Random Memes & Pictures-1/12

Often times, while scrolling through social media, I’ll see a meme or a picture that includes printed words and say to myself “Self, that is something I might want to ‘flesh out’ in a future blog post.” As a result, I have a separate file on my laptop called “FUTURE BLOG IDEAS” filled with all of these ideas I’ve saved. Sadly, I realized some of them have been in that file well over a year. Whatever made them seem ultimately important in my personal perception isn’t really there anymore, or rather, not as alarmingly prominent in my psyche. However, that doesn’t mean that they won’t ‘talk’ to you as they originally did to me. So, I’m going to put a bunch of them here – those of you who want to scroll down can do so, and those of you who don’t care to do so can just go ahead and close out this post.

Spare the rod, spoil the child…

(DISCLAIMER: This may be a sensitive subject matter for some readers.)

Although most of us contribute these words to the Bible, they aren’t actually in the Bible, but are believed to have been inspired from the Bible verse in Proverbs 13:24, “Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.” In the Bible, the word rod indicates a thin stick or switch that can be used to give a small amount of physical pain with no lasting physical injury.

I grew up in a home with a mother who believed in the philosophy of physical punishment. In fact, there were many times when she would “punish first and ask questions later”. My mother was just 5′ tall, would go on a diet if she reached 120 pounds, and yet she had looks and tone of voice that made each of us feel physically afraid of the coming punishment. And mom didn’t just have a thin stick or switch – she had a 3/4″ thick piece of wood with a handle and her name engraved in it that was made specifically for her (maybe at her request? I’ll never know). It was kept in the junk drawer in the kitchen. The minute she reached for the handle of that drawer, you knew that physical pain was coming.

Her normal pattern was to have us bend over a kitchen chair with our rumps sticking up high in the air, and then she would start swinging. And, my readers, we’re not talking ‘pats’. To see her, you would have thought she was a major-league ball player swinging the bat to hit a ball all the way out of the park. Plus, you never knew how many swings she was going to take until she told you that you could get up and get out of her sight by going to your room.

No matter that we had grown taller and heavier than she was, we all knew that if we tried to get away in any fashion, that was only going to make her angrier and that additional anger would show up in the number of times we were struck with the paddle once she got started.

Bruises and welts were often common. Of course, they were distributed to our butts and the very top of our thighs on occasion – no place where they would be seen by others.

I also remember times when none of the three of us would admit to the wrongdoing, and she threatened that, if the wrongdoer didn’t come forward, she’d paddle each of us. At some point, I’m certain we all admitted to something we hadn’t done to spare our siblings. Well, at least I know I did.

At the time, I believed that she believed that this punishment would make us behave in the future. Maybe we didn’t enact the same negative behavior the next time, but we were kids, and we were going to misbehave from time to time! And, in retrospect, I see that the punishment didn’t always fit the crime. We could accidently break something small and get ten swats or take a dollar from her wallet and get two swats.

In the recent months, while I’ve been wandering down the many lanes of memories in my life, I thought about all of this and understood something I could not have understood at that age. My mother was definitely a Type A person. She worked teaching school at the elementary level. She came home to three children who were normal children. Dad was more often than not away from home – even if he wasn’t traveling, he didn’t get home from working until at least 7 PM each night. She didn’t have the luxury of saying, “Wait until your dad gets home” and let him handle the discipline. She also had a pill bottle on a shelf in the kitchen that we saw her get into regularly. It was a prescription bottle, and we didn’t think anything about it. At some point, we knew that the drug was called “Librium”, but we didn’t know what it was for. As I was thinking about these memories and the potential to share them in a blog, I ‘googled’ it. Librium is used to treat various anxiety disorders.

And in a light bulb moment, I began to see that the corporal punishment that was executed on us might be a way to release some pent-up anxiety and anger that really didn’t have all of that much to actually do with us. If she was feeling anxious and upset about something, then whatever misbehaviors she found out about when she got home from work might well have been the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back”!

