Merry Consumermas! Happy Holidays!

Yesterday was time for sentiment with the list of favorite holiday movies. Today has been a far crappier day, so I'm putting aside George Bailey to get into the ways people completely miss the point of everything.

The Merry Christmas Crusade
The make-believe, Fox Channel-driven “War on Christmas" is driving me crazy. If someone wants to say “Happy Holidays!” go for it. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Cheery Winter Solstice, I don’t care. It’s called BEING NICE. Take it when you can get it and smile back.

Mayhaps Fox and other soldiers of the Happy Holiday Wars should focus on real wars instead. I dunno, maybe look into the genocide and systematic rape in Sudan/Darfur. But nooo, the real horror is Happy Holiday-wishing! (gasp!)

Those Damn Lexus Commercials
You know them as soon as you hear that infuriatingly tranquil music. Then the genteel Golden Retriever delivers keys to the owner, or the parents reward their teenager (teenager!) with a Lexus of their very own. These commercials are driving me to socialism. If you’ve got enough money to surprise someone with a freakin’ Lexus for Christmas, then maybe your money can be better directed.

Every Kiss Begins with Kay
The taglines kill me. “Tell her you love her with diamonds.” “When words aren’t enough.” “Speak gold.” “Forever, Now.”

Now this is coming from an admitted jewelry lover, so it’s not easy. But really, are we really advocating the substitution of words and acts of love for jewelry? Even I, at my most shallow and sparkly-loving, can’t get behind that. Supplementing words with the sparkly, I’m all for it. Telling me you love me with pressurized carbon? Try again.

Favorite Christmas Movies

At the behest of good friend Joey Gro, here’s my list of favorite Christmas movies. My sole criteria for this list is a movie that makes me feel Christmas. And from this list, you’ll see there are quite a few ways to feel Christmas:

5. Meet Me in St. Louis
If you lak-a-me lak I lak-a-you, and we lak-a-both the same…

I grew up on old musicals the way my friends grew up on Star Wars and John Hughes, and I’m still a sucker for them. And this is my super-guilty-pleasure musical choice. I think it’s physically impossible not to sing along to “Clang-clang-clang went the trolley!" Even though it’s not a Christmas movie per se, Judy Garland singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” to Tootie is more than enough to place it in the holiday movie category. It’s heartwrenching, but in that sweet holiday kind of heartwrenching.

4. Elf
I just like to smile, smiling's my favorite.

This movie is pure sweetness, and I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard at a movie that I would also recommend to my friend’s seven-year-old daughter.

3. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
Where do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny f’ing Kaye.

I’m sure that 99% of us don’t have the functional families capable of pulling off big happy holidays together, and this is the movie for us. I love that point when you know that the holiday is wrecked and bound for disaster, but you’re determined to push on anyway. God Bless the Griswolds. And Cousin Eddie is the best cinematic character ever (solid proof I'll never be a film snob). The scene when he wears the green dickie under the thin white sweater puts me in hysterics every time.

2. Christmas Story
Scut Farkus! What a rotten name! There he stood, between us and the alley. Scut Farkus staring out at us with his yellow eyes. He had yellow eyes! So, help me, God! Yellow eyes!

Once we leave childhood, it’s nearly impossible to remember how it really felt to be a kid. Christmas movies love to attempt to conjure those old feelings, but only A Christmas Story succeeds. While other movies focus on the magic of our younger days, this movie also reminds us of the sheer agony of them as well. The scene of Ralphie fantasizing about turning in the A+++++ paper only to wake up to classroom embarrassment makes me wince every time. I was that kind of dork.

1. It’s a Wonderful Life
No man is a failure who has friends.

Most sentimental movies involve turning off some part of your brain to buy it all. Not this one. Every time, I feel George Bailey’s desperation turn into gratitude. Every time, my usual rampant cynicism is gone when they sing “Auld Lang Syne” and the end credits begin. Best Christmas movie ever. Hands down.

Mawwage, that bwessed awwangement...

The night before our wedding, I admitted something to Jimmy I barely wanted to accept myself. I worried that I wouldn’t feel anything during our ceremony. After all, we’d just had a rehearsal that felt oddly normal. Our “normal” is pretty darn good – the night was full of laughter and smiles – but absent of butterflies. Where was the nervous energy? Where was the feeling of ohmygosh, we’re getting MARRIED? I can barely switch shampoos without inner turmoil, so how was I about to get married yet not feel a hint of a freak-out?

The morning of the wedding, people asked how I slept and seemed almost disappointed when I replied that I slept just fine, thank you. They’d ask how I was, in that creepy tone usually reserved for those who just received horrible news (“How ARE you?”), and seemed confused when I said I was just fine, and how are you today? I didn’t feel an overwhelming sense of The Big Day, even as my hair was styled and make-up applied. So it was final: I lacked the Bride Gene. The editors of Bride Magazine were on their way to my house to repossess their December issue from my shelf.

