my parents did it. I don't think it ever occurred to them not to do a job well. Looking back, I remember doing jobs that, in retrospect, were pretty disgusting, but I did them. Quite a few were done without being asked. I saw it needed to be done, so I did it.

The funny thing is that, as the youngest of 5, I was by far the "laziest" of us all. With so many older siblings, I could get out of quite a few jobs my older siblings couldn't. I never thought of myself as being particularily hard working - certainly not compared to the rest of my family. Yet when it came time for me to be on my own, every employer I've ever had over the years has valued me for how well I do my job, and what a hard worker I apparently am. In one cases, I was amazed to find the owner even knew who I was, never mind knew me enough to write a glowing letter of reference, instead of getting one from the supervisor I'd originally asked.

It's always been rather a surprise for me, and what's happening now is no different. Sure, I was "just" a grocery store cashier, and I've certainly encountered people who would consider this sort of work as somehow beneath them, but status hardly matters to me. I always tried to keep in mind that mine was probably the last staff face the customer would see on the way out, so the impression I made would be the one that stuck with them the longest. The most important thing was the customer in front of me, and I enjoyed doing the little things, like always checking the eggs, wrapping a leakable item, bagging items efficiently, etc. These were things I appreciated as a customer, so why not do it as a cashier? It never occurred to me that this was any big deal until I had more and more customers telling me that in all their years of shopping, they've never had another cashier take that extra step, whatever that step happened to be. From this, I knew the customers appreciated it, but even if no one had actually commented, I'd do it anyways, because that was part of doing my job well. Now I'm starting to realize that other staff members, including ones I never worked with directly, appreciated things I did as well.

Like the speaker on the tape I listened to so many years ago said, I seem to have left a big hole.

To Santa, or not to Santa

While going through my online columnists this morning, I found this one, and it got me thinking about the whole Santa deal. It was these passages in particular that got to me...

So there I sat on Christmas morning, crying uncontrollably, trying to figure out what I had done to make Santa angry.

and then...

As an adult, I can't even imagine what it's like for a parent to explain to their children why Santa overlooked them while all their friends received countless presents and enjoyed a huge holiday feast.

I can't even imagine this situation in the first place. As a child, Christmas was a HUGE event - but it was a religious and cultural event. Christmas Eve (Wigilia) was the highlight of the year. Only Easter came close to compare. My parents bought the gifts, and they were wrapped and stored on top of one of the kitchen shelves, in full view, or at the top of one of their bedroom closets. Out of reach, but not really hidden.

I had this vague notion of someone called Santa, but to my childhood mind, it was meaningless. Christmas was the celebration of the birth of Christ, and Wigilia, followed by Midnight Mass, was the core of our celebrations.

With our own children, we've made a point of telling the kids that, while we don't do the Santa thing, some families do, and to be careful not to say things like "there is no Santa," just as we tell them not to say "there is no tooth fairy." I'm not sure when I discovered that some families went to extreme lengths to make their kids believe in a literal Santa, but I do remember thinking it was the strangest, most dishonest thing a parent could do. It's one thing to have fun with it; my in-laws, for example, send gifts to our kids labelled "from Santa." We joke about it the same way we joke about the tooth fairy being a big hairy guy with a beard (Dh) in a pink tutu. It can be harmless fun, but when the myth is perpetuated so strongly that children judge themselves based on whether or not "Santa" got them what they wanted (see the first quote from the column), I see that as a problem.

Then there's the next part. The idea that poor people have to explain to their kids why Santa "overlooked" them. Good God. Are people really doing that?

I grew up in a cash poor family. I can't say that we were actually poor - partly because I believe poverty is a state of mind - but we were definately broke. Thankfully, we lived on a mixed farm, and as such, we never had to worry about where our next meal would come from. We provided most of our own food. We didn't get a lot of presents, but there was always something. I even remember making a gift for one of my brothers - a checker board made out of construction paper. I doubt my brother ever used it (I never saw it again, that I can recall), but I was quite proud about the fact that I made that gift for him. At the time, it never occurred to me that money was needed to provide gifts. Money was something we just didn't have a lot of.

The gifts themselves tended to be more practical. New clothes, for example, with perhaps a few toys. We never had a lot of clothes to choose from, with lots of hand-me-downs, so getting new clothes for Christmas was pretty exciting. Small boxes of chocolates were fairly common. My parents would buy extra and wrap them, just in case we got unexpected guests. At no point did we ever feel deprived because we didn't get as many things as other kids got. I don't even remember caring what other kids got. Christmas was so much a family focused event, I don't remember it ever occurring to me to compare to what other people did. In our community, there weren't a lot of people who celebrated Wigilia, and that alone made our Christmas different and special.