Proverbs 13:24, “Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.” I wanted to bring that Bible phrase back into focus here. I am not against punishing a child for misbehaving! But if a rod is a thin stick (according to the Bible) and is used to inflict non-lasting physical pain, I think that wooden paddles and belts and other instruments which are used to create a physical pain that does last past the moment does fall into the idea of corporal punishment. These are modern-day ways in which someone is given similar punishment to caning and flogging. I believe that any pain that exists for more than, oh, a half hour, and which leaves marks of some kind that can last for many days, isn’t what the Bible intended with this verse. Remember, the verse says that the child is supposed to be carefully disciplined. Although I can’t prove it, I believe that the parents of the children who lived next door to us were, at the most, given a swat to the rear with a hand, and those children turned out to be pretty great adults! So, I don’t buy the idea that you have to use physical discipline to teach your children!

As an adult, understanding my mother’s possible reasons for the way in which we were punished is helpful. It doesn’t make what she did any better, and I definitely feel she crossed the line in providing physical punishment. I can’t go back and re-write that history, but I’ve learned from it nonetheless. Would I ever spank a child? I didn’t have any of my own to see if I would have or not, but what I have learned from watching other parents discipline their children, I can’t see me giving more than that single swat on the behind with my hand. I have seen plenty of success where parents were careful to discipline their children, but in a non-physical way. And especially, when today’s kids have so many pieces of modern electronic technology in their possession, I suspect that having those items taken away would be much more drastic to the child than a physical punishment. We just need to be careful and understand that we are disciplining our children in order to teach them an important lesson, which should explain what the child did wrong/why they are being punished and how to keep from having that punishment repeated.

I feel like I could write so much more on this subject, but I’ll try to close it here. If you have lived through a physically abusive childhood in any form, you have my sympathy and I hope this post helps you remember that you are not alone. I do believe that our parents did the best they could with what they knew, and it’s up to us to break the cycle and learn, then teach, better ways of discipling a child.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and/or stories!

Being the Ricardos

I don’t see very many movies at all, less of the ones that are popular and current. I’d been hearing about this movie being released, and because it was free with my Amazon Prime account, I decided to watch it. Why? Well, because I grew up with and watched Lucy and Desi on the “I Love Lucy” show and always enjoyed the episodes. Because Nicole Kidman was in the starring role and she’s half of one of the world’s greatest couples (I love Keith in a non-romantic way). Because other people were talking about the movie and I might have the opportunity to add my insights into a current trend topic.

I ended up having a love/hate feeling about this movie. I thought both Lucy and Desi were played well by the actor/actress assigned to the role. I learned about what physical comedy was and how very different it is from verbal comedy. I enjoyed seeing Lucy portrayed as a strong and independent woman throughout the time of the show and not the ‘ditz’ she was often portrayed as on the show. And I liked that the writers/directors/producers brought back some memories of specific physical comedies in the original show. I can remember the episode where Lucy stomped barefoot on grapes, I can remember the episode where Lucy and Ethel are stuffing chocolate candies coming off of the line in a factory wherever they could find places to stuff them because they were too slow to keep up with the production line. And who can ever forget the commercial Lucy tried to make selling Vitameatavegamin? (That’s still a tongue-twister even when seeing the word in written form!)

What I didn’t like is that I couldn’t keep up with the time frame changes. The movie was to show us a week in the life of Lucy and Desi from first table reading to final performance each week. And it did that adequately. But those segments of that “week” were interspersed with segments of Lucy and Desi from first meeting, through marriage, through pregnancy, through Lucy confronting Desi about an affair. For me, the smoothness of transition from what was supposed to be following them doing the show to following them being the Arnez’s didn’t exist.

I’m not unhappy I sat down to watch this movie. It did fill in some timelines of Lucy and Desi in real life – aka behind the scenes – and I appreciate Lucille Ball for her tenacity and independence and brains that we didn’t often see. In fact, I can’t remember if there was that much media coverage of them as a married couple at all!

Would I watch it again? Well, I could. I don’t think I lost anything, including time, in watching the movie. And again, I am grateful for the opportunity to know Lucy for who she really was as a woman. I could watch it again without issue, but I’m perfectly okay if I don’t watch it again as well.

Have you seen the movie? If so, please share your review of it in the comments.

Taunting

Although I always have been – and will always be – a Dallas Cowboys diehard, I got away from watching football games in general for a few years and have only started watching some games this season. I have many close friends who are Philadelphia Eagles fans, and I will occasionally watch their games, because I have no ill will towards the Eagles – except when they are playing the Cowboys, of course!

