The Valentines Day Nag: A Post for Frugal Men

What? Google doesn't have an image of an old horse carrying a silly card in its teeth? A heart-shaped snowball will have to do...

 

Picture by Alex Raths.  

Web sites are supposed to nag men everywhere about the traditional foofarah that women are supposed to need to receive from men on the fourteenth of February. 

Well, if you're a man and your Significant Other is a woman, you know what she wants, right? Shop today if you have to buy something in time for tomorrow. 

Brands age, if at all, by decades. "Priscilla King" is a brand. The brand was about forty in 2006, though the bogus birthdays created for it have ranged from 1961 to 1967. Do the math. Some time between this summer and next summer I'll have to start writing from the viewpoint of age sixty. After age sixty people are supposed to be too sensible and mature to bother about romance any more. Some of us are still having sex but we're supposed to consider the tender sensibilities of the young and pretend we don't, because the idea of us doing more than squeezing hands and smiling is sort of disgusting to the young, associated with the truly icky idea that their parents might have brought them into this world in the usual way. The young know they did not actually grow under cabbage leaves in the garden but it's still deeply disgusting to think about, y'know, your own parents...

If you were born in November there is actually a possibility that the microscopic blob of glup that became you was formed on Valentines Day. Salmon and heart-shaped chocolates and red wine and, a few hours later, your DNA was starting to grow in a brand new unique spiral the world had never seen before.

This post is on behalf of all of us who were not born in November.

Whatever side of my real-life sixtieth birthday I may be on, I'm close enough to it to be considered post-romantic. When sixty-somethings marry each other the proposal is supposed to be like "Might as well share the expenses, right?" or "If we were married the doctor would talk to you. I'd rather he talked to you than to my clueless twenty-something daughter. Will you marry me?"

It's not that we don't love each other--some of us do!--but that we're supposed to be practical and sensible about it, not swept off our feet by all those tiresome hormones that complicate everything for the young. 

All those pink and red trinkets are supposed to appeal to hormones. Actually they appeal to memories marketers have tried to condition, to give everyone a vague feeling that the amount of pink and red clutter we receive on the fourteenth of February is a measurement of whether people liiike us. 

Because the marketing starts in primary school, when liiiiking people means not bullying them, we're supposed to feel bad if we don't get lots of garbage whose only purpose in this world is to trigger conditioned emotional reactions to Valentines Day.

I'm not saying that none of it is ever cute, or fun, or funny. Well, most of it's none of those things, but the heart-patterned red mittens in the picture are cute. They're even useful. I'm not saying that nobody should ever buy pink or red things. 

I am saying that some women, as well as some men, don't like the expectation that he's supposed to buy junk on one day a year, as distinct from showing affection and appreciation all through the year, every single day, and she's supposed to feel hormone-maddened by the "love" communicated by junk. If she doesn't, he didn't spend enough money! (As distinct from the possibility that her hormone cycle put her in the mood for love last week, and if he either didn't notice that, or expected the hormones to last this long, the "romance" is in trouble.) 

Enough, I say.

I received enough "Valentines" junk in my day. (I wouldn't be surprised to receive some of it now--along with the Pure Life water, the deliveryman has been known to throw in a box of "Valentines" candy if one is left  in the store at the end of The Day.) I said "Thank you" and "How sweet" and so on, but although some of the men who bought the junk stirred up my hormones, at the time, the junk certainly never did. 

Pre-printed cards, bigger and fancier than the ones the Parents with More Money than Common Sense bought and addressed to everyone in their children's classes, including their children's official enemies? Admittedly Hallmark recognizes different levels of taste, starting with the cartoon animals saying "I like you BEARy much...BEE my Valentine" for grade two, and graduating to the multi-fold cardboard confections with lace glued on to show that HE LIKES HER SO MUCH HE SPENT FIFTEEN DOLLARS ON A CARD!--but all pre-printed cards always have reminded me of primary school. Where I could tell it was Jennifer's mother's writing on the card that said Jennifer liked me BEARy much, and in fact Jennifer's last statement on the subject had been that she hated me, and I'd never thought much of Jennifer either, Jennifer being the child of rich parents who wanted to buy friends for her but had probably told her to share her stuff with other rich people's children first, and I was supposed to feel embarrassed that my parents hadn't bought a box of those silly cards but actually I felt sort of glad. Because it was very hard even for seven-year-olds' kind of friendship to blossom in the overcrowded soil of primary schools between 1950 and 1975. Everyone else was a piece of the crowdedness. If you noticed one face in the crowd, you wished it wasn't there. Nobody in grade two wanted everyone else in the room to be their best friend. And if my Dad had the price of a box of cheap Valentine cards, I knew he'd sent it to some hungry orphans somewhere. 

Conversation hearts. I did always enjoy conversation hearts. Pushing them around the table, trying to imagine the stories behind the conversations they formed. "Kiss Me." "Go Away." "Be Mine." "Dum Dum." Oh, the tragedy of unrequited love. In one box of conversation hearts, I remember I was thirteen at the time, I found one that said "Drop Dead." But does anyone over eighteen actually eat a whole box of those things? You need a box to make up entertaining conversations, but then there's all that wasted sugar doing nothing but attract ants...

Balloons. Stuffed animals. Little brass lockets. For adults? Are they serious? Actually primary school kids might decide that that stuff was too "babyish" for them!

I do like chocolates but, even if that's because they start a biochemical reaction that has chemical resemblances to "falling in love," I've never had an erotic reaction to chocolate. 

Again, I'm not saying that you shouldn't buy it if you love someone whose memories have been successfully conditioned so that she (or he) feels loved at the sight of red candles and heart-shaped candy, only that there are women who don't feel that way.

There are women who prefer, if we're going to get "Valentine" junk, to get it from somebody who works at the store that had it left over at the end of the season and didn't even want to bother putting it on sale. Who would prefer that our men use the money for something more worthwhile, like the piece of hardware to fix the leak, or a donation to yet another good cause, or at least a new record by our favorite band. 

"Valentines" can be a nice peace offering after a lovers' quarrel, but they are no substitute for attention and affection all through the year. Don't kid yourselves, men. If you don't listen when your wife is talking, every piece of Valentinery in the whole dang store won't make up for it. 

