A Must-See Movie; and One to Avoid at All Costs

So here lately, I've been saving up a movie or something to watch on Friday night after I go to bed. Earlier this week, I stumbled across one on youtube that I've been wanting to see for some time, popped it into my watch-later, and waited rather impatiently.
This movie was the 2004 BBC drama entitled simply, Hawking.
Now, to a member of my family watching this, it may appear that I have happened upon a rather unlikely fixation with the scientist, as I rather mysteriously added a documentary (Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking) to our Netflix instant queue earlier this month. Thing is, it was rather a series of unfortunate events. I thought that the one (Into the Universe) was the other (Hawking), and so added it by mistake. Imagine my surprise when what I saw bizarre animations of what aliens might look like instead of the emotional biography I was expecting.
Well, anyway, Hawking was the one I was looking for, and I've just finished it (in nine ten-minute parts, thank you uploading limits) on youtube.
All I can say is wow. There's such a story there, a story I never knew existed; and it's so very beautifully told in this little documentary. It's a love story, and a success story, and it was so very worth ninety minutes of my life. I don't want to hold cheap the events of this amazing man's life by pretending to understand them or trying to explain them, so all I can really say is, well, wow.
The movie itself was extremely well-done; well cast and very well acted (which was to be expected); and maybe what impressed me most was how very tastefully it was done. Sometimes with things like this, television or movies that depict physical disability, the effect is . . . uncomfortable. Makes the viewer uncomfortable, embarrassed for the actor or the person portrayed, squeamish. You know the feeling I'm talking about, when you can't help but look away from the screen for a moment because you can't bear to watch. But this? This wasn't. Hawking showed faithfully the physical condition of Mr. Hawking, but did so in a dignified and beautiful and very human manner, and did not fall to discomfiting the viewer to make a point.
All the same, it is a very hard movie to watch. It is solemn, and saddening to watch a healthy young man have a progressively harder and harder time with day-to-day tasks, and yet there are moments of such joy, and such beauty, and such success that it doesn't feel like a sad movie. Brought to mind is a quote from Doctor Who, which can really be applied to any life, but seems especially apropos in this situation, "The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don’t always soften the bad things; but vice-versa, the bad things don’t necessarily spoil the good things or make them unimportant."
Some links for your enjoyment:
Watch the movie starting here.
See my favorite bits here and here.
And a quote, the very end of the movie, that really sums it all up: "I believe in the possible. I believe, small though we are, insignificant though we may be, we can reach a full understanding of the universe. You were right, when you said you felt small, looking up at all that out there. We are very very small, but we are profoundly capable of very very big things."



And in other news, if anyone ever tries to make you watch the relatively recent Christian movie Cutback, chances are they want you dead. For some reason. Insurance money, perhaps? At the very least, I would question their loyalty to you as a friend. Because this movie is something that I, who pride myself on being at least a relatively decent person, would not wish this movie on my worst enemy. Perhaps it's cruel of me to say, but the acting was physically painful, the story has been told three-million times over (a few of these times being somewhat more enjoyable than this particular one), the title was a sad attempt at a pun or a metaphor or something, and overall, it was just one of those Christian movies that make us all look like idiots. I mean, really. The only people who watch these movies, with their rebellious teenagers, their struggling marriages, their weepy salvation scenes, and the way everything is hunky-dory the minute you pray that stupid prayer, are Christians themselves! The only people who take these movies seriously are Christians themselves. So, then, what is the point of making another misguided-bad-boy-lead-to-Christ-by-the-cute-perky-church-girl-from-school movie when there are enough of them already? The ones that exist aren't doing the unsaved much good, so please, Please, stop inflicting this over-used drivel on the world!
And as if all of that wasn't enough, everybody was really, really good looking. The main character was decidedly Zac Efron-esque, the love interest was drop-dead gorgeous, with perfect, curly red hair and a pixie-ish nose, the mum was super-skinny and trendy, the youth pastor had long blond hair, big blue eyes, and a surfer-boy tan. Because the way to lead people to the love and mercy of Jesus Christ is to convince them that Christians are all really, really good-looking.
Lord, have mercy on us. Is this what we're doing to the message of the cross?