Upon my recent return to watching football games, I experienced seeing a lot of “taunting” calls, and assumed (yes, I know what assume does) that this was a new rule. I was surprised, when I did a little bit of research, to find out that the taunting rule and penalty has been around for a while and has been conversed about for several years in offseason competition committee meetings. Apparently, it’s been deemed that it’s happening too often and now the referees are throwing a yellow flag left and right to call this penalty. The NFL considers taunting to be “trying to entice that other player into some type of activity that is not allowed in football”, “the use of baiting or taunting acts or words that engender ill will between teams.” The penalty falls under ‘unsportsmanlike conduct’ and there are penalties in the amount of yardage gained in a play. A player who gets two taunting calls in one game is automatically ejected from the game. There are hefty fines that can also be attached to the call.

I’m going to go out on a limb a bit here. I’m not against the rule of taunting, but I truly believe that, after doing little or nothing for so many years about it, the pendulum has swung to the other side of the clock and there are too many penalties being called for it. These professional athletes are being paid millions of dollars to intentionally get their bodies pummeled by others and a few words from a player on the other team is going to hurt them? Football is a contact sport – one expects some flair of tempers among the amounts of aggression of adrenaline and testosterone that are released on the field. Put your finger in my face and say, “I’m gonna kill your kid and make you watch for hitting me like that” – Yeah, that’s taunting. Put that same finger in my face and say, “I’m coming after you next play, so watch out” – not so much.

Take it a step further and think about how many coaches get angry and loud, probably somewhat obnoxiously, at a referee when they don’t like a calling? We can’t hear it, but we can certainly see the level of anger when the TV camera pans that way from mere body language. Why are these non-athletic officials able to walk away from the anger without reaction – why aren’t these coaches penalized on behalf of their team for this same behavior that the refs seem to constantly be penalizing to the players?

Now, since I’m already out on the limb, let me take a few more steps out… For four (long) years, we in the United States watched our President, our Commander in Chief, our highest-ranking political leader, stand in front of a microphone and taunt the countless number of people who dared disagree with him. Major players were in and out of “his graces” all of the time, and he had the right of free speech allowing him to say the things he said. The true Trumpsters, at re-election time, stated that the rest of us were more upset about his persona and his words than about the good he did during his term. Whether you are a Trumpster or not, a Republican or a Democrat, be honest enough to say that his words and tirades instilled enough fear in all of us that we weren’t willing to risk standing up and putting up a dissent about his being allowed to behave like that. Personally, every time I saw Donald Trump release more vitriol when he opened his mouth, I couldn’t help but think about how much time, energy and money our country spends to stop bullying and practice acceptance in our school systems, but we will allow the President to be a bully without trying to stop him. Children emulate adult behaviors, so what should we come to expect in the future from our children?

My point is, again, that I am not opposed to this ruling of taunting when it can be proved to be hateful and harmful in word, but I think there need to be better boundaries about what is considered taunting. We are able to list what constitutes unsportsmanlike conduct in a physical manner to another player, so I think some guidelines need to be in place for what verbal conduct constitutes it as well.

Anyway, that’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it!

R.I.P. Betty White

I’m heartbroken, truly heartbroken. I’ve never met Betty White, but I have watched her from her days on the Match Game and Password TV game shows, through Mary Tyler Moore, The Golden Girls and Hot in Cleveland. I stayed awake to watch the beginning of SNL (first and only time I watched it) in 2010 for the night she was hosting it. I feel as heartbroken as I did in the days surrounding the death of Robin Williams – maybe a little more because it happened on New Year’s Eve Day and because media was exciting us all with the upcoming tribute to mark her 100th birthday.

Granted, people die every day, and celebrities of all sorts die every year. I read somewhere, long ago, that a death occurs every 8 seconds somewhere in the world. If I did the math correctly, that means that every 24-hour day is equivalent to 86,400 seconds. That equates to 10,800 deaths per day. With the pandemic we’ve been dealing with for what will be “officially” 3 years old in March of 2022, certainly that number has risen quite a bit. And, off the top of my head, I remember that 2021 also brought the deaths of Anne Rice, Cloris Leachman, Michael Nesmith, Al Unser, Siegfried (of Siegfried and Roy), Larry King, John Madden, et. al. So why is the passing of Betty White so difficult for me?

