A Super Crafty Christmas

I have been busy writing a Christmas story for the Christmas Eve service at my church and I had to kill a lot of babies to get there. Wait, you know I don't mean real babies. Did you even read my last post, Girl Meets Boy Meets Awkward Meets Boy Runs Away? "Kill your babies" is an expression. Sometimes you have to delete parts of a story that you love because a) they just don't fit the story, b) you have a word limit, or c) deep down you know they suck. I'm excited because it will be my first time reading something of my own to a large-er group of people. I'm happy because it's actually a very small group of people and if I make a fool of myself I can threaten them to eternal silence. The story is about one little boy's effort to make his little brother's Christmas wish come true. I often end up writing stories about children, probably because of my immaturity level. Something about seeing things through their eyes makes me happy, and I find I usually care more about stories with children in them. Or romance. If there is not the possibility of romance in the first few chapters of a book, it is 75% more likely that you have lost me. However, I will usually persevere, I'll just be disappointed as I do it before I get so caught up in the story I forget to be disappointed.

As this year I am particularly broke for Christmas, I have decided it will be a crafty Christmas. When I said that to my coworkers they thought I said a "crappy Christmas" and I said "No, crafty, but the two are closely related." The likelihood of my crafts being crappy is pretty high as is Christmas being crappy when you are broke, no matter how much we love to say that Christmas isn't about getting presents or doing things that cost money, it's about family and love and Jesus. Yes, so it is, but who are you trying to kid? When you give your friend a hug instead of a present, do you really think they are thinking "it's the thought that counts?" Or when all your friends are going to see a new Christmas movie and you are too broke to go so you have to watch TV through someone else's window, or when you want yummy food for Christmas feasts and all you have is lint, is your Christmas spirit really so elevated from material things that it fills you up? We are carnal creatures, cursed to live on earth and want stuff. But then I think, ARE YOU SO BLIND? ARE YOU REALLY SO UNGRATEFUL? All those people around the world who need a hug so desperately and never get one? All those people that wish they had a neighbor with TV to watch through their window? Or all those people who would be happy just to taste a piece of lint? Okay, maybe not, but you get the idea. We complain while most of the world's population has nothing. Poor? As if. Our poor is their well-off. Our financially stable is their super rich. And our rich is their disgustingly, absurdly rich. In fact, our homeless is their "doing pretty darn good." But God always provides for me, just sometimes He doesn't give me a million dollars like I wish he would. Or a pony. Is that so much to ask? A pony? Maybe in heaven I will have a pony. Wait, what am I thinking, if I'm in heaven, I want a unicorn. A unicorn is like a pony 2.0. I have no idea what is so great about a horse with a horn. A horse with wings makes sense. What does a horse with a horn get you? More defense to impale enemies? But it doesn't matter. Unicorns are the best thing ever.

 

Back to the crafty Christmas thing, I enjoy making crafts, even if the receivers don't quite see the beauty that I do and are wondering why when they ask for a nice cardigan they get a macaroni Christmas ornament, to which I say, "I can't make you a cardigan out of macaroni, deal with it." My crafty Christmas will probably end up looking like Manny's Thanksgiving centerpiece from Modern Family. But hey, works of art don't have to explain themselves. (If you don't watch that show you should start. Not only is it hilarious and heartwarming, it doesn't resort to sex or perversity to get you laughing like so many other shows do. It relies on pure, beautiful family relationships and ridiculously lovable people. And just so we're clear, I still love The Office even if Micheal Scott is gone. RIP Micheal Scott. RIP.)

  

"Dear goat, I will try not to eat you

so I can use your milk.

But if I do, forgive me."

I always manage to have enough money to give a gift through World Vision though, and if I have enough money to do that, YOU have enough money to do that. I can't imagine not giving a goat to someone in Africa. What kind of a goatless, soulless Christmas would that be? A crappy one, that's what. Go here and give your ass off: World Vision Donations: Gift Catalog.