If, on the other hand, you do listen when your wife is talking but you are still beset by thoughts that something more is expected on Valentines Day...I suggest you ask your wife about what feels most "romantic" to her, rather than consulting the sales sheets from CVS or Target.

Here, deliberately scrambled so that nobody else will know who did what, are some things my late husband, and/or my late Significant Other, and/or some young book carrier I used to consider cute, did that felt "romantic" to me. Romantic moments of my past. I think post-romantic people of grandparent age are allowed to remember those. If you thought it was disgusting that people my age can remember having once been twenty-two, you wouldn't have read this far, anyway.

1. He taught me how to do some useful "guy thing" that no male relative had, so far, got around to teaching me about. Actually several romantic moments of my youth could be described that way. I never felt that shooting, itself, was romantic. I thought that shooting and more personal attention, together, were romantic. Likewise driving a stick shift, paddling a boat, hitting a baseball, making a water-flush toilet stop running...

2. He took me hiking on a new, beautiful, scenic trail and allowed enough time to enjoy the experience. 

3. I knew that, insofar as one driver's competence is enough to keep that driver safe, he could drive home in the snow. I also knew that he would have to share the road with a lot of Southerners who should not have been driving on snow and probably with some people who should not have been driving at all. So I went out and started shovelling snow out of the straighter wheel tracks that other people had formed on the snow on our two-block residential street. Neighbors, realizing that this snow was in fact expected to linger for days and the county wouldn't bother scraping it off for four or five days, started shovelling too. He drove up into what looked like a block party, laughed, then went in for another shovel and started shovelling too. We enjoyed the snow for about an hour before bedtime.

4. Feeling frazzled at work and recognizing early-stage irritability, he packed my knitting and me up for a day at the lake. We set up fishing lines. I read and knitted. He took a nap. We didn't catch anything, while someone who'd rented a boat caught a fish worth cleaning and cooking, about two hundred yards away...but it was a romantic day.

5. Romance is supposed to be primarily about "you" and "me," but one "first romantic date" experience pushed the envelope. We'd gone out to work on a job and allowed some time for personal conversation and snogging at the end of the day. Just as the snogging was getting PG-13, someone rushed up shouting that another worker on another job had been injured and it would take several men to help. He lost a few points not taking me along, but I might not have mentioned (yet) being a nursing assistant, and I loved the way he leaped into his work truck and peeled out to help the neighbor. If you're asked to help someone during a real emergency, on a date, the most romantic thing you can do is go. There may be some making up to do afterward but who doesn't love a rescuing hero?

I could probably remember ten stories if it weren't time to do something else, but I think the pattern is showing. "Romance," for some women, does not mean "money spent on commercial products." "Romance" is real life, only a little more interesting, partly because a particular person is involved.

"Romance" is the wondrous realization, when you're young and full of hormones, that you've found someone you'll still want to be with when you're old and have to make an effort to remember how those hormones use to feel. If both of you really like "Valentines," buy them by all means. If not, show her how much alike you and she are, or how well your differences can work together. 

Book Review for 9.26.24: December on 5C4

Title: December on 5C4

Author: Adam Strassberg 

Date: 2024

Publisher: Nat 1

ISBN: 

Quote: "I remembered many stories from my residency years, some apocryphal, some accurate, of involuntary hospitalizations of various patients with delusions of being either Jesus or Santa. It occurred to me it would be interesting to see what might happen if a patient with similarities to Jesus were hospitalized concurrently with a patient with similarities to Santa. Would they be friends? Enemies? Both?"

/First, Strassberg imagines, they'd get into a quarrel about their different approaches to giving. Then, as men who've chosen to identify with models of generosity, they'd become friends and help each other...In the best Christmas-fairy-tale tradition, Josh N. will give encouraging counsel to the other patients, and Nick K. will hand out trinkets.

/Josh left his Orthodox Jewish family after realizing that they just wouldn't understand that he thought an incestuous act with a male cousin was a kind of baptism. He had since organized other street dwellers into a community who share their skills and resources and help others. He is frequently troubled by mad suicidal urges, which he identifies with Jesus''s temptation to throw himself down from the Temple. Hospital staff want to give him stronger medication that will suppress these urges, but will also cut off what he experiences as a sort of communion with God.

Nick likes the "trinity of coke," cocoa, Coca-Cola, and cocaine. After using a lot of the latter he was arrested for trespassing when he got stuck in an acquaintance's chimney. His purpose was to rescue three immigrant girls, and their parents, from coyote types who were prostituting the girls. Nick seems to think he has a wife at home. His wife has been dead for a long time.

They're homeless mental patients but somehow their giving seems to be touched with supernatural grace. They heal the other patients' emotions; the gifts they make in Occupational Therapy seem magical. Josh prays and preaches traditional Hebrew prayers as Jesus might have done.

Maybe, Josh appears to think, in another incarnation they'll be born in the right time to be Jesus of Nazareth and Nicholas a.k.a. Kriss Kringle. 

This story is funny, sad, and always close to the edge of blasphemy. Strassberg isn't saying that Jesus was either schizoid or homosexual or a street character; He is saying that it's possible for a Christian t see reflections of Christ in schizoid homosexual street characters. 

This is not your usual Christmas story. Josh doesn't even have a Christmas tradition. But it's worth ordering now if you want to read it during December.

Bad Poetry: The Peculiar Spring Rituals of My People

(At the Poets & Storytellers United page that prompted this, Magaly Guerrero said that people in New York think it's strange to visit graveyards in the spring. Well, it's Southern.)

One day when the weather is almost always lovely

is officially designated as Memorial Day

and, although wills direct heirs to pay

for a burial plot in a field that's tended gravely,

the proper tradition is to gather flowers,

friends, family, often a picnic meal

(real sticklers for tradition may still feel

that one graveyard should be considered "ours"

so all the graves are visited together)

spend mornings placing flowers near the head

of each grave in the family. The dead,

some think, may join the relatives who gather.

Some tell the year's news to the dear departed.

Some tell their stories to the young. It started

with earlier spring festivals; the Romans

spent Rosalia hanging roses round

the doors of tombs, and our ancestors found

in memories of ancient Rome good omens

for our Republic. After the observance 

the holiday's observed with games and sports

and shopping. Children play, and sweethearts court.