I mean, just because she had a career that spanned 80 years, just because she was a true lover of animals, just because she was a comedian, and often made irreverent one-liner comebacks that sent most of us into laughter, just because she could play Rose Nylund with a straight face when she was telling a story about Saint Olaf, just because she spoke of her love and devotion to Allen Ludden (even though she had been married two times previously), just because…

Well, just because she was America’s sweetheart. She was humble about her career and her success. She truly loved to do what she did as an actress, comedian and animal activist. Joe Biden called her a cultural icon, and most of us would surely agree. She never argued (at least not in public), her name never came up about holding out for more money on whatever show she was on, you never heard her say a genuinely negative word about anyone. She was often asked about how she managed to live so long and her answer was always the same: “Don’t take life too seriously”. And there is no doubt that this was exactly how she lived.

I know that she is happy being reunited with her beloved husband and with all of her co-stars who left us before she did. I know heaven will be a better place because Betty was part of a group who believed that cheesecake could solve any problem. So grab your fork, let the cheesecake eating commence, and take hope that something in the life that showed us how to live will carry on with you.

But I’m still going to be heartbroken for a while…

New Year, Any “Normal”, Same Me?

I am always so thankful for some really great bloggers I follow faithfully. Not only do I enjoy the blogs and the different styles and topics for writing, but occasionally someone’s post will strike a chord within my sensibilities and/or emotional senses and I choose to reblog those posts here. That’s been especially helpful in the past few months as my writing my own posts has dwindled.

I’ve had dreams about where I wanted to take this blog on its next step of the journey. I don’t have to look back specifically to know that I’ve done my fair share of whining about things in today’s world. Having been scolded as a child for wearing my emotions on my sleeve, for the stupidity of crying over spilt milk, for letting them “see me sweat”, I have never truly balanced my emotions. I can remember in my early adulthood of acting like my mother did, getting angry to the point of needing a physical release. I can remember learning more about anger in therapy and how to manage it until I could find an appropriate release for it.

Yes, I have been in therapy. It was the best gift an employer ever gave me. When I took an administrative position in a mental health outpatient practice, all employees, regardless of position, were required to go through 3 months of personal therapy within the first 6 months of their hire date. The owner of the practice said this requirement existed for two reasons. The first reason was that each of us came with baggage, and a therapist could help us with any baggage we were having trouble carrying. The second reason was that each employee needed to experience being a patient “on the couch” to get a better understanding of our clientele. My 3 months of therapy lasted for 5 years. The last 18 months of it, I had processed all of my baggage and learned some better coping skills, but honestly, I liked having somewhere I could go and for 55 minutes, I got to be me in raw form with one safe place where I could say anything I wanted and be in any kind of mood and the person in front of me was being paid to not pass judgement.

As the year of 2021 started drawing to a close, I think I finally realized that my hopes that 2021 was going to be so much better than 2020 weren’t going to happen. 2021 has been a tough year for me in so many little ways. I’ve had more health concerns – nothing life-threatening but, in some ways, life changing. I have had to deal with ongoing issues of lack of energy and poor sleeping, and no longer being able to ignore my body when it starts to tell me, “Hey, we’re about done for the day”. On a good day, when there are a lot of distractions that keep me from thinking about it, I can push through for about 12 hours before exhaustion sets in. My average per day, however, is more like 8 or 9.

Then, in late summer, some knowledge came to light about a family member and a specific extended family member that was not what I wanted or expected to hear. This news is very negative and very stressful, and something that must be dealt with if for no other reason than for my peace of mind. It brings up a great deal of both anger and disappointment. Trust me, with so much of my being, I wish I was in that therapist’s office so I could give voice to and a place for those emotions, because I see them being expressed in relationships that matter greatly to me – and I just don’t know where to let them out!

So yes, it’s a new year and no, nothing is ‘normal’ in our world and our lives yet, but am I the same old me? Do I want to be the same me that I have been? The answer to that question is easy but the steps necessary to become a different me may be too steep for my liking. Having succumbed to learning that old age has brought me some balance issues (that have nothing to do with me being less than graceful at times), the steepness of those steps causes me fear.