Crazy Things My Youth Pastor Says

Really, this could be a blog all in and of itself, as I am sure I could get an amen on from any one of several people.
Last night, though, was something.
The discussion was revolving slowly around the topics of the Holy Spirit, discernment, being on our guard against evil spirits, eisegesis vs. exegesis, and the Bereans of Acts 17. This lead to discussing Joel Osteen, American Family Radio, and other people in the world of pseudo- and "American" Christianity whose theology is askew. Which lead, in turn, to other things we have to be careful of, to check for biblical correctness. Namely, music.
Now, yeah, I'll buy that. There are "Christian" bands whose lyrics are theologically incorrect, I've been bothered by them before.
But then my youth pastor pointed a finger at one of my favorite worship bands, Unhindered. A lyric in one of their songs says, "Father will you come, open up our eyes, fill us with Your heart, renew us with Your life. Consume us with Your majesty."
According to my youth pastor, these lyrics are unbiblical. Yes, cue head-spinning, blinking, re-reading sentence, re-reading lyrics. That was my reaction too. Apparantly, it is invoking the wrong member of the triune Godhead. it is asking the "Father" to fulfill the duties of the "Holy Spirit" (eye-opening/illuminating, filling/indwelling, spiritual renewal). Yes. Okay. Technically correct. But it's a song, people! It's a work of art! And if we're going to be dogmatic about it, I suppose it should be
"Father, in the name of Your Son Jesus Christ, would you send Your Holy Spirit to (illuminate/indwell/renew)."
Yeah. By this point, we've thrown meter, rhyme, and rhythm out the window.

But wait, it gets better. He went on to say, "And then we've got secular music. We've all listened to it, with its, just, the completely meaningless, *well, I went to the grocery store* or *driving in my car* stuff, and..."
There was more hemming and hawwing and tiptoeing around his point, but, basically, if music isn't about God, it is inherently meaningless. Unless, of course, it's inherently evil (which, I'll admit, happens more frequently than I'd wish).
As someone who listens to an awful lot of music, much of it not technically "Christian" in nature, it was incredibly difficult not to at least roll my eyes at this statement.
I mean, I'm sorry, but this simply isn't true!! I mean, they're just not! Yeah, there's some meaningless fluff out there (...And I was like, baby...), but there are some, technically secular, artists and musicians whose lyrics are plenty meaningful. Lori Mckenna and Athlete are the only ones that come immediately to mind, but that's just because I'm weird and don't get out much. I'm sure there are others. These people sing about the lives they lead, about the things that happen to them, about life and love and family and relationships and emotions. And yeah, if they're not in a relationship with Christ, these things have not the fullness of Love and Truth and Meaning that a life with Christ can have; but that doesn't mean that they are inherently meaningless. It's human life! It's the human condition! It's the achingly, heart-breakingly, ecstatically beautiful imperfection of everything it means to be alive! To make my point:
~It's about those little near-misses in life that mean everything: "Take all your chances while you can. You never know when they'll pass you by. Like a sum the mathematician cannot solve; Like me trying my hardest to explain. It's all about your cries and kisses, those first steps that I can't calculate..." Athlete, Chances.
It's about searching for meaning and purpose and direction in life: "I would like to think our paths are straight. Disconnected from choices we make. That there is no reason why it can't be like you said. One day, it's gonna happen. I don't know when I'll be on your street. One day, it's gonna happen, and you're gonna be swept off your feet." Athlete, Streetmap
~It's about losing somebody you love: "25 to 10, another day begins. I can't believe that you slipped away. I'm sure this can't be really happening. It seemed like time just stopped when my head dropped. Just come back for one day, 'cause there's so much I never got to say. Just come back for one day, so I can remember your face. . . And maybe, one day, I'll see you again, but until then, I'll see you in the morning." Athlete, Lay Your Head (See also: Lori McKenna, Never Die Young or Still Down Here; Athlete, It's Not Your Fault).
~It's about living life simply: "No diamonds in our bathtub rings, peanut butter on everything. No thrills, no fuss; perfectly us, unglamorous." Lori Mckenna, Unglamorous
(See also: Lori Mckenna, The Most)
It's about how much they love their kids: "There's a rule me and my little boy have
You've got to say 'I love you' before you close your eyes. Then he can dream himself to sleep and I can pray or cry. One thing I have taught him well is to never wonder why. Why wonder why?" Lori McKenna, Mars
"I'm not letting go just yet, though everything is telling me to. It's not the way I am made, oh. With you I never lose. . . First fight, first fall, first speak-and-spell; You've got me wrapped around your finger. First love, first kiss, you'll never ever know just how fragile it is." Athlete, With You I Never Lose (See also, Athlete, Corner of My Baby's Eye, or Wires)
It's about the simplicity of childhood: "Before you met me, I was a fairy princess. I caught frogs and called them prince and made myself the queen. And before you knew me, I traveled 'round the world, and i slept in castles, and fell in love, because I was taught to dream. I found mayonnaise bottles and poked holes on top to capture Tinkerbell; and they were just fireflies to the untrained eye, but I could always tell..." Lori Mckenna, Fireflies
"He can play all by himself for many hours. I have never seen a kid who's so content
There is nothing from the outside that can touch him, cos he's just learning how to be alone with one. I saw you smiling; And i need my vehicles and animals, and i will be alright. Take me back to nineteen seventy nine so i can find my open eyes." Athlete, Vehicles and Animals