Being serious for four hours seems a burden

on such a day as our tradition's chosen

for serious thoughts. How quickly our moods change!

And we think water festivals are strange,

or fire festivals, where land's still frozen,

or living things, for springtime celebrations?

Some of us still offer our dead libations.

(As might be expected, my family tradition--this one goes back a few generations--scorns "wasteful" displays of remembrance and emphasizes remembering the dead by carrying on something they did or stood for. 

https://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2018/08/memorials.html )

New Book Review: An Inconvenient Christmas

Title: An Inconvenient Christmas 

Author: Sara R. Turnquist

Buy it on Bookshop here.

Date: 2017

Quote: "How had she become so blessed?"

Brandon, who'd rather be a rancher than a lawyer, and Amanda, who needed a good stepfather for her little boy, fell in love in another book in this series. As the holiday season approaches, they're living happily ever after. Then Brandon's parents come out for a visit--a surprise to them, but not to the uncle from whom Brandon got the idea of ranching--and Christmas is almost ruined. But of course this is a sweet Christian romance; True Love and True Faith will prevail. 

While some of the expressions the characters use sound more like 2023's than like 1923's, the story of reconciliation between young people and their parents is timeless. I can tell that I'm reading a modern historical novel rather than something by Kathleen Norris (the early twentieth century one) or Edna Ferber. But I never was either of those authors' biggest fan, so I don't mind. Probably you won't either.

Gifts for People Who Are Hard to Shop For

HAH! Did people think I wasn't going to squeeze this post in? Here is the final post for the Long and Short Reviews blog challenge: Gifts for People Who Are Hard to Shop For. 

First of all, the other participants in this link-up have some very nice ideas, for those of you whose friends do want to receive presents but are just hard to shop for. "It's the thought that counts" and their homes are stuffed with stuff, so, maybe the gift of time or tutoring? Maybe a reflection of your thought, like a poem? Maybe something you know the person will use, even if the person is a well-known tightwad who only ever buys things like groceries and underwear? Giftcards from the discount grocery and department stores those people favor can look jolly festive.

Now a thought for the people who are really just about impossible to please, because the bottom line is that we don't get into the whole Christmas present thing at all. Well, maybe if we're in desperate financial straits Christmas can be an excuse to slip us a $20 or $100 bill, but it still feels sort of icky that we don't have one for you. 

Of course, for those of us who make things, you can always slip us the same amount of money and clean the ickiness off it by ordering something. For instance, you can send this web site payment for a blog post. Since the post will appear after Christmas there's no theological controversy about it, and since you're buying something there's no stench of toxic "charity" about the fact that I can't afford to spend money on you and will have to write something for you instead.

 

For other people who are hard to shop for, a nice thought is Lydia Schoch's suggestion to shop with them and ask them what they'd like to get. (But please resist the urge to "upgrade"...when people don't ask for the most expensive thing, there may be a reason for it. Do not try to substitute heavy leather shoes for the flimsy-looking canvas ones that don't blister someone's odd-shaped feet. Do not buy the larger size that won't fit into the space where the small size could just be squeezed into someone's small apartment.)

Then there are the people who genuinely hate "gift items" like ornaments (they don't decorate), handkerchiefs (they use tissues), neckties (they're retired), or scented soap (they're allergic to most of it and, in any case, have a box full from previous holidays). If you happen to hit on something they will actually use, they'll be pleased. 

Then there's a phenomenon every knitter knows well: There are people who don't stop with the hints about what we might knit next. They like sweaters, for themselves, which is nice, and for their children, which is not so nice, as children are more active and form a prejudice against sweaters that adults literally force upon them. "But it looks adorable! Aren't you going to say 'thank you' now," coos the adult. 

"Nooo!" screams the tot. "No fwedder! I haaaate fwedders! I'm burnin' up aweady!" 

And then there are the people who had that experience as children. A lot of them happen to be single young men. Here you learned to knit just so you could knit the perfect sweater to hang on those perfect manly shoulders. And he did thank you, even if it didn't come out quite the way you hoped it would, when finished. And then the whole relationship just sort of...

I knitted sweaters for single men. Some of them modelled those sweaters with pride. (A trick used to be to start them out at Stitches Fair, where modelling sweaters used to give the male minority the rock star experience of having women swarm up around them and fondle their sleeves.) One of them even married me. What is the secret? Part of it is to remember that US guy culture demands that men wear boring, uniform-type clothes that fit just right. Another part is to practice on your elders first and, although you can always give friends sweaters "in exchange for modelling," make sure your friends have seen your sweaters in shop windows, with alarming price tags on them. 

The third part, most important of all, is to remember that a lot of active young people just plain hate sweaters. Even on Ugly Holiday Sweater Day. Even if they own a fantastically faded, formerly beaded sweater dripping with unravelling embroidery, and have a good chance of winning the office Ugly Sweater Contest prize--the minute they've posed in it, off it goes. If this is going to change, it will be when they have to take blood pressure medication, which as a good friend you hope never happens. Don't bother trying to sell sweaters to anti-sweater people. If you must knit for them, knit holiday-color-theme drink coasters.

Finally, about the people who have grudgingly accepted Christmas carols or red and green sweaters as part of a useful "season of giving" but still don't think it's Christian to mix the birth of Christ up with the winter solstice...A really nice gift for those people is to accept that they really mean it. You can always exchange birthday presents, or celebrate the anniversary of the season when you met.

New Book Review: Love in Time for Christmas

Title: Love in Time for Christmas 

Author: Katie O'Connor

Date: 2023

Publisher: Snarky Heart

Quote: "With only four days until Christmas, there was something in the air that felt magical."

 And so it was. Leaping back through the slush to avoid one of those people who try to drive in snow, Trudy spills her coffee on a man who just happens to be her ex-boyfriend. He dumped her, but he's sorry and wants to come back. Will his gift of gab win her over? Will she make another commitment to him? 

This is the basic wish-fulfillment dream of every dump-ee on Earth. It might be healthier to dwell on making the dumper suffer rather than dream of reconciliation, but this is the version for dump-ees who still believe reconciliation is possible. Sometimes it is; sometimes lovers quarrel for no discernible reason except the pleasure of making up. Trudy and Maxim sound as if their problem was more substantial than that, but who knows? Good for some delicious fantasies, anyway. The key is to read through to the end. This reconciliation was brought to you by Santa Claus, and at the end of the book he disappears. 