The thing is, none of the ways I know in which I’d like to change are going to be pleasant to all people. Though I share a lot of myself here in this blog that I don’t share elsewhere, believe me, I’m still conscious of protecting myself – or perhaps, protecting your perception of me – on some levels. I really need to learn to quit censuring myself for fear of offending you, my readers. I need to remind myself that I started this blog for ME, and that each of you who reads my posts do so by CHOICE, and you can just as easily choose not to read them if you find them offensive.

Having said all of that, I really have no clue about where this blog is headed next. I only know that I’m tired of ending up with so many trashed drafts of posts because, upon reading them with fresh eyes, that fear of perception is exactly why I choose not to post them. So, consider yourself pre-warned!

It’s Just Another New Year’s Eve

Don’t look so sad,

It’s not so bad you know.

It’s just another night,

That’s all it is, it’s not the first,

It’s not the worst you know,

We’ve come through all the rest,

We’ll get through this.

We’ve made mistakes,

But we’ve made good friends too.

Remember all the nights we spent with them?

And all our plans,

Who says they can’t come true?

Tonight’s another chance to start again.

It’s just another New Year’s Eve,

Another night like all the rest.

It’s just another New Year’s Eve,

Let’s make it the best.

It’s another New Year’s Eve,

It’s just another Auld Lang Syne,

But when we’re through this New Year

You’ll see, will be

Just fine.

We’re not alone, we’ve got the world you know.

And it won’t let us down, just wait and see.

And we’ll grow old but think how wise we’ll grow.

There’s more you know, it’s only New Year’s Eve.

It’s just another New Year’s Eve,

Another night like all the rest.

It’s just another New Year’s Eve,

Let’s make it the best.

It’s just another New Year’s Eve,

It’s just another Auld Lang Syne,

But when we’re through this New Year, you’ll see, will be

Just fine.

Peace on Earth, goodwill toward men 2.0

May peace, joy, compassion, love AND hope all find their way into you in the coming year!

Life and Random Thinking

I don’t often re-blog other bloggers work however I felt this post’s message was special – I hope you enjoy it as I did.

Please discover for yourself – using the link below. ♥♥♥

I know I am truly fortunate to have the family and friends I do have in my life. – David

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Click HERE to visit Peace on Earth, Goodwill Towards Men 2.0

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We’ve Lost our Connection

DISCLAIMER: I did not write this. In fact, I am copying it from a social media site on which I just read it. The post was written by someone named Barb Houser. I don’t know who she is – though I wish I did – I would love to have her spirit in my life! Enjoy!

I think it was Brene Brown who told a story about a village where all the women washed clothes together down by the river. When they all got washing machines, there was a sudden outbreak of depression, and no one could figure out why. I t wasn’t the washing machines in and of themselves. It was the absence of time spent doing things together. It was the absence of community. Friends, we’ve gotten so independent. We’re “fine” we tell ourselves even when in reality we’re depressed, we’re overwhelmed, we’re lonely, and we’re hurting. “We’re fine, we’re just too busy right now” we say when days, weeks, months, and years go by without connecting with friends. I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine. It’s so easy to say even when it’s not true. We’ve become so isolated and it’s hard to know how to get back. It’s so hard to know how to even begin to build the kind of relationships our hearts need. And I think in our current culture, it’s just not as organic as it once was. It’s more work now. Because you know, we have our own washing machines. We don’t depend on each other to do laundry, or cook dinner, or raise babies anymore. We don’t really depend on each other for much of anything if we’re being honest. In Brene Brown’s book Braving the Wilderness, she says that being lonely effects the length of our life expectancy similar to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. I don’t say that to freak anyone out, but to let you know that the longing for connection is LEGIT. I think we’ve treated friendship like a luxury for far too long; friendship isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity. We don’t want it. We kind of need it. Be independent. Be proud of it. But be an independent woman who realizes the value and the importance of opening the door to other good women. You can do it alone, but you don’t have to. Islands are only fun for so long. There is true magic when women come together and hold hands and share ideas and share stories and struggles and endless bowls of salsa. You use your gifts, and I’ll use mine, and then we’ll invite that girl over there who brings a completely different set of skills to the table we are building, and we’ll watch together as something miraculous unfolds.

Forced Family Fun Time

This is the first time in a very long time, if not forever, that I have chosen to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas alone. I haven’t stayed up for the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve in so long that I don’t consider that a ‘holiday of celebration’.

