Christmas Redux

I am giddy. Daughter #3 just came home from work with presents for moi! 

I must admit, I usually receive Llewellyn's Witches' Datebook for Christmas and this year I didn't receive one. I was gravely disappointed.

True, I start off the year putting my appointments into the book, but gradually I forget to add them in or I forget to check the book to find them. My mind is usually buried deep inside a story, either one of mine or one I am reading, and mundane things like a check-up just doesn't occur to me.

While my alter-ego was publishing her Totems and monthly horoscope books, the Witches' Datebook was crucial. And it still is!

(Please ignore the dates on the pictures, I haven't figured out how to change them or get rid of them yet!)

However, last year I remembered the joy I had when I was a list maker. (Only on projects, not on life or ~gasp~ cleaning!)

When I used to earn money from my needles, (knitting, crocheting, and sewing) I always had a project list. It always gave me great joy to cross a project off the list and date it. It helped to see the finished products listed so that when I was feeling like I was floundering rather than treading water I could see that I had actually achieved goals I had set.

(I always set the bar high. If the goals were too easy than I wouldn't really be accomplishing anything.)

After decades of writing, it was only in 2013 when I decided to write the Boundless Billionaire series and I compiled a list of possible titles for later books. That was when I realized I was back to list making.

I also know myself well enough to realize that I am a deadline person. The closer the deadline the harder I work. (You don't want to know when I decided what I was making everyone for Christmas or when I began making them!!!)

Daughter #1 lives in a rural part of another state, so when I go to visit her we always make a trip to the local stores to load up on things we both might need. It was while we were there that I saw a pretty little desk calendar blotter. 

I didn't buy it that day, but I went home and obsessed about it for weeks before I finally found the same thing in my closest store with a big blue sign. (They get enough business so I'm not naming them here, but they use a yellow smiley face in their commercials!)

I needed that desk planner to post my goals in writing. In INK!!! I ignored the fact that my desk is just a catch all surface and doesn't have a chair. I usually pile the pillows behind me and work on my bed or go to the library when I want to sit like a grown up.

Anyway, the pretty pink blotter was hung on my door with the schedule of children's events written on it. In ink!

In the meantime, before I bought the pretty pink blotter I was whining to Daughter #3 about how I had to find a planner that was set up with each week set across the page and a place to write the weekly goals. I wanted to know if B&N still had any for 2013 in stock. Finally she pulled out the one she had bought for herself and had only used for the first week of the year and gave it to me.

A page from the 2014 planner. (Not yet used.)

I was thrilled and overjoyed. I didn't know she had one, but suddenly it was mine.

I had a goals partner, and I am very good at cracking the whip and giving out advice, but very bad at taking my own advice. I needed that planner to hold my feet over the fire.

So, beginning in June I began writing my writing totals for the day on each day. It even involved math, because I would write the entire amount written to date on the project and then find the total amount of new words for the day. 

If I did not write that day I had to write in "0" and write the reason for not working on my story.

I set weekly goals and a completion date for each project. I might not always reach my goals, but I do my best to finish on the completion date! (Afterall, I am a Deadline Ho!)

The new planner has a month at a glance feature.

I have since expanded the tracking to include when I write a blog, newsletter, or work on my website. (It is so easy to lose track of time.)

In December, courtesy of the Christmas rush to make gifts, I added when I finished each gift. I have decided to continue the practice throughout 2014. Perhaps I will get presents done in a more leisurely manner. (Yeah, right!)

The presents also included a new crochet book.

 

It's amazing where you can find some good patterns. Some of the best come in the "How To" books.

The fourth gift she brought home was this pretty felt tote bag. I am a bag lady and proud of it. The felt has nice stiff sides, so it should be hold a couple of skeins of yarn without collapsing.

If you don't already make lists and you are searching for a way out of chaos, or at least to get something done, try making a list or adding a break down of what you have to do to your agenda. It not may help, but it might, and it won't hurt.

You'll also be in great company. Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and Martha Stewart made lists, and look at all they have accomplished!

Now I hope you will all excuse me, I have my goals to set for next year. I'm going to put them into my planner . . . in INK!

Merry Christmas!

New!!!

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If you haven't signed up for it already, just send me your email addy and I will be happy to add you.

More Holiday Ranting

I remember when I was little and I would watch Miracle on 34th Street every year. I've watched all the incarnations and none are as good as the version with the adorable Natalie Wood, the beautiful Maureen O'Hara, the handsome John Payne, and the quintessential Kris Kringle . . . Edmund Gwenn.