New Book Review: Game Set Matchmaker

Title: Game Set Matchmaker 

Author: Evie Sterling

Date: 2023

Publisher: Evie Sterling

Quote: "How do you drive away from a guy you feel out-of-control, terrifying feelings for?...You keep your foot pressed to the gas, that's how."

Game Set Matchmaker is a sweet romance about a woman who runs a matchmaking service and a retired tennis champion. Do you deduct points for the title being too, too cute?

Given that you're interested in a sweet romance, that's about all you need to deduct points for. This is a sweet romance with a charming, socially confident introvert, volunteer teaching, the Appalachian Mountains (the Green Mountains, specifically), and shelter cats in it. Be still my heart. It would have been hard for Sterling, who did not write this book for me, to have tailor-fitted the atmosphere to my preferences any better, but toward the end of the book, at the ugly holiday sweater party, she does. 

It's still frivolous froth, intended strictly for use as a marital aid, but it's so completely my cup of frivolous froth that you might distrust my review. So I'll quickly add that the hero is the sort of blond muscle man I have never found attractive. With tattoos. Isn't biodiversity wonderful--it's good for the species that some women do like that type of man--and all that. I have liked blond men who were skinny and who, if they had any scars, had come by them honestly. Do women's preferences for real-world men ever affect our preferences in romance novels? Don't we always cast our own heroes when visualizing these stories?

Also there's a bit of a cheap trick, where a frazzled nurse blurts out a lot of information about "his" condition, not specifying which patient's privacy she's violating, that prompts a woman to pour out her heart to the "him" behind the curtain...oh, read the book and find out. This is a romantic comedy. 

If you like a romantic comedy with a book-smart heroine who thinks she's been life-stupid--is she right or wrong about that?--you will enjoy Game Set Matchmaker. Like all of these Booktober Blitz books, it is available online, sometimes directly from the author, sometimes on Amazon. This one should be on Amazon some time today. (This review is being written ahead of publication, too.) Writers have reported some schedule/release glitches at Amazon due to the high volume of activity this season, but if you don't find this book at this moment, Sterling has a few other romantic comedies to read while you wait.

Winter Holiday Traditions?

This week's Long & Short Reviews prompt is "winter holiday traditions."

You could say that my hereditary winter holiday tradition is finding a different way to Scrooge out every year. 

In their defense, my parents were still prosperous in the year they received enlightenment from Herbert W. Armstrong about Christmas, Halloween, and Easter. The Worldwide Church of God does nothing about the first two and little about the last one. Dad, who absolutely refused to answer to "Reverend Doctor" but might have become a Bible teacher if he'd found a congregation who shared his views, at least gave serious thought to joining the WCOG. 

Herbert W. Armstrong was not the con artist or cult leader that the many colleagues he'd offended hoped to prove that he was. He and his family lived modestly, by Southern California boom-years standards. Not by Dad's standards, mind you. Dad listened to Garner Ted Armstrong's report on a trip to India, heard GTA describing the beggars outside and saying he felt funny eating a fine meal in the fine restaurant where his hosts took him, and was angry enough to have blistered GTA's bottom if the young soon-to-be-rogue preacher had been within range. "Send some food out to them!" But when the Armstrongs said they bought expensive treasures only because the way to get churches and schools organized in some countries was to give expensive "gifts" (bribes) to influential local people, they were telling the truth. The Steuben glass really was given to the officials. The schools and churches and printing presses really were built. The WCOG's favorite thing was getting a new ministry going. They believed in separatism, God had intended different groups of people to live in different countries, but they also believed in courtesy and hospitality; they were much less racist than most "White churches" in California used to be. 

But the WCOG does seem to me, in hindsight, to have been anti-fun for children. I could read picture books and print letters to Santa Claus? Then I ought to have been reading the Bible, or reports about the desperate condition of orphans in poor countries. Making up stories and pretending were just plain lying, according to Herbert W. Armstrong. The Santa Claus story was nothing more than a lie. My parents should apologize for telling it to me. And they actually did.

I was delighted to learn, much later, that although the Santa Claus story as told in pop culture today is just plain silly, it's a degraded version of a story that is true and worth telling. There really was a Bishop Nicholas who was beloved by his congregation, but just a bit on the impulsive, childlike side. He had the final decision about how to use church funds and he might very well have broken three balls of gold off a showy symbolic cross and used them to repurchase three children who had been sold as slaves. In those days "redeeming slaves" was part of the regular budget for many religious groups, Christians and others. There's no reason to doubt that Nicholas was one of the many people who have prayed while a small boat sailed through a storm, and I incline to believe he really did "slap down" Bishop Arius--whether with a hand, or with a scathing rebuttal. Sneaking around leaving prezzies for people who didn't want to admit how poor they were was the sort of thing he did. He seems to have been the sort of creative, radical, sometimes outrageous Christian that people remember by the title "Saint."

So the story The Nephews heard was that of course "Santa Claus" is "really" lots of different grown-ups who do or do not try to disguise themselves with silly red suits and white whiskers. Anybody and everybody gets to give prezzies, especially to children, in memory of that dear old preacher so long ago and far away. You can be Santa Claus too, dear! Whenever you have things that are really too small or too childish for you, you can help your parents give them to a younger child as a present from Santa Claus! 

St Nicholas apparently liked to give people money early in winter, which was smart of him, because that is when people are most likely to need money. But what the WCOG liked to do in autumn and winter was preach about how bad it was to observe the big commercial holidays. They argued that:

* We don't know when Jesus was born, exactly, The special tax/census was taken in October. The shepherds were outdoors, watching their flocks by night, because nights were still too warm for them to sleep comfortably in a stuffy old shed. By the time the Magi arrived, other visitors had left Bethlehem and the Holy Family had rented a house, and by the time Herod missed the Magi, Jesus might have been two years old. Of course, everything we think we know about the Magi comes from later church pageants and has always been recognized as pure fiction. 