But then four o’clock hit. The musicians began to play, the guests assembled in the next room. Suddenly I just had to know where Jimmy was. Was he out there, too? How’d he look? How’d he feel? Did I practice my vows enough? What if I choke? Holy crap, this is my wedding! The feelings rushed over me so suddenly that I feared passing out. Tricia, my sister, maid-of-honor, and doctor extraordinaire, was reduced to teaching me the technique of exhaling. Years of med school and residency, and there she found herself giving the lesson of “So after you breathe in, you have to let it out, OK?” Twenty-eight years of breathing, and I found myself wanting to write that tip down. It totally worked.

When we heard the cue, the opening notes of Canon in D, Tricia descended the stairs to the foyer below, and I would follow shortly after. I knew that once I made it down those stairs, Jimmy would be there, and I felt much more calm. When I rounded the corner and locked eyes with him, the nervousness ended and the tears began. Ohmygosh, we’re getting MARRIED. I discovered my Bride Gene the second I met him in the foyer and he raised my hand to his lips, and I saw a tear fall down his cheek. Many more tears followed, from Jimmy, from me, a hearty contribution from our moms, and even from the officiant and photographer. And in the biggest surprise, even Dan (Jimmy’s brother and best man) cried. It’d be an easier feat to make Dick Cheney giggle.

The ceremony was perfect. Sure, we had the little goof-ups – we kissed way before our cue and laughed more than Emily Post would prefer – but that’s not what I mean. I mean that how it felt was perfect, how it was to us was perfect. Jimmy and I each believed that we were the luckiest person in the world because of who stood before us, and felt in awe of each moment. I looked at him as he smiled back at me, and realized that this was the best moment of my life; it was absolute happiness.

We cried and giggled our way through our vows we wrote for each other. I promised to love, to value, to bake his favorite cookies and keep trying to like football and horror movies. He promised to always support my dreams, personal and professional, and to remember all the silly traditions that make us who we are, like our mac 'n cheese dinner each Valentine's Day. Our readings came from both the Bible and the Velveteen Rabbit, the sermon was penned by a Unitarian minister, the prayer given by a Methodist preacher friend, the blessing was the traditional Irish blessing as read by Jimmy’s Irish Catholic grandmother. The bits and pieces came together to create a ceremony uniquely “us,” and it felt exactly how I hoped. Perfect.

And now we’re four days married. Friends have asked if things feel any different between us. After all, since we've been together for ten years, a level of comfort and intimacy was achieved long ago. And I tell them that it still feels like us, only us on an exhale. It’s the jammy pants version of our relationship, and we wear it well.

Boyfriend 101

Don't do this. Overheard in The Limited dressing room today:

girl: "Honey, do my hips look big in these pants?"
guy: "Kind of, but they look like they usually do."
(beat)
guy: "What? Why do you look upset?"

I'm sure they could hear the sound of me slapping my forehead nextdoor.

My Picks for '08

Yes, it's entirely too early, but one must find hope and solace where she can.

President: Hillary Rodham Clinton
VP: Barak Obama
Secretary of Defense: John McCain (see, I can show Republican love)
Secretary of State: Bill Clinton (he would ROCK this)
Secretary of Health and Human Services: Howard Dean (sweet Howie, how I love thee)
Secretary of Education: Carol Moseley-Braun
Secretary of HUD: the constantly underestimated Al Sharpton
Supreme Court nominee: Perhaps someone with judicial experience
White House Spokesperson: Jon Stewart (wouldn't you start watching press conferences?)
Ambassador to Greece: Me

To this ring, I thee wed.

I can go off on diatribes about many aspects of weddings based on archaic traditions. While most normal people see them as sweet and time-honored traditions, I do my usual "looking into things too much" that causes much eye-rolling from all those well-adjusted people in the world: the white dress (women being valued for their virginity); the father giving away his daughter to the groom (exchange of property between men); the name change assumption (who else renamed people? slaveholders); the insanity that There is Love wasn't retired with the 70s. But I've discovered a wedding tradition I can get behind: the ring. Give me a little sparkle and I become a traditional girl.

I just picked up my wedding band from the jewelry store and have five hours until Jimmy gets home and repossesses it until the wedding. He demands that I don't wear it until the big event, but he's got to leave the house sometime, and when he does, that sucker will be right back on. Really, it'd be tragic to not wear it with my engagement ring; it'd be like parting two lovers meant to be together. It'd be spitting in the face of love itself.

Jimmy also chose his wedding band recently. He wasn't nearly as excited about the process as I was, naturally, and asked just how excited a guy could get about a ring. I explained that if the hottest woman in the world came up to him at a bar, he'd have to look at her, then look at the ring, and pick the ring. So it was either finding a ring he loved or being handcuffed to the house. He became more interested in shopping then and found one he really liked. (Although when I asked which was prettier, his ring or Eliza Dushku, I totally sensed some hesitation.)

As for me, I'm now considering a separate ceremony between myself and my ring. Our relationship is only hours old, but off to a beautiful start. Oh, there's love. There is love...