And then there's Witness to Your Life and Mr. Sunshine and The Awkward Goodbye and Rubik's Cube and Light the Way and Black Swan and OH. MY. GOODNESS!!!!!
These emotions, these people, these things that they create, are not automatically invalid because they are not, technically, about the God who created them!!! Didn't the God who created people, create the emotions that they feel and the things that happen to them? And those emotions do not become void if the God of Heaven is not the Lord of their lives!
I love my youth pastor to pieces anyway ("Bless his heart," as they say here in the South), but sometimes I hear his opinions and I wonder how we can possibly be from the same species.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

As promised, full write up or the epicness that was finishing the eight-part series conclusion in one emotionally draining afternoon.
We've been watching this show as a family for upwards of six months. Six months, people. I'm not sure whether that seems like a forever's worth of the same thing every night, or a fantastically short amount of time to have sped through seven seasons. Back when seasons were more than six or twelve episodes long.
As difficult as it is to admit, I'm a trekkie. Can't get away from it, and this? This is the one that really did it. You don't exactly have to be die-hard to get into Enterprise (I mean, really people. Trip Tucker?), which is the first series we watched, then there was a brief stint with Voyager (we found it, well, annoying), and there have been others over the years, but this one is the one I've really fallen in love with.
It's hard to put my finger on exactly why, though.
There's the acting, which, compared to a lot of other Star Trek stuff I've seen, is really, actually, good. It's really good. And really good acting goes far with me.
The writing is top-notch too, which is a huge contributor. There were a couple of really clever decisions made early on that allowed it to stay really good for really long. I mean, Enterprise got rubbish around season three. DS9 made it seven seasons and held my attention to the end.
There were several major story arcs, and countless minor ones, that were developed by turns throughout the series; all of which were cleverly woven together near the very end, so that everything terminated satisfactorily at the same time.
A similar trick was used with the characters: there is no one protagonist. Seriously, you could chase yourself around in circles for hours saying, "It's him! No, it's her! No, it's got to be him." And that's the thing, it's all of them. There were eight or nine "protagonists," all equally well-developed, all equally well-rounded.
Setting the series on a space station rather than a starship did wonders for the character development. Allowing the characters to be more stationary, keeping them in one place, together, for an extended period of time, living something vaguely like "normal" life gave opportunity to make the characters deeper and more complex. We really watched each individual, and all of their relationships, change and develop naturally over time.
So with a variety of plot-lines and characters to choose from, a great setting play them in, and the endless adaptability and repeatability of the science-fiction genre, it really could've gone on forever; which made it all the more admirable that they ended it when they did. To stop something at a show at the right time, even when you could've milked another couple seasons out out of it at least, is one of the most honorable things a series can do in my book. Second, maybe, to killing the main character.
DS9 also had one of the single-best (perhaps the very best) instances of an unresolved-sexual-tension, will-they-or-won't-they relationship of ALL time. If it's second to any at all, it would be Mulder and Scully on the X-Files. The recipe is simple: set up the perfect couple, get viewers emotionally invested, cruelly wrench viewer's heart out at every given opportunity, repeat as necessary. Such a plot device is sure to keep viewers (especially female viewers, especially female viewers within a certain age bracket) coming back for more no matter how awful the show is, or what other junk the writers try to shove at you. I mean, seriously, I don't think I ever had any other reason for reading Nancy Drew books than to see if Ned was ever going to break down and propose. How much more so when the rest of the show is actually really good.
Meet Doctor Bashir and Lieutenant (I think?) Jadzia (at least, at first) Dax. The relationship is introduced in, literally, the very first episode of the very first season. We, or at least I, fall in love with the couple from square one. We watch each character grow and develop; watch them fall more and more in love with each other, fume as other; one-episode love interests crop up for one or the other of them. Standard stuff? Well, at first. Then they marry the girl off to another guy, and then they kill her off, and they still managed to get themselves out of it in time for a declaration and a kiss in the turbo-lift on the second-to-last episode of the seventh season. Talk about dragging it out!