It’s not that I have chosen not to celebrate the holidays, it’s simply that I have chosen to celebrate them in a way that puts zero percent pressure on me.

My childhood Christmases, as I recall them, weren’t horrible. As kids, we didn’t make a list for Santa of what gifts we wanted, so sometimes we got something we liked, and sometimes we didn’t. Although we were far from ‘poor’, at least one gift was clothing of some sort, underwear or socks, often, and one gift had some educational purpose (my mother, the school teacher!). Luckily for me, my educational purpose gifts were books – either Nancy Drew and/or The Bobsey Twins – so those were always gifts I liked because I enjoyed reading.

As adults, all now living in separate dwellings away from home and all having very different lifestyle, buying gifts for siblings became even more difficult than buying gifts for parents, though that was also difficult. Brad and I were the single ones, while Mark had fulfilled our parents’ wishes by having a spouse, a child, an actual home with mortgage, etc. Brad was often strong enough to omit himself from attending some ‘family time’ events – for me, especially once the folks moved to Florida – I felt far too guilty to do the same.

My older brother, Mark, was less than a year older than me. We had, however, nothing in common. I saw a lot of my parents in his behaviors, and I was still struggling to break away from doing what my parents thought (wanted) me to do with my life. I literally felt like an outsider at these family events, because, once Mark and Sally had a child, everything focused on the grandchild. And I’m not afraid to say it – in my opinion, the grandchild was often obnoxious, needy of attention, had no boundaries or respect for people older than she was, and had a sense of entitlement. I will never forget the year she got up from where she was sitting, walked over to me, turned around and bent over and let out some gas. She then turned back to me and said, “Smell my fart, Aunt Jody”. Everybody but me managed a chuckle, but I was mortified not only by the behavior, but by the fact that none of the adults thought it was improper.

In order to escape from some of the sense of being an outsider and to excuse myself from what I considered obnoxious conversation (my niece would say things like, “When I have to fold dad’s underwear, he always reminds me that the brown side is the back”), I was pretty insistent that I help with the clean-up from our meal together. As I know I’ve mentioned before, I find washing dishes in a sink of hot, soapy water to be therapeutic, but it was more because I needed to just get away from this forced family fun time.

I do remember actually enjoying the time in the kitchen with my sister-in-law, Sally. Sally was a totally type B personality and easy to be around. We’d have conversations about nothing I’d remember the next day, but there was no pressure in being around her. In truth, I have to credit those moments with Sally of being my fondest memories of our grown-up family Christmases.

When I moved almost 6 years ago, my love of cooking and playing hostess propelled me to offer to host Christmas for my best friend and her family and invited my beloved brother to be there as well. Then, my best friend’s husband’s health took a turn for the worse, and he chose to no longer come along. Then COVID struck and my brother and I opted for a quick day visit for him to come here – we social distanced or masked during our whole visit. Of course, he’s always quick to remind me that I try to do too much in terms of a meal, but that’s part of who I am. In 2020, planning for my bestie and her son to visit, I have to say that I was a little disappointed that only my bestie came. WAIT! Not that I wasn’t grateful to have some one-on-one time with her, since the pandemic had been keeping us apart, but since she doesn’t enjoy cooking, I could have made anything for a meal and she’d have enjoyed it.

So, for 2021, I decided that I truly needed – and deserved – holidays that involved absolutely no pressure, no need to get dressed and cleaned up for the occasion, no need to rush through trying to clean my place good enough for company, no need to cook a meal that included things other people liked that I wouldn’t normally cook for myself, zero stress over having to buy gifts for people who are just too difficult to shop for, having to wrap said gifts (this is where having my brother here was handy, because he enjoyed that task and I abhorred it!). No need to have the TV on to entertain others, especially since I don’t think watching parades on TV and listening to celebrity commentators talk qualifies as fun. I will still keep up my tradition of putting a candle in a cupcake, lighting it, singing happy birthday to Jesus, then blowing out the candle and enjoying the cupcake with my coffee. After all, that’s what Christmas IS about!

No forced family fun time, no pressure on myself to cook a feast, no presents to give or receive, and absolutely zero guilt about not doing any of it… Sounds like a perfect day to me!