* We do know that the apostolic church never celebrated Jesus' birthday. Christmas parties started more than 300 years after Jesus' time, as alternative celebrations to help the young avoid competing Pagan festivities. There is no record that Jesus either condemned or participated in any observance of secular holidays. If any days were special to Him, it would have been the Jewish Holy Days.

* We do know that, over the centuries, many Christian reformers have condemned the traces of Paganism that crept into the "Christian alternative" celebrations of Christmas, May Day, All Hallows (Halloween), and even Easter. Although traditions like Santa's flying reindeer are not the abominations that stirred up the reformers--extravagant credit-card shopping would be closer to that!--they're not Christian in origin and may, in some way, be seen as idolatry. 

I think it was 1970s "satanic panic" that made people fear that asking Santa Claus to bring prezzies on his sleigh might invite an ancient "spirit of confusion" into the house. The Bible does mention that the more confident Christians, like St. Paul, ate food that had been consecrated to Pagan gods before it was sold to the public. It mentions that fact in the context of telling those Christians that, if others were worried about their eating food and thus seeming to support the cult of the idol, they should waste the food rather than "cause a brother to offend." 

So what did we do with the school holidays? They often started early for us, as my parents would keep us home so that we didn't participate in any school parties. 

Some years we had the duty of taking vacations in Florida, where an aunt had rental properties she summoned relatives to occupy so that they wouldn't be taxed as unused. She tried to make these vacations a pleasure. Her company was a pleasure, when she visited us. When I went to Florida I always woke up with a "cold" that lasted until I reached Atlanta on the way home. Allergies made my vacations in Florida a grim duty.

One year, in December, before my tenth birthday, my natural sister was born. Another year, in December, after my tenth birthday, a second cousin who lived nearby was born. After that the problem of winter holiday parties was solved. We could celebrate the little girls' birthdays, on or about the day between them, with any theme for the parties but Christmas. 

Some years snow fell. We were allowed to celebrate snow with as many snow races, snowball throwing contests, slides downhill, snow sculptures, and snow ice creams as we wanted. 

Often, in Virginia, the December thaw falls on Christmas Day. Sometimes we could celebrate the thaw by going out without coats. If that doesn't sound like much of a celebration, well, it's not. Sometimes we trickled up to the homes of relatives who were having big Christmas parties and got to help eat up their junk food and play with their presents. This was not encouraged, but it was fun.

Often we spent one or more of the days between school terms singing for old disabled patients. We could sing religious songs, pop songs, any songs we'd learned--almost. No Christmas carols. I happen to like Christmas carols.

Sometimes I wished we could at least celebrate Hanukah, but that was out of the question. Both my mother and I were occasionally told we "looked" Jewish, or some other ethnic identity we're not. Mother thought people who said that never meant it as a compliment. I hear it as one; I've heard it from Jewish people of good will. I do have cousins who are Jewish, and cousins who are Saudi as well. But what's been documented about my ancestors' religious lives is that several of them were Christian ministers, writers, and teachers. 

New Year's Day, however, we were allowed to celebrate in a low-key, cost-free way. We sat up till midnight, made a bit of noise, shouted "Happy New Year," and slept as late as we felt like sleeping the next morning. We learned the benefit of making modest resolutions, and doing something about each resolution on New Year's Day. 

My parents didn't demand that each of us choose a holidays project for each of the big breaks in the school year, but usually we did, just to have something to talk about at school when others were showing off their prezzies. 

"I got a pen that writes in four colors."

"I got a walkie-talkie radio set but I"m not allowed to bring it to school."

You have to say something.

"I built a tree house."

"I tape-recorded my great-aunts singing their favorite old songs."

Some people suspected that some of my parents' not only Scroogery, but general tightwaddery, was planned for the purpose of motivating us to do and learn things. To be fair, we chose our own projects and usually enjoyed working on them. 

At a Seventh-Day Adventist school I was a little more free. Adventists have a full range of positions on Christmas. Some are as anti-Christmas as the WCOG; some have Christmas trees in their homes and even in their churches (where, when I was there, the trees were a topic of debate). Some of the girls exchanged gifts and cards, and that was when I noticed that I couldn't afford to buy into any commercial Christmas customs if I wanted to. That was cool with the Adventists. And they did sing Christmas carols. 

Then, in my twenties, came the years when the Salvation Army advertised that they'd pay carolers and bell ringers by the hour. I signed up. Some days I felt shy, and listless, low in energy, as young women sometimes do. I just sat beside the kettle and jingled the bell, as many bell ringers do. Then I was easy to ignore and didn't bring in much money--as, I learned, those bell ringers generally don't. Not good. I knew enough carols to sing for ten hours without repeating one, That brought in the donations. Frosty days with a hint of snow in the air? Add nostalgic traditional carols, and the kettle would be packed so tight I'd have to collect donations in my hat. 

And Mother said, "Oh dear."

And I said, "There's a reason why churches use that ridiculous image of the Holy Family ankle-deep in snow. That's not the way Jesus' real human family were, but it's the way poor people are now, and we're supposed to try to see Jesus in them."

So my parents gave their blessing on my singing Christmas carols for the Salvation Army. 

Later on, during a vacation in Florida after she'd become an experienced home nurse, Mother met a particularly lovable patient who wanted her to cross over to the Messianic Jewish side so she'd fit into the patient's kosher home. Would I ever do that? I don't know. Converting to Messianic Judaism does not affect what a Christian believes about Jesus (Yeshua) Bar Joseph, the spiritual Messiah. The main difference is cultural. Mother did most things the same way she always did, took a quick language course, learned new songs and made new friends, but she found herself having to think about history from a different side. She had not already had that experience from thinking of herself as biracial; she had no Cherokee ancestors. 

Anyway, now she had Jewish friends, and at least one party thrown in honor of my little sister had the theme "Introduction to Hanukah." Well, mazel tov, it worked! But Mother made bas mitzvah. Mother loved all her patients, treated them as if they were all her aunts, and probably really came to feel that she had at least a Jewish aunt. My sister and I never made bas mitzvah nor lived in a really kosher home. I respect the cultural tradition and have not tried to appropriate it. 

But I have been known to sing Hanukah songs along with the Christmas carols. If someone had objected to that as cultural appropriation I would have stopped. No one did. At the time, bearing in mind that this was in a more liberal era, people seemed to appreciate a little inclusivity.