So needless to say I have enjoyed this series immensely, and then today we had to go and finish it. The conclusion came in eight parts, the last of which was a two-hour special, so it took essentially the entire day, but we managed it. I'm wishing now we hadn't. It was sort of that Day-after-Christmas let-down, or turning the last page of a really great book. Cool, but slightly depressing.




.....so we turned around and watched the first episode of Stargate: SG1................

More on the Tattoo Thing

On the subject of the tattoo idea mentioned in my previous post: I've decided (or all but) on what I want to get, if I decide to get it. The words "Once upon a time" in cursive, along with a quill pen, on the back of my left shoulder. This is something that would carry a lot of meaning for me, as it would be deeply symbolic of who I am as a writer. Writing is, somehow, the one thing about myself I never question. Everything else I do, all of my other talents and pursuits, I always wind up questioning and doubting eventually; but writing is something I always know for sure I'm supposed to do, no matter what else I'm doing. Moreover, I know that writing is something I'm never going to STOP doing. And beyond that, "Once Upon a Time" speaks of a new beginning, of the start of something, which is great. And fairy tales and dreamer's dreams and this song that's a huge piece of who I am.
But qualms: What if I get it now and regret it later? It could happen. And I can't stand the idea or the feeling of regret.
Is the fact that my grandparents are going to Freak Out enough of a reason to not go ahead with it? I could see Nana coming around eventually, she knows me well enough to, well, sort of, understand where I'm coming from with it. But I know Papaw would be hugely disappointed. Grandma would be mad at me, but more so at my mother, and I don't want to do that to Mum. Pawpaw, however, I really couldn't see caring. There are other people in my life, too, whose perception of me it might change. My aunts and uncles, cousins, my pastor and my youth pastor. But back of the left shoulder is an easily-enough concealed place to get it, and the way I figure it, if I'm wearing something that would allow it to be seen, I won't be in the sort of company that would be bothered by it. And I don't want to let other people's opinions shape the decisions I make, but I don't want to disappoint people I love and respect either.
Could it eventually cause problems with my professional life? Could it potentially cause problems for church ministry? I tried the other day to convince Mum (okay, I was more trying to convince myself) that these worries are unfounded, that we live in a different world than we did twenty years ago, that tattoos no longer carry the social stigma they did back in the day, not a mark of rebellion, merely self expression, etc. That doesn't mean I'm not still worried.
Mum raised the point of what if a hypothetical potential husband wound up disapproving. I confess it had crossed my mind, but I can't bring myself to be too bothered by it. Because, as closed-minded as it sounds, the kind of guy who would be bothered by me having a small, tasteful, serious tattoo in an easily-concealed place would, frankly, not be the kind of guy I would consider spending the rest of my life with. Because, if we differ on that point, how many other points would we differ on? If he's caught up enough in something so small, what other strongholds of legalism would there be in his life? And the reason I couldn't be with someone like that is plain and simple: I could Not raise my children in anything other than the complete joy and freedom in Christ that I myself have been raised in. A man who had a legalistic hang-up about tattoos, or any of the other things that often accompany it (secular music, Halloween, alcohol in moderation, social dancing, or any of the other things that frequently get attacked by my more dogmatic bretheren), wouldn't agree with me on that. I couldn't raise my kids in that "Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!" mentality, so how could I marry a man who believed that way? So, logically, if a guy I was dating had a big problem with the tattoo, maybe it would be a good sign to reevaluate the relationship.
But even though I believe and mean that completely, it doesn't take away the worry about permanently marking my body without the permission of a Mr. Right I have yet to be convinced exists. Ugh.
So, obviously, I have yet to make a concrete decision. But, the thing is, I really want it. I want to do it, I want to go through with it, I want to have it!! :/ I guess I'm going to have to think some more about this.

