The Week Between

There is this weird and funky week between Christmas and New Years. Nothing of any great importance ever gets accomplished during this week. You sort of check into work to make sure things are still going alright, but no new projects are usually tackled unless you need a serious tax write off.

This is the assessment week. The week of the year when you kind of wrap up all the miscellaneous odds and ends that need wrapping up. What were the top new stories? What were the best movies? Was it a good year? Did you accomplish what you set out to do? Did you stick to the resolutions? Do you even remember what they were?

I don't make resolutions anymore. Too much pressure and guilt associated with that practice. I will, periodically make a resolution in the middle of the year out of the clear blue, like "I will no longer drink pop except for special occasions", and then do it. I only tackle the resolutions that I am absolutely ready to do and know I can accomplish. Gives a person a feeling of satisfaction. It is like making the "to do list" and writing down the things that you have already accomplished for the day.

One of our spontaneous resolutions this last month was to not spend much (if any) money on Christmas presents. I am proud to say that we accomplished this resolution. With five kiddos - three under the age of 8 - this can be a little tricky. We did spring for a few nice gifts which of course came from Santa himself - a "multi-use" tool for my son, an art pastel drawing book for one daughter, water color paints for another daughter, and two webkins - which were the only two technologically advanced gifts we bought. Everything else required some imagination and/or work. One of the favorite gifts by far as been the five decks of playing cards that we then put to almost immediate use to play "Nuts" also known as "Oh, Hell!" in some circles - ironically, the 4 year old was kicking our butts last night. The rest of the gifts...., well let's just say that re- gifting is alive and well at our house and we keep the second hand stores in business.

Christmas has gotten entirely out of hand. There is simply too much STUFF that people feel they have to have. What does it do for us? Does it make us happier? Does it save us time? If we are in it to save time, what do we do with all the time that was saved?.....go out and buy more stuff? It is crazy! The thing that what scares me the most is seeing what it does to kids that think that they have to have all this crap and have really no idea of what it costs - both in money and in the destruction of brain cells.

We don't have a gaming system at our house. We do this on purpose. If I had my druthers, we wouldn't have a T.V. either. My kids sometimes tell me that we are very old fashioned compared to their friends. I asked my only son once if this bothered him, "Not really. There is too much other fun stuff to do." he said......he is my favorite son.

They seem to get it though, why we deprive them of all the crap....I mean stuff that all their friends seem to be inundated with and if they don't get it I just shove them out the door and tell them to go find two sticks and have a sword fight with a sibling. I just watched my kids have a blast all day playing cards with each other, painting, playing pretend dress up, drawing and putting a puzzle together. I have a feeling that when they think back to their childhoods, they will remember the crazy things that they did together rather than the time that they spent glued to a computer for their allotted 30 minutes of time. I know that is what I remember from being a kid. I remember blowing up army guys with my brother out on the driveway, I remember swinging on the swing set, I remember dressing up and playing house - those were the fun times. Sitting in front of a computer, although sometimes very cool.....like now..... it is also very lonely. What we humans seem to have made up for in technology we have lost in social connectedness and meaningful interaction.

This has led to a new spontaneous resolution for this new year that is rapidly approaching - I will be attempting to send out hand written, personal letters to family and friends. Each day or two I think of a person that I haven't written to in a while and sit down to write a few lines in a card to them and send it off. No cookie cutter holiday cards this year....there wasn't enough cash for that, but there is enough care and affection to take the time to write and let people know that I think of them. It may take me until June, but I will hopefully get through my holiday list before next winter. So far, two down and about 120 more to go.