As a bachelor I didn't entertain much. As a household of bachelors my co-"mother" and I didn't do much about Christmas either; small gifts among ourselves and to my adoptive sister's real mother and grandparents, and small donations to charity, were about all. 

My husband didn't do much about Christmas, either, except when called to baby-sit for a very special student. This was not a child from the DC schools; it was one some of his family were rearing as a foster child. The child's disabilities were so extensive that rearing her was more of a medical experiment than an investment in the future. She liked bright lights and bright colors. I used to knit her loud-colored winter things, and she used to like wearing them. Not "ugly" holiday sweaters, just the brightest red in the store; she was small enough to look cute in such things. She was the sort of case about which people debate whether it's humane to try to keep them alive. Maryland is still a Catholic State. That child was lovable, and was loved, during her short hard years in this world. 

My husband also thought it was more appropriate for a diplomat's wife to send boxes to the Salvation Army rather than carol in front of stores. Maybe he was right. He didn't ask me to give up much, and was worth giving up a few things for. I didn't like the effects W Bush's handouts have had on the Salvation Army anyway. Starting with the way, after my husband died, when I said to myself "Now I'm no longer a diplomat's wife and can go caroling again," the new people at the Salvation Army claimed to have no records of who'd done what for the organization in the 1990s, but they were hiring only beneficiaries of their now federally programmed "help." "Help" to stay poor, but no help whatsoever to recover a decent standard of living. American capitalism does not require anyone to be poor but American socialism needs a lot of people to remain both poor and miserable. I could use some help to get back on my feet and survive being a widow, I wailed, or maybe whined. Go away, they said. Since then I've donated a coin now and then, but I've felt bad about doing that, so mostly I don't.

I always knew that, without immediately remarrying a rich man, I'd have little chance of ever getting back into a comfortable economic bracket in my home town. Well, the Internet had been invented by that time. I could always be a professional writer for the Internet. So I am one. I still can't afford to do much of anything about any holiday. By now I have a well established tradition of ignoring holidays anyway. 

Except, of course, for writing about them. I am enjoying this month's wallow in frivolous novels where the dognappers are caught, the ghosts are laid to rest, and the couples kiss and make up, by Christmas Day. I don't plan to do this every year, but it is fun. 

I hope you readers are enjoying this web site's month-long sleigh ride through cozy Christmas stories, too.

New Book Review: Kissed by the Scrooge

Title: Kissed by the Scrooge 

Author: Macie St. James

Date: 2023

Quote: "[N]ever, in his eight years on the police force, had he issued a warning to an elf."

Enzo is trying to build a reputation as a serious, tough cop. He was one of the nerdlier boys at Misty Mountain High School. Noelle, who was a pretty and popular blonde, has decided the town needs "Christmas romance" and been hanging buckets of mistletoe on anything she thought could hold their weight. That's littering, isn't it? Actually he just wants her to come to the police station and talk to him. Actually he's finally sensed that the attraction he's felt to her for all these years might finally become mutual. To find out, he'll even act like a Scrooge. 

Noelle will have him playing Santa in no time. You knew that. It's a sweet romance. 

If you like sweet, wholesome romances in which blondes marry policemen, this book is for you.  

Advent Calendar for Charity

This post was suggested by Beth Ann Chiles' goodhearted post:

https://itsjustlife.me/reverse-advent-calendar-4/

What do you give adults on gift-giving occasions? Yes, some of us do mean it when we say we don't want anything...People give teachers good-quality soap, handkerchiefs, and silk neckties. They give them by the barrel. They give them by the yard. My husband and I used to send cartons of those items to the Salvation Army. A stage in life we reach sooner or later is the one where we thank people for the thought of yet another designer-scented soap, but we really wish they'd given us cash, if we're not rich, or a donation to our favorite charity, if we are. 

Donations to charity in the names of older and richer friends are a lovely way to honor those people, but will they actually be used? A lot of people feel good about donating food to the poor. Even poor people who'd be offended by a jar of peanut butter under the Christmas tree may feel that there's no reason not to take a jar of peanut butter that's been donated to a food bank; they can probably think of another use for the five dollars it would have cost. And yet...poor people have food allergies, too. If anything they have more of them than other people. When people pre-pack boxes or bags of food donations at food banks, they tend to forget that about one out of fifty people won't even want to look at peanut butter. People who have "peanut allergies," more likely sensitivities to the fungicides that are necessary to preserve peanuts, tend to have quite violent reactions. I like peanut butter myself, but I'd be sure to ask before offering it to someone else.

Consider the items on the suggested donation list from the point of view of a family whose house burned down on the second day of a two-week pay cycle. 

1. "Shelf-stabilized" milk: The majority of human adults don't digest cow's milk. Period. Cow's milk is tolerated by most infants but is tolerated by fewer people in every year of life. If you've reached your full height and can drink a glass of milk without immediately feeling sorry, you are in a global minority of people who have a minority gene for "lactase persistence." Almost all lactase-persistent adults are White. This has been misunderstood to mean that all White adults are lactase-persistent, Many are not, and some White adults have become very sick while waiting for their doctors to realize that they could be lactose-intolerant just like normal human beings. 

I happen to be one of those lactase-persistent freaks: Although neither of my parents tolerated cow's milk even in ice cream when they were my age, I still do. Ice cream, yes, but not a carton of milk like the ones handed out to school children (some of whom are already unable to digest it). On the other hand cheese never woud stay down if I forced myself to swallow any (I loathe the taste of cheese), so I know how the majority of people feel about cow's milk. As a survival food most adults do tolerate yogurt, but then again, yogurt is easier to tolerate because the milk is being partly digested by bacteria, and some people have become ill from exposure to those bacteria.

And although there may be a way, using what appalling chemicals I don't know, to "shelf-stabilize" milk, don't imagine that milk that has reached room temperature is going to be used by any of my generation even if they are lactase-persistent. We all learned at school that if milk is not very cold or very hot, it gives you tuberculosis. And polio. 

To avoid food waste, food banks might offer people the option of cow's milk products with the alternative of some other nutrient-rich food that doesn't pretend to be "milk." Almonds are rich in calcium. Turkey is rich in B vitamins. 

