A Little Christmas Day Reading

Amado reading "Me and Grandma at the Flea" on Christmas morning. Thanks Grandmas Coop and Bean!

Merry Xmas!

Tom Jones - Winter Wonderland

This is cheese to the max, but you have got to give Tom Jones props for his dance moves in this video. Holy Cow! the guy can move!!! I think even I would throw my underwear at him if I could.

Cut Your Credit Card into a Christmas Star

Sojourners' Martha Stewartesque, "Cut Your Credit Card into a Christmas Star" video. Very funny. They should do a whole series like this!

Nat King Cole - The Christmas Song

Anarchists in the Aisles

A New York Times piece on "shopdropping." Above, a D.I.Y. t-shirt featuring Karl Marx, the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, and Che Guevara slipped onto a rack at a Target store in California. Viva la revolucion!

Otherwise known as reverse shoplifting, shopdropping involves surreptitiously putting things in stores, rather than illegally taking them out, and the motivations vary.

Anti-consumerist artists slip replica products packaged with political messages onto shelves, self-published authors sneak their works into the “new releases” section, while personal trainers put their business cards into weight-loss books, and aspiring professional photographers make homemade cards — their Web site address included, of course — and covertly plant them into stationery-store racks.

“Everyone else is pushing their product, so why shouldn’t we?” said Jeff Eyrich, a producer for several independent bands, who puts stacks of his bands’ CDs — marked “free” — on music racks at Starbucks whenever the cashiers look away.

Retailers fear the practice may annoy shoppers and raise legal or safety concerns, particularly when it involves children’s toys or trademarked products.

“Our goal at all times is to provide comfortable and distraction-free shopping,” said Bethany Zucco, a spokeswoman for Target. “We think this type of activity would certainly not contribute to that goal.”

O Come On!

Here's a Christmas card that Emerging Spirit has produced for United Church congregations to customize and use to invite their neighbours to a Christmas service. You wouldn't think it would be controversial (or at least I never thought it would be when producing it), but it is, at least in some quarters of The United Church of Canada.

Xmas 2004

In 2004 we moved to Virginia where I took a great job with the Alban Institute. Unfortunately, it was much harder for Wendy as a Canadian to get a work permit than we imagined and she ended up taking a job back in Canada filling in for somebody on maternity leave. For several months one of us would travel between Virginia and Toronto every other weekend so we could see each other. This picture is from Christmas Eve 2004, when I drove through a ferocious snowstorm just to be with the one I love. It was a terrible drive, but I made it!

Xmas 2002

No snow this year, and I'm having battery issues with my camera, so I thought I would post this picture from Christmas Day 2002. Wendy is just arriving at her parents' house in Hamilton, filled with holiday cheer! Ah, the memories.

Oh Come Let Us Adore Him...

...especially when he is sleeping! I took this picture in the pitch dark with the flash. It shows something that we haven't seen much of in the past week....Baby Amado sleeping. I don't know if it's the excitement over Christmas or what, but he's been keeping us up a lot and we're really exhausted. Really exhausted.

I think the child is having a growth spurt or something....he's saying "Mum, Mum, Mumma" all the time and practicing a lot of other new sounds as well. He's nearly standing up by himself, though still with the danger of flipping over at any moment. He doesn't know what Christmas is, but I think he can sense the energy in the air. He's been especially wiley.

All to say....we're tired, he's tired, but nevertheless, we want to wish you a very Merry Christmas!

zzzz

Rum Pa-Pa Pum

Oh yeah, the little drummer boy. I'm proud that Amado likes to play the drum so much, but I'm still terrified that he will fall over on his head when he props himself up like this. He's getting better at it (standing up) every day though. I predict he will be walking by his first birthday.

In other news, I'm trying to get my work done so that I can take a break for the holidays, you know, maybe start some Christmas shopping (gulp). It feels like so many important odds and ends have piled up here at the end of the year...at work, at home, away from home. I feel a strong need to clear the air and start anew in 2007. I believe the week between Christmas and New Year's should be reserved for whatever is sacred in your life---love, art, joy, good food, movies, winter hikes, eggnog lattes, good books, worship and meditation, cleaning your closets, new music---but not work. There's the rest of the year for that.

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house....

Christmas Eve: We got our decorated palm tree, a minor creche scene, wrapping some presents, and the Seahawks game is on...have we caught the Christmas spirit or what? Now, Ms. Wendy has Cousin Geoffrey on the phone from South Korea (where's it's 9:50 a.m. on Christmas Day) and I'll try some of my family on the west coast. That's the west coast of North America, not Korea.

A Christmas Scandal!

This is why I love Sojourners. While other Christians are arguing about same-sex marriage or for the "right" to say "Merry Christmas," Sojourners' folks are out in the streets advocating for the poor.

"The very soul of our nation is in peril if Congress passes a budget that essentially takes from the poor, and gives to the rich," said Sojourners' Manager of Circulation and Production Cynthia Martens (above, being arrested on Capitol Hill) . More than 100 people were arrested last week protesting budget cuts that would disproportionately affect the poor. See more at about this action at Sojourners website.