Hm. Seems like forever since I've gotten to my blog. I always manage to talk myself out of it. I've done it about thirty times, always the same thing. I'll be attempting to do school, my mind will wander from my pointless Spanish exercises, I find myself bored half-to tears. In search of something to temporarily alleviate the boredom, I will make up my mind to blog. I will then realize that I am currently logged in to my Other Google Account, the one hooked up to my youtube account; and that I am currently using my youtube account to play my fantastically long Athlete playlist on loop; and that I might, actually, die if I turn off the music. I consider trying to find the email address that allows me to post to my blog remotely, realize I can't find it without logging into the account or getting up and finding the notebook I wrote it down in, so Igive up on that idea. I then decide that I do not want to blog after all.


You guys? School really is awful right now. Spanish has been boring since square one, Physics is failing to hold my attention like chemistry did (and the experiments are 78% more pointless), and Geometry is, well, geometry. Points and arcs and angles and line segments and calculating things. Even English has failed me. It's been fantastic this far, but I'm . . . just . . . bored! I'm mired halfway through Wuthering Heights (which under normal circumstances I probably would've enjoyed immensely), I'm supposed to be starting A Severe Mercy tomorrow, and I still have a five-page essay due on If Emma Was So Clever, Why Didn't She Realize That She Was A Dim-Witted Moron; or something like that (My English teacher/curriculum's idea, not mine).
I think I'm discovering what senioritis feels like. I can't focus worth anything. I don't WANT to be doing this anymore. I'm sick of it, and I wish I was anywhere else. I feel lazy and slow and my head feels thick and I can't stay on topic. I have an astronomical deficit of care, and it's really interfering with my whole "finish well" outlook on life.
But Anyway.

In other news, well, what other news is there? Oh! I got my desk. It's lovely and off-white and antique-ey and has lovely brass handles and scrolled legs and lots of drawer space and I love it.
I got my trip to the Friends-of-the-Local-Library book sale this month, which is always a delight and a pleasure. Paper-back classics at twenty-five cents a pop, can't argue with that. To my even greater delight, I managed to fit The Catcher in the Rye, Brave New World (plus two other Aldous Huxley novels I'd never heard of), Teh Silmarillion, Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, Paradise Lost, Emma, Frankenstein, Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Jane Eyre, The Canterbury Tales, Peter Pan, The Merchent of Venice, and more on my little, already-overflowing bookshelf. A successful trip, I'd say, for all the shocking lack of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
My little brother turned thirteen, and consequently got a facebook account. I'm feeling positively ancient.
Reese got on an airplane and left the country to study at a Bible college in South America. I miss her terribly already, but she's right where God wants her and I know she's going to have lots of fantastic adventures.
Mr. John's crazy-person scheme of making the youth group read through the Bible in ninety days. Which works out to about eighteen chapters a day. Which has been utterly miserable. Reading the Bible shouldn't feel this much like a chore, and I'm getting next to nothing out of it (though reading half of Proverbs, all of Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon, and part of Isaiah in one day was, shall I say, interesting).
Athlete. As in, British pop/alternative (or something like that) band, which is delightful and wonderful and addictive. Quite the drug. It gets me through my school work. And pretty much anything else unpleasant I find myself having to do. Their lyrics are clever and their music is enthralling, if you like good music, if you have a brain, if you are currently breathing/have a pulse, go to youtube and look these guys up. They're fantastic. :)
John Keats's Ode to a Nightingale. In love with it, accidentally memorizing it, doodling it everywhere. Yeah.

We finished Star Trek: Deep Space Nine tonight. Which is rather more epic than it sounds. But it is rather epic enough that to deal with it fully, I would need to go on for some time, and this post is already alarmingly long. So I'll cover that in another post. So, yeah. Great to be blogging again. Thanks for reading, have a great day, etc, etc.
~Ella

Upon my Impending Eighteenth Birthday

...and as I'm thinking about what I want, what I want to do, what I want to look back on this time of my life ten years from now and see...
You want to know what I'm honestly considering? Honestly? Don't freak out.
Ella, the one with the needle-phobia...
Ella, the one who tries her best to ignore the fact that she has veins...
and skin...
and blood...
(there's probably a name for that, but I don't know what it is)
..............I'm thinking of getting a tattoo.
Yes, you read that right. But go back and read it again if you don't believe me.
A tattoo.
What of? Good question.
Obviously, I would be careful. I'm careful about everything. I wouldn't pick anything I would ever come to regret.
~Either the word love on my left forearm,
~ a half-moon/letter C on my right calf (weird story there: I had a scar in the shape of a perfect C from bumping into the muffler on Dad's mini way back when, I liked the scar, the scar is gone now, a tattoo of a C/half-moon there would, admittedly, be cool),
~or something literary/writerly/ish

You wanna know something funny? It was Mum's idea. I was doodling on myself in Sharpie, and she just, kind of, suggested it. And I think she's actually behind it. Which is weird, 'cause she's always been kinda anti.
And you wanna know what's funnier? Daddy's not thrilled with the idea. Daddy, who's always said he'd get a tattoo if Mom'd let him.