The thing is, we kids knew there wasn't a lot of money. No one had to explain anything to us. There was no myth to perpetuate. Christmas wasn't about presents and "stuff," though we certainly enjoyed and appreciated them. Christmas was about traditions, faith and family. It was about gathering around the table, sharing the oplatyk. It was bundling up against the cold to go to Midnight Mass - church at midnight! - being sure to get there very early, so we'd have seats, and to enjoy the singing of carols beforehand. Sure, I loved going through the Sears catalog and dreaming about the stuff I'd like to get, but it never occurred to me that I actually *would* get what I wanted from there, other than perhaps one or two small items. Maybe.

While I have nothing against contributing to charity to help people in need for Christmas, I can't help but feel that our culture puts too much emphasis on Christmas as this gift giving orgy. I remember a few years back, some friends of ours were going through very hard times, and found themselves needing to use the food bank. I remember being amazed at how much food they got as a family of three. They got more food given to them than I needed to buy for our own family of 4 - and they were just on a top up program! Then Christmas rolled around, and they got even larger amounts of food, including baked treats and party food, a frozen turkey, and more gifts for their one child than we bought for both of ours together (I can't even remember if Dh and I bought gifts for each other that year). The irony of it is that part of the reason our own Christmas was so short was because we kept giving money to help others who were in more need than we were, whether it was for groceires, gas in the tank to get to work, to take a course for certification needed for a new job, or whatever. We've never really given much to charities, but we've given a lot to individual families over the years.

I remember looking, as I sometimes helped pick up, unpack and put away our friend's food bank goods, in awe at the sheer volume of food, thinking there was something wrong with this picture. It's great that these services are available for those in need - I'm thankful for it, and I know it'd be a relief if we ever needed such services - but it blew my mind that people on the food bank program were getting top ups that were more than we could afford buy for ourselves, and to feed fewer people. We certainly weren't going hungry, either.

Back to the Santa concept, though. I think the idea of fooling children with the literal Santa myth not only does them a disservice, but that it's much more far reaching. It's unfortunate that donations to charities seem to need something like Christmas to remind people to donate, but are we doing the right thing by increasing people's expectations like this? Are we doing our children any favours by going to such extremes to convince them that there really is someone called Santa? If a family is in dire straights to the point that they need to rely on charity, this sort of dishonesty can cause an aweful lot of pain and confusion in their children. Why do it? Why not just tell your kids, "money is tight right now, but we can still celebrate Christmas without it." Being broke is nothing to be ashamed of and, unlike some of the charity ads I've been seeing, doesn't mean you won't have Chrismas because of it. I recently picked up a free magazine and found and ad reading "Imagine No Christmas..." Below, it pictures a child sitting on front of an empty plate, in shadow so the face is unseen, but with a starburst glint added to the plate. Ads like that disgust me.

Christmas, after all, isn't about how many presents you get, how much food there is, or about Santa. No matter how much the secularists want to water it down, Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. It's a celebration of faith. While some have replaced Jesus with Santa, and others go on about the various pagan festivals we christians supposedly took over in choosing Dec. 25th to celebrate, it doesn't change the fact that it's a religous holiday and, above all, a birthday celebration.

For someone else.

new blogger

Well, I've finally gone and updated my blog to the new blogger beta. It's supposed to be easier, better, etc. It may be. I don't know yet. About the only thing that seems to have changed is that the dashboard is harder on the eyes, and I keep having to re-set my password, because every time I type it in, it tells me the password doesn't match, even though I *know* I'm typing it on correctly.

Hopefully this time it'll keep. :-P

thoughts on a nation...

There's quite an uproar right now about our PM recognizing the Quebecois as a nation. Reading the letters, editorials and blogs about it, there's quite the range of reactions.

I'm not entirely sure what to make of it myself. There's one thing I need to specify, though. The PM did *not* recognise Quebec as a nation. Quebec is a province. He recognised the Quebecois people as a nation. While many would assume that it's one and the same (as I would have, in the past), they aren't. The Quebecois are a fracophone group within Quebec - and not the only one. My husband's family is originally from the area and he has extended family spanning most of the east coast. His ancestors have been in Canada for 300 years. While francophone, they hold little love for France, which they feel abandoned the colonists. They hold little love or loyalty for the Queen, since they hold no ties to the UK. But they are not Quebecois. They consider themselves Acadian, a nation that pre-dates Canada.