I grew up believing that Macy's was the best! After all, it had the only Thanksgiving parade worth watching. (It was the only one network television showed!) They had fabulous balloons and the Rockettes. 

Macy's was the store with a heart and the true spirit of Christmas.

On my very first trip to the city, as a young adult, I made a special point of going to Macy's and purchasing important items there. After all, it was the miracle store and a landmark.

I had innocently kept this view of Macy's well into adulthood. 

In Boston we had our own landmark store, Jordan Marsh, which was actually older than Macy's. 

Every year my grandmother would dress me in my best party dress. We would get on the bus in front of our house and go to Newton Corner, transfer to a trolley that would take us to Kenmore Square, go below the surface to the subway, and take the subway to downtown Boston. I shivered in delight at the thought of going into the city to see Santa Claus. It was a major undertaking for an elderly woman and a shy little girl.

Jordan Marsh also had a Christmas tradition which began in the 1940s. It was an Enchanted Village. It occupied an entire floor and people would come from all over to stand in line to see the village and end their pilgrimage with a visit with Santa and a photo. Then they would shop. You couldn't go to Jordan Marsh and not shop, and then end the day in their bakery with a fabulous blueberry muffin and a hot chocolate!

The Enchanted Village was an incredible draw, until for some reason, Jordan Marsh did away with it in the 1970s. 

It was revived again in the 1990s and masses of people once again stood in long lines to view the Village and to purchase gifts they could just have easily obtained at their local mall.

Then in 1998 the dastardly Macy's took over the iconic Jordan Marsh and said, "There will be no more Enchanted Village, we want to use the space for offices."

People were devastated. Why would the legendary purveyors of Christmas, the store that was made famous by the best of all Christmas movies, Miracle on 34th Street, why would they want to destroy a Boston Christmas tradition. 

What would they do next? Replace Santa in the parade with a robot?

I may be too sensitive, but I have not been able to watch the parade nor the movie since.

After the demise of the Village in the department store, it was moved to City Hall Plaza and the city sponsored it until they decided it was something they could no longer handle and sold the Village at auction on June 16, 2009. At that time it was bought by Jordan's Furniture (no relations to Jordan Marsh - it is a unit of Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway and still operated with one of the original owners guiding the business) and moved to their Avon store.

Now when I go to visit the Village and see Santa I am tempted to buy a new desk or living room suite instead of a porcelain doll or a cashmere sweater.

It may be unreasonable, but I still blame Macy's for killing a local tradition. They could have found another space for their offices!

What holiday traditions in your area have been destroyed in the name of profit?

We are in the season of giving and all the stores and advertisers intend to take full advantage of this. 

Usually the big sales begin on "Black Friday". So named because it is the day the stores' books magically turn from red ink to black. Or so they hope.

This year many retailers hoped to cash in early and began their "door busting pre-black Friday" sales in early November. Which meant the advertising began before Halloween.

Was this too early for you?

I had a new romance novel out this year titled Christmas Lights. I agonized over the release date. 

If I release it before Thanksgiving will I offend all the traditionalists that hate to see the season rushed? If I wait until Black Friday will my window to sell the book be too short?

Amazon settled the problem for me by sending me a letter saying they expected a glut of books to be uploaded for release over Thanksgiving weekend and if I intended to release a book at that time I should do my best to plan accordingly. 

That was it. I decided to release the book on November 12th. 

I did not hold an "event" or a "release" party. Too many others had them planned and they have bigger names, bigger reader bases, and much, much bigger prizes to give out. I decided my time and money was better spent with my family.

And isn't that what the holiday is really about?

As a reader, how do you find new books to read? Do you attend the events? 

Writer friends, how do you promote your new book? 

Ugh!

I cannot believe how time is flying past. I am enjoying the time and making the most out of it, but it seems like only yesterday when I wrote the Thanksgiving Fast post.

I have not forgotten, not forsaken, you. But I must admit . . . I do lose track of time.

Where is a Time Lord when you really need one?

Yesterday I Fasted

That's right. You read that correctly. Yesterday was Thanksgiving and I fasted.

It was not for medical reasons. It was in support of the poor people in America.

In the past I have run a food pantry and assisted at a food kitchen. I know the face of hunger, and I know it well.