2. Tuna: Or even mackerel...I like both, but some people can't use either. Offer the alternatives of canned chicken or canned beans.

3. Peanut butter: See above. 

Another thought about peanut butter is my standard salt-versus-sugar rant. Preserved foods of vegetable origin are almost always preserved with salt and/or sugar. If it's canned or bottled without either of those, it won't last long enough to be worth packing. Of the two, in savory foods like peanuts and tomatoes, salt is better. "Low-sodium" canned goods seem like the best lowest-common-denominator alternative, but they're not, for smaller food distributors. They taste fresher and more like real food for about a week after canning. Then they start to decompose. 

For people who have freezers, frozen vegetables are a better "low-sodium" choice: Frozen foods keep without salt or sugar, and generally taste fresher than canned vegetables in any case. For emergency situations, some people do need to avoid salt and may appreciate tasteless or positively nasty "low-sodium" canned veg, but others do not. 

Alternatives to peanut butter include other nuts, peanut-free mixed nuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, or canned beans or peas. Nuts and seeds will be rejected by some people if they are roasted and salted, by others if they're not.

4. Toothbrushes: Always a good choice. Even people who don't have teeth find uses for toothbrushes. Tooth paste? Most people can use it, but some can't.

5. Cereal: Most humans used to be able to digest wheat. Very few people actually have a gene that tells our bodies not even to try to digest wheat. However, today most people who "go gluten-free" claim to feel better even when they have no physical reaction to wheat gluten itself. Is this because of mass hysteria? No, it's because of the chemicals used to protect wheat in the field and preserve it after harvest. Glyphosate is the worst because it's the most commonly and carelessly used. Other chemicals applied to wheat also make people sick. It's never good to assume, without asking, that anyone can safely eat grain products like cereal these days.

Some people can used specific brands of cereal such as Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, and Cheerios, which contain no wheat...but they may hesitate to try, because these cereals may be contaminated with glyphosate even though they're wheat-free. "Organically grown" unfortunately does not mean glyphosate-free and is not worth paying more for. Some people will still want to substitute non-grain food for cereal.

6. "Low sodium" canned soup: Sometimes I get cans of this, in between their sell-by and use-by dates, for the cats. Cats don't crave salt, have high resistance to bacterial food poisoning, and usually like low-sodium canned soups. But not always. 

Before offering canned soup to people, read the labels to get some idea of which people absolutely can't use it. For a start, in emergency situations canned food is eaten by opening the can and eating the contents as they are, which puts meat out of the question. More canned soup than not is thickened with wheat flour, so the gluten- and glyphosate-sensitive can't eat it. Most canned soup contains monosodium glutamate, which can make some people very ill. Some canned soup contains cow's milk products, which makes it unfit for consumption by most adults. Offer a choice of flavors or, in the absence of an acceptable flavor, plain canned veg.

7. Spaghetti sauce: Quite tasty on rice, most gluten-sensitive people already know. But again you need to read the labels and offer alternatives. Is it vegan, dairy-free, sugar-free, alcohol-free? Even if it is, some people are allergic to tomatoes! Offer plain vegetables as an alternative!

8. Macaroni and cheese: Urgh ick. Before donating this horrible stuff to food banks you should know that, although it is a "beloved comfort food" for some people, it is not actually food. It's basically denatured ground wheat flavored with the high-saturated-fat, almost-zero-nutrient curds of cow's milk, plus toxic chemicals that produce a bizarre orange color. I've tried repeatedly to interest, if not the cats, at least the possums in macaroni and cheese, or at least in the mice it might attract. No takers. This unnatural stuff does not attract mice. Nor possums. Let that sink in. Animals who regard mouse livers and cat dropping as treats, who can be trained with such unmentionable nastiness as treats, will not eat packaged macaroni and cheese. 

There is probably some use for packaged macaroni and cheese, although it doesn't burn or compost very well. Just make sure that only people who want it are ever offered any suggestion that it might be confused with food. Mice like real wheat and they like real cheese. The fact that mice won't touch packaged macaroni and cheese says it all.

9.  Shampoo: Most people will use shampoo and, since it's not ingested and is rinsed away in a few minutes, it's unlikely to do much harm. But don't assume that everybody wants shampoo. How many of the people you know are bald?

10. Applesauce: Before glyphosate apples were a healthy food. Only a few people were very sensitive to other chemicals that soaked in through the skins of fruits like apples and pears. But glyphosate-sprayed apples will make some people sick. Applesauce needs rigorous testing for glyphosate before it's offered to humans as food. Many people will eat it, like it, and then be sick if it's contaminated.,

Oranges, when available, are less likely to be contaminated than apples because the peels are thicker. 

11. Canned ready-to-serve pasta: This usually contains enough meat grease to interest the animals, but it's not to be confused with a healthy food. It is junk. Might as well throw in a few marshmallows if you're going to donate pasta. The reason why pasta is considered healthier than bread is that people eat pasta with vegetables, while they eat bread with butter. That's all very well when the vegetables are fresh and glyphosate-free. If you want to help people, don't even offer canned pasta as an option. Give them canned vegetables.

12. Toilet paper: This is one item everybody is likely to use...but homeless people have nowhere to store very much of it. One sometimes meets homeless people with single-use wads of t.p. stuffed into every pocket. They know that diarrhea is a probable consequence of eating donated foods, and want to be prepared. But they can't use a whole roll!

13. Canned fruit: It used to be packed in syrup that made it a delicious dessert for those who can eat sugar. Many poor people are diabetic. Does that make "unsweetened" canned fruit the lowest-common-denominator default choice? No, because diabetic patients can't use a whole can of unsweetened fruit either. I've paid for cans of pineapple that was picked green and tasted like some sort of green bark, and my rule now is: If unable to find a ripe whole pineapple, get the kind that's now described as packed "in heavy syrup," which of course is much lighter than the syrup of my youth, and makes pineapple a nice light refreshing dessert. Some people's rule is not to eat a can of pineapple at all--remember, people who don't have kitchens with all the mod. con. usually eat canned food by opening a can and makng a meal of what's inside. Offer the alternative of canned vegetables.

14. Pancake mix needing only water: Homeless people probably aren't going to eat raw pancake dough even if it's made with water. In the 1930s hobos used to cook pancakes over open-air fires. Today many homeless people camp in places where they can't build open-air fires. And of course those white-flour pancake mixes are pure junk calories in any case. 

Self-rising cornmeal, not mixed with wheat flour, is more likely to be safe for more people to eat than self-rising wheat flour is, because corn is less likely to contain glyphosate. But pancakes made from self-rising cornmeal are junkfood, too.

Brown and wild rice mixes that "need only water" are a good alternative to pancake mixes for many, but people who don't have kitchens may not be able to cook them, either. 

15. 100% fruit juice: Used to be an excellent choice for many people, though somebody Out There is probably allergic to every specific fruit there is. Today, fruit juice often contains enough glyphosate to make people sick. 

You never thought you'd live to see the day when soda pop was healthier than real natural orange juice with the good bioflavonoids and zesty peels ground into the mix...well, you have. Not that soda pop is a health food, but at least soda pop does not contain enough contaminated fruit to produce glyphosate reactions. Natural oranges, bananas, and melons are much healthier than either kind of drink but, if you want people to get the benefit of them, be sure to offer access to running water, plates, forks, and sharp knives. People who lack access to running water don't need to walk around covered in fruit juice.

16. "Low sodium" canned vegetables: See above. Veg are probably the best nutritional choice but allergies and contamination raise problems there, too. Remember, there are no "good foods" and "bad foods": there are foods that individuals can and can't eat. Boxes of macaroni and cheese are bad foods for most people and cans of beans are good foods for most people--but don't presume to tell people what they "should" eat. Offer alternatives to everything.

17. "Unsalted mixed" nuts: Unsalted nuts are a very good option for some people. Stock just a few cans for those who have to watch their sodium. But don't stock a lot of them in advance--they go moldy. Also, be aware that, if the purpose of buying mixed nuts is to have an alternative to peanuts, you have to buy the overpriced "deluxe" mixes, or buy specific nuts that may be more affordable. Walnuts, pecans, filberts, and even almonds can be quite good bargains in some places at some times of year. Mixed nuts are still usually mixed with more than half peanuts. 

18. Canned beef stew: Cats and dogs nearly always like this. Humans don't. One reason: Highly Sensory Perceptive people know that most canned beef smells like bacteria, even if it's been browned in butter and flour to make that gravy that looks, smells, and feels just like soiled paste. As beef stew warms up it tends to smell more like meat, and some people do like it and even digest it, but don't think of it as food for everyone. Offer alternatives. Canned chili tends to hold up better than canned beef stew, because the spices tend to kill the bacteria. So do canned chicken, turkey, and fish, because they don't support the same kind of bacteria. Canned vegetables are safer than canned meat and fish.

19. Wholegrain pasta: If it's wholegrain and fresh, mice will eat it, and some people may like it. But some of the people (and mice) who like whole wheat pasta will be sick. Offer alternatives. Potato chips and corn chips are junkfood, but they're healthier junkfood for most of us than wheat pasta is, these days.

20. Brown rice: Good for most people who have a way to cook it--but be sure they do. Plain dry brown rice has to come to a full boil and then simmer for about an hour. That's something I, having time, skills, utensils, and a safe metal container in which to burn hard wood, can do on a warm dry day if there's not too much wind. Most people aren't going to do it, and eating dry rice can kill birds.

Offer dry rice or even "instant" rice as options. They are good food for many people, not all. They will not be used by most homeless people.

21. Oatmeal: Instant oatmeal, or oldfashioned oats that have soaked overnight, would be a good survival food for many people if they weren't sprayed with glyphosate. They probably were, these days. Until you know for sure that oatmeal is glyphosate-free, it has to be considered toxic. 

Uncontaminated oatmeal is, however, easy to store and carry and mix to a paste or cook to a pancake, if a person is willing to eat it. I don't think it tastes all that bad, myself. Some say you have to have at least one Scottish ancestor to think oatmeal is edible. 

22. Canned beans: Just might be the best lowest-common-denominator food there is, but some people will not eat them. Offer alternatives. All beans are not created equal, nor are they equally treated. Pinto bean growers' Glyphosate Awareness seems generally to have been raised. Garbanzos, which offer more of some nutrients, are usually raised as a cover crop for wheat in glyphosate-saturated soil, and are usually toxic these days.

23. Canola or olive oil: First determine that they have kitchens. If they do they may use cooking oil, but many people can make a jug of cooking oil last a year. 

24 . Laundry soap. You'd think that everybody needs laundry soap, and you'd be right--but the washing machines at the laundromat may not use enough water and time to rinse it out of clothes, so some homeless people won't use laundry soap, either. Their sensitive skins will be covered in soap-free, rotten-smelling fabric until the fabric rots.

25. Granola bars. Most of them do contain some whole grains and nuts, along with the sugar. That feeling of spartan virtue does not come from avoiding sugar but from biting into something hard enough to break all but the healthiest teeth, though; granola bars are dangerous for many adults. And, nuts? Grains? See above. For some people granola bars are a healthy choice, and for some Reese's Peanut Butter Cups would be healthier.

A parting thought...

Many years ago when my mother was shopping for an elder who chewed food slowly and painfully, if at all, she stocked up on oatmeal and canned tomato soup. This elder had had a few strokes, was heavily medicated, and didn't often try to talk. When he did speak, he hadn't had much practice talking without his teeth and he probably wasn't wearing them, so it was hard to work out what he might have been saying.

Nevertheless she heard him say quite clearly, "Old...red...soup."

"What did you say, Sir?"

"Old. Red. Soup," the old man shouted obligingly. "I hate old red soup."

She took it all home (in those days I liked Campbell's tomato soup, and didn't realize it made me sick) and never served him any kind of canned soup again...and he named her executor of his estate.

New Book Review: The Stolen Sauce

Title: The Stolen Sauce 

Author: E.L. Johnson

Date: 2022

Quote: "Christmas is ruined."

The first words of this mini-mystery take us right into the plot. Aunt Violet's Christmas is ruined because the special sauce she was cooking to go with the roast turkey and vegetables has disappeared. Which of Violet's siblings could or would have stolen the sauce, and why?

The cozy, wholesome family drama ends happily. It's quite a short story, offered as an advertisement for longer books by the author.