The Quebecois are a group that is centred mostly around the urban areas of southern Quebec, with the exception of those that consider themselves Acadian. As I understand it, the farther north you go, the less Quebecois Quebec becomes.

One analogy that comes to mind is how Canada recognises First Nations peoples as seperate nations. It's interesting to note that the Metis is recognised as a nation, too - but the Metis do not qualify for any of the "benefits" the first nations get. Most significantly, while our federal government does recognise the Metis, many First Nations do not recognise the Metis as a nation at all. I see similarities here. I certainly doubt the Quebecois seperatists would recognise the Acadians as a seperate nation!

It's a great big mess.

So while I have extreme reservations about the Quebecois being recognised as a "nation within a nation," I also get the impression that Harper may have cut the seperatists off at the knees - but no one's quite sure if he succeeded. They got what they supposedly wanted - recognition - but by recognising the Quebecois people, there's no doubt that Quebec itself is still very much a part of Canada.

Time to see how this plays out.

Wham!

Tonight I was on my way to a business meeting and had to take a cab. Seeing a cab in front of our building, I went to find out if it was the one I'd called. I open the door and...

WHAM!!!

... I somehow manage to smack myself right in the eye with the corner of the door! Twisted my glasses all out of shape, and I'm developing quite a shiner right now.

Ouch.

The meeting was great, though! LOL

Trepidatious

So dh's new job looks like it won't need the full 3 months of his contract to finish it. He's accomplishing in days - sometimes hours - what was estimated to take weeks or months. And he's trying not to do it too quickly! Based on what they knew, the estimation of 3 months with possible 2 month extension made sense. Unfortuntely, they didn't know much about the software dh is using, so their estimate was based on someone who kept getting errors in the code and having a hard time fixing them, simply because he wasn't very familiar with the newest version of the software. Dh, on the other hand, is very familiar with it. He readily admits he's no genius at it (though he is cutting himself short a bit - he's quite good at what he does). Even so, simply knowledge of the tools is enough to make the difference.

Of course, that means he's still looking and interviewing. With some breathing space, thanks to this contract, he can look with a more selective eye. There's two possibilities in the works. One is a local position and is our preference.

The other would have us moving back to my home province.

That's where I'm feeling trepidatious.

First off, I don't want to do another interprovincial move. There's a lot of extra headaches involved. I particularily don't want to move back to my home province, as every time we've done that, it's cost us about $5000 at tax time.

Sure, our family is all there - his and mine - but family is part of why we left in the first place. More specifially, my mother. She's one of those toxic people that really ought to be avoided. She's also determined to control my life and ferociously against our homeschooling the kids. I seriously believe she'd go so far as making a false report to social services and have our kids taken from us. Considerring she's already made false reports against us to other authorities, this is no great leap.

Now, I happen to like my home province in many ways, and am familier with the city we'd be going to, since we've lived there several times over the years. There's a lot of good things going for it.

What I've found, however, is that as much as I liked living there, I really love living here. I find it wonderfully, wildly eclectic. It's amazingly friendly here, and there's a large hs'ing community that we've tapped into. I feel at home here.

The kids have developed real friendships. A lot of these kids have competely different views than mine, they like different things, they dress and act differently - and none of that matters. They're friends because they truly enjoy each other's company, and their differences are enjoyed, if not revelled in. *L* This is so completely different from the "friends" they left behind.

Amazingly, I'm finding that *I* have started to develope friendships, too. There are a lot of people who's company I enjoy so much, and I look forward to getting to know them even better. This is a totally new thing for me. I have long been a recluse at heart, and I am content in my own space. I'm not the sort of person who "needs" to be around people, or "needs" constant companionship. Dh is very much like that - he starts to go stir crazy if he hasn't spent some time at least talking to other people on the phone. I've just never been much of a people person. I can happily sit at home with some good books or some crafting materials and I'll be happy for ages. Throw in all the moves, and what I've developed over the years is a whole lot of aquaintances, but few actual friendships. This whole concept of actually connecting with another person like that is a new thing for me. I like it. Sure, I would still be just as content as a hermit, but I value these people and their companionship. I want to continue down that path. Moving out of province makes it so much more difficult to maintain friendships.

So that's where my thoughts are these days. Of course, there's no way of knowing where we'll end up. We just have to keep these things in mind while making our decisions.