The Cynical Bride

When it comes to weddings, I admit it. I can be snarky. Cynical. Easily nauseated. It's easy to dismiss the pseudo-drama of it all. Call it feminism, call it snobbish, but so often the giddiness over bridal magazines and china patterns makes me queasy. I'm not talking about all weddings, but just those that give the bride that crazy glint in her eye when discussing centerpieces. As someone who's saving and longing for my return to grad school, I want to cry when I realize that with the time and money some women devote to wedding planning, they could have a Masters in their chosen field.

So even though I've been with a great guy for many years, I assumed marriage wasn't for me. I'd be the Goldie to his Kurt. Not just the wedding rituals scared me, but also the expectations of the institution: the submissiveness, the passivity, the evenings spent in front of Wheel of Fortune. I'd hear women never referring to their husbands by name but by "hubby," or financially successful women exclaiming, "Oh, he'd KILL me if I bought those shoes!" I wanted to spend my life with him, but geez, I didn't want that. So we did what people like us do: we moved in together.

But a funny thing happened on the way to shackin' up. Having him as a roommate made me want him as a husband. We make a great, if not odd, team. We share the chores, write little notes, and have a weird penchant for National Geographic documentaries on architectural catastrophes. We talk to our dogs more than sane people ought, and he laughs when I express everyday emotions through song or dance (my theory is that people in musicals are always so gosh darn happy; maybe the rest of us are missing out). But it wasn't the happy or silly moments that convinced me he'd make an amazing husband. It was the bad times that really showed me what a great man he is. He listens and assuages when I stress about things that haven't happened yet (my specialty); he's seen me delve into despair and stuck around to see me out of it. When we argue, we fight fair or apologize quickly. He's a man -- and it's a life -- that I want forever. When I realized that I wanted to marry him, the idea was no less radical than had I invented the institution itself. I'd like to say that the discovery was full of hearts and flowers, but for every utterance of love was a, "Holy crap, are we really doing this?"

And holy crap, we are... in just three weeks. But I still don't "oooh" over invitations (they're just paper, c'mon), I still read that the average wedding costs nearly $30k and cry a little. Bridal magazines only make me want to elope with their million synonyms for fiance: darling, honey dear, shnookie pie. Please.

So in the words of ol' Frank, we'll do it, but we'll do it our way. My gown has no pouf, the guest list only has 14 names, "hubby" will never pass through my lips. It won't be about veils or cakes or "the perfect day." It'll be about celebrating what we've already built, honoring what formed long ago. It'll be a vow of forever, with a whispered, "Holy crap, are we really doing this?"

Good news/bad news

Good news: Starbucks once again selling gingerbread lattes! I'll be wired from now 'til the new year!

Bad news: President still a flippin' idiot.
"Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and mislead the American people about why we went to war," Bush said. (11/10/2005)
HE doesn't even know why we went to war! The first two reasons turned out to be false (something about WMDs and an Al Qaeda-Saddam tie, remember?), so I think we're onto the "march for democracy" angle now. Hey, it worked in Vietnam!

I think I need something stronger than a latte...

My first, un-blank page.

At the beginning of each notebook I own -- you know, those notebooks that us wannabe writers have everywhere, full of little bits of everything, sketches, bad poetry -- I leave a blank page. An English professor once taught me that the first page of each notebook should contain a quote so inspiring, so profound, that it would guide the writer to greatness on the following pages. I spent a week searching for that quote before giving up. When the professor asked why I hadn't written on my first page, I told her: no matter how crappy the rest of my writing was, I could look back and see that anything's better than the one week I waited for genius and wrote nothing at all. It soon became superstition.

However, that was about ten years ago, and my writing habits haven't improved. So I'm taking a break from the notebooks and starting a blog.

This is a thing for me, the whole blogging thing. I'm a privacy freak. I make the ACLU seem cautious. While most people believe Armeggedon will begin with the rapture or religious war, I believe it began with e-mail. We trust e-mail with some of the most intimate details of our lives, even while knowing information transmitted online is about the least secure form of communication we have. Can't you see it? Someone learning to open all e-mail accounts to a public search engine? Every word typed in anger, each note written thinking that only two sets of eyes would see it? Wars sparked, marriages destroyed, friendships ended, all of us fired for what we really think of our bosses? The college population would be picked up at their dorms the following morning by parents with shackles. The less posted online, the safer. My theory is that we should only write/buy/post online if we are comfortable that our children will one day see it, because they probably will. Sure, this sounds like a scenario conceived by George Orwell with a screenplay adapted by Oliver Stone, but it's my thing. A privacy thing.

So blogging seems like the last thing I'd want to do. And that was always my excuse: do I really want to post my thoughts and rantings online, where they'd be Out There? But then the obvious struck me...

I want to be a writer. If my worst-case scenario was that my words would be read, then maybe my ambitions are misdirected altogether.

So here I am.

Next up... something to say... (starting off with a blank page would've been so much easier)