It can't always be read in the lines on a person's face nor in the body fat, or lack thereof, that they carry. Hunger may be affecting the cashier who gives you attitude at that store that underpays its employees. It may be hurting the man in the cubicle next to yours. Or the woman riding on the bus, maybe the woman driving the school bus you so lovingly entrust the road safety of your child to.

It could be affecting the child sitting next to your child who is taking a standardized test. The overall scores of all the students in the school are used to set a school's ranking. Hungry children cannot concentrate, so a child who is missing meals or not eating enough at each meal could be hurting your child's education and chance of getting into your dream college.

(My children attended a school where they had all the students bused in early when testing was being done so that every child in the school was fed a free breakfast on the mornings of the tests. They wanted to make sure there were no hungry bellies and distracted children taking the test. They wanted high test scores to keep their high ranking.)

If you are still with me you are probably wondering what any of this has to do with me fasting on Thanksgiving.

My family was scattered yesterday, so I was not tempted by the smells of delicious food being cooked. I did not sit by, salivating, while others enjoyed the food I denied myself. Yesterday was the ideal day to fast.

In the last few years the United States Congress has cut funding to school breakfast and lunch programs. It has cut food stamps. It has not raised the minimum wage, not has it given itself a pay cut.

This year when the supermarkets put the turkeys on sale, the sale price was ten (10) cents a pound higher than it was last year.

In months with major holidays, people on food stamps do not receive anything extra. 

Food stamps do not feed an individual nor a family for the entire month. (Check out Cory Booker's social experiment.)

Most food pantries limit food stamp recipients to once a month.

Too many people do not live close enough to a food pantry or soup kitchen to be able to utilize them. And in many areas it is a humiliating experience.

Fact: One in six people in America do not get enough to eat.

One in six people in the richest country in the world go hungry everyday!!!

I went hungry yesterday for the people who couldn't afford to do the traditional Thanksgiving feast.

I went hungry yesterday for the people who missed meals over the course of the last few months in order to save to have the traditional feast.

I went hungry yesterday to silently show my solidarity.

Did I miss the food? Hell yes!

I suffered with hunger pains that woke me up in the middle of the night. I suffered from a headache brought on by hunger. I suffered every time I thought of a child who had to go without.

Please remember when Congress takes away money from school food programs, they are actually taking the food right out of children's mouths! 

Another thing to remember, when Congress cuts food stamps it is taking food out of the mouths of children, elderly, working poor, veterans, and the families of active military personnel. 

Also remember, it is cheaper to feed your family macaroni and cheese, Ramen noodles, Little Debbies, and soda than it is to buy fresh produce, whole grain cereals, and milk. The thinking is, a full belly is better for the soul than an empty belly with little bits of apple passing through it.


Tis the season for giving. I say give your Congressman hell. Tell him or her that you want funding returned to the school lunch and food stamp programs. 

It is time America fought the war against poverty the way Lyndon Johnson wanted it. The country was never able to fulfill Johnson's vision of a "Great Society" because of a little conflict known as Vietnam. 

What started as an advisory position turned into a "police action" and then an undeclared war. It ate up the Federal budget and the War on Poverty has never been fully funded. Instead of being a cure, the social programs became a bandaid.

Ever since we left Vietnam each President has presided over some kind of conflict, whether it was part of the "cold" war or a flaming conflict, the industrial-military complex has continued to eat up the Federal budget. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, (a former General) warned us about the industrial-military complex, but it is a major part of Congressional pork. (And Congress never goes hungry - just look at their fresh donut budget!)

Even one of our Founding Fathers, President (and former General) George Washington warned us about getting involved in foreign conflicts.

It is time to fully fund the War on Poverty and stop the War on the Poor!

The politicians are blaming the poor because they don't want to tax their corporate sponsors. They are turning brother against brother. Blaming the poor for the middle class slipping into the ranks of the poor.

The poor don't have that kind of power.

The people with the power seek to divert our attention away from those that are really to blame for the monetary iniquity. (And it is not the person who is holding down two or three jobs just to survive.)

Sorry, I have digressed into a rant, but I am not going to erase it. I usually keep politics out of this blog and off my Facebook page. I have another persona who is the activist. However, as we are going into the "giving season" and there are so many more people who need a helping hand, I can no longer be silent. (At least today!)

If you are able, donate to your local food pantry or soup kitchen. If money is tight, then donate your time. A warm body is always appreciated.

Happy Holidays, my friends.