I don't know. I'm gonna think about it, and pray about it, and . . . I don't know. I don't know if I could go through with it.
But I'm kind of in love with the idea.
What do you think?

Dear My Family,

......and especially the brother and the sister who continue to make fun of me for things I am enthusiastic about,
“…because nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff… Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like jump-up-and-down-in-the-chair-can’t-control-yourself love it. Hank, when people call people nerds, mostly what they’re saying is ‘you like stuff.’ Which is just not a good insult at all. Like, ‘you are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness’.”
~John Green

In Which I am Found by a Deerstalker...

(image not mine)
This hat, probably, hopefully, calls up mental images for the average reader. I'm working on the assumption that it does.
You recognize this hat. You've seen this kind of hat before, and connect it, very directly, with one person and one person only. Well, one character, I suppose I should say.
Because of this fact, the fact that you, reader, recognize this hat without being told, I shan't elaborate on it's significance.
Well, I found one today. Or, more appropriately, one found me. I wasn't shopping for one on ebay, I didn't plug "Deerstalker" into Google's shopping search engine, I haven't been combing thrift stores and consignment shops for months in search of this hat.
I walked into Goodwill (I love Goodwill. Don't you love Goodwill?). With my mother, my sister, and my youngest brother. I am in search of a wall-hook, perhaps a VHS copy of Sleeping Beauty, and a lamp. Didn't find the lamp. Didn't find the wall hook. Decided against the movie. Found a small cork-board, which is something I have been wanting but didn't expect to find in a thrift store.
And then, I found the hat. I spotted it across the store, I made my way for it, slowly, like an animal to slaughter, I reached across a very understanding fellow shopper to pull it off its hook. I tied the ear-flaps up. I hid it in my arms, walked slowly over to my mother, tried to look her solemnly in the face (acheiving more of a mixture of masochistic grinning and sheer terror), and showed her the hat.
"My life will not continue without this hat," I said.
Mom rolled her eyes.
"No, it won't, you have to buy it," replied my little sister.
"Buy it. Buy it so I can steal it and wear it," replied my oldest brother, after my texting him half asking if I should get it, half complaining because, "These are the things that happen to me."
I bought the hat. I scolded Mom for ten minutes for letting me buy the hat. I grinned all the way to (and through) Wal-Mart because I owned the hat.
Mom: "What are you going to do with it?"
Me: "I don't know. Hide it? Pretend I don't own it?"
Seeing as how the hat was brand new (still had the tag), I decided to put it on even though it was technically second hand. I put the hat on.
I looked in the mirror. To my absolute dismay, not only did I, a passionate though embarrassed fan of that character whom the deerstalker evokes, just happen to FIND a deerstalker in my little podunk town's thrift store; I can pull it off.
Mom: "You can't hide that. That looks adorable on you. You have to wear it. Wear it to church Wednesday."
We arrived at Grandma's (picking up mail and a forgotten bookcase). I step out of the car wearing the hat. Grandma sees it.
Grandma: "Oh you got one of those new hats!!"
Me: .................................???

So, yeah. I own a deerstalker. But it's Not My Fault!!! I didn't go looking for it, I didn't want to find it. It found me! I couldn't've walked out of that store without buying it, I never would've forgiven myself. And then I would've gone back and it would've been gone and I would've been Depressed.
So now I have to sit here and stare at it. What in the world do you do with a deerstalker?


































Alright, fine. I'll say it. SHERLOCK HOLMES!

Happy?

Mmoooooviiiiing Daaayyyy

I'm pretty sure the last of the not-so-small army of moving-help just left (except for the pastor's wife and boys, who are helping with laying tile in the mudroom). All of the rest of our furniture is here, the couch is waiting to be put together, my trunk came, and everything is starting to look more, well, lived-in.
We were hugely blessed by the help we received from our church family throughout this whole ordeal, and it's so good to know how much people really care about my family, how much they were willing to help with anything we need. I, we, are really, truly grateful.
What I'm having a harder time being grateful for is this cold. I'm dizzy and sleepy and my throat is killing me and my nose is driving me nutty and I kind of want to curl up and die. I'm relatively certain the bug is courtesy of Corinne, someone remind me to thank her for it later. Woohoo.
Tomorrow should be quite a party. I'm not being sarcastic, actually. It'll be a party. After church we're headed to town to sort of, well, celebrate. Our Didn't-Break-the-Stupid-Vase party. See, the whole time we lived at Grandmas, there was this stupid glass vase full of strawberry candies sitting in this little corner. A very poorly-chosen corner. It's an absolute miracle we lasted more than a day without kicking it over, but we lasted two entire years. And Mom and Dad promised, at the start, to take us out for dinner if we managed to make it until moving day without shattering the blessed thing. And we didn't shatter it. So lunch in town, picking up a proper coffee pot (No more grainy, too-strong stuff from Dad's French press coffee pot!!), looking for rugs for the kids bedrooms and fabric to make chair-covers.

And because I'm still not good at the whole avoid-fangirl-stuff thin:I had a miniature spazz attack yesterday going through my boxes upon boxes of books. While I was fully expecting the paperback copy of The Hound of the Baskervilles, I was not anticipating the tiny-print, Bible-style double column printed little paperback of The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, The Valley of Fear, and His Last Bow. Yeah, mini-spazz-attack, complete with shrieking and happy-dancing. Okay, maybe not so mini. But anyway. The joys of moving, you find stuff you didn't even know you had. I guess I didn't care about Mr. Holmes when I packed my books up. Actually, I think I actively disliked him. Not so now, so it was quite a treasure.
And does anybody else have a bad habit of buying the same books over and over? As we've been weeding through box after box of books, I've noticed that I have duplicates of rather a lot of books. Apparently, I am incapable of walking by a copy of Julie of the Wolves or The Trumpet of the Swan or Alice's Adventures in Wonderland without buying it. Note to self: learn to break this habit. There is no point in owning more than one copy of Julie of the Wolves. I don't even really like that book!! *Sigh* I just might have a problem.

Home Sweet Home

Not a long post tonight, because frankly, I have other things to be doing. Like reading. Or writing. Watching Star trek. Or maybe eating some ice cream (mom got MY favorite kind this time!). But, I guess when it comes to things I do when I'm at HOME, blogging is one of them. So I decided to blog.
Tonight is to be our first night sleeping at the new house. We're not totally moved in yet. The television stand and the couch and my trunk and several other things have yet to come over. A small army from church is coming to help with that Saturday. But beds are here (mostly, I think Mom and Dad are on an air mattress), and everything else that is necessary to life. And as I'm sitting here in the living room (albeit in a temporarily placed dining room chair) with half my brain following the plotline of Star Trek:Deep Space Nine (okay, about a quarter on the plot, the other quarter is devoted entirely to how grand Doctor Julian Bashir is), all I can think is that this is home. Home is where you can take a deep breath, home is where you can feel safe and it's okay to be vulnerable. Home isn't diplomacy and dancing tip-toe around the way you feel.
I didn't know, before today, how different it would feel. We've been up here almost every day for two weeks, and it hasn't felt like this. But. Today, tonight is different, it really is. I don't know if it's because Mama cooked dinner here, or because there are sheets on my bed, or because Star Trek is here, or because there's a curtain on the shower, but somehow, it's different. This is home.
And in closing. Something I should've said a long time ago. Through this entire thing, these last two years at Grandma's, the whole "We're moving....we're not moving...we're moving!!!...we're not moving..." game we've played over and over again, I've been sitting here as a relatively-passive observer, watching God. Waiting to see what He was going to do. Every time I've thought He was going to get us out, I started to praise Him for it. Every time He took it away, I begged and shook my fists. And even though I KNOW that my God is good, regardless of my circumstances, it was still that same cycle. And I guess, being human, that's to be expected. We praise when good happens, and there's nothing wrong with that, as long as we continue to praise during the bad.
And reader? This one is good. This is sooo good. So right now I'm praising. I've been putting it off, waiting for Him to take it away again. But He's not. This one's for real. So I'm praising. And I think the most apt words came from a favorite singer/songwriter of mine, Ms. Bethany Dillon. In her song Exodus, she sang, "Lead, Lord, with unfailing love those that You have ransomed, and we will sing out as we go on, our God is faithful!"
My God is faithful. My God is faithful.

Collected Thoughts of a Long Day

~I hate mini-blinds. Pure, simple, unadulterated hatred. I hate dusting them, I hate that they exist, I hate them.

~I found a forty-some-song-long Athlete playlist on Youtube. Which made the cleaning of the mini-blinds slightly more bearable.

~The oldoldold Star Trek (Think: Captain Kirk) is Severely Sexist. Like, enough to bug even me, which is hard. I'm no die-hard feminist by any means.

~This. Ageanalyzer, you plug in a blog URL and it tells you the "age" of the blogger. Apparently, I blog like a 36-50 year-old woman. Woohoo.

~And lastly, even though I seriously try to avoid fannish-things here (I know, I fail pretty often) because nobody really cares, it's January sixth. Twelfth night. Which, according to some, is Sherlock Holmes' "birthday." So, the attempt to resist the temptation has failed, here you go:

221B

Here dwell together still two men of note
Who never lived and so can never die:
How very near they seem, yet how remote
That age before the world went all awry.
But still the game’s afoot for those with ears
Attuned to catch the distant view-halloo:
England is England yet, for all our fears–
Only those things the heart believes are true.
A yellow fog swirls past the window-pane
As night descends upon this fabled street:
A lonely hansom splashes through the rain,
The ghostly gas lamps fail at twenty feet.
Here, though the world explode, these two survive,
And it is always eighteen ninety-five.

– Vincent Starrett

Something Unexpected (But Beautiful)

Shortly before Christmas, I sort of got lassoed into baking several recipes of cookies. Old European recipes for different sorts of traditional Christmas cookies. Grandma remembered my fetish with foreign cookies earlier this year and asked me to bake a few recipes of different things for her various holiday parties and visits.
So a couple of days before Christmas, I spent the whole day in the kitchen making Danish pebbernodder and Dutch Jan Hagels and Irish lace cookies. My emotions were a little mixed: a whole day of Christmas baking with Christmas smells and Christmas music is just my idea of fun, trying out three new recipes for different sorts of foreign cookies on somebody else's money is really kind of perfect, but I was doing it all by someone else's request, not my own desire, so I was slightly lacking in motivation.
Then this morning, I learned something.
Mom, Grandma, and I were going through tins and bins of leftover Christmas cookies and deciding what to do with them all. Grandma was talking about how much she'd enjoyed the pebbernodder, Mom was scraping broken window cookies into the garbage can, and I decided to ask Grandma which type of cooking (for my own future reference) had been the most popular at her parties.
And she says, "Oh, I would say the lace cookies,"
She goes on to tell me how one guest, an elderly distant cousin, had taken one bite out of the cookie, and her whole face had lit up.
"Oh, I remember these," she said, "My grandmother used to make these!"

And for me, that sums up why I bake, why I like finding old foreign recipes. Why baking is important to me, why I hate the frozen vats of cheap chocolate chip cookie dough and little refrigerator cut-outs with seasonal pictures on them. Even why I, as much as I personally enjoy them, would rather not make normal cookies. Why I get bored of chocolate chip and peanut-butter and oatmeal-raisin. Everybody makes those. But these recipes that have history, you never know they're gonna mean something to somebody.

Frustrations of living in a world of seven billion people --- the friends of my little siblings. This one in particular. And if the boy child makes it out of here alive, it just might be a miracle.
Very few of my little brother's friends make me feel homicidal, but this one comes close. He's arrogant and loud and obnoxious and he's got a bad attitude and a cruel laugh. And whenever I tell him to do something, he laughs at me.
It's possible that he only bugs me so bad because he reminds me of somebody from a past life. Somebody who, if someone had decided to give him a nice hard smack upside the head when he was the age my brother's friend is now, he might've turned out a better human being.
And now they're watching Mars Needs Moms. Sounds like my idea of a party. Please note my entirely deadpan face. Bah Humbug.
But Anyway.

In other news, The Move is going well. Cleaning at the house is moving along nicely. Actually, it's quite finished. Mom and Dad got the kitchen clean, I scrubbed the (absolutely nasty) window sills and such and cleaned every square inch of my bedroom, the kids cleaned the baseboards and mopped the floor and mom cleaned the miniblinds.
Today we stayed at out current place of residence for the packing and the organizing and the weeding-out. Finally went through all my rubbish college mail, I may or may not be doing a somewhat amusing post about how many pieces of mail I got from each school. Got my bedroom totally ready to go, down to the bare minimums. Tomorrow, after various doctor's appointments and trying to get Anne and Andrew's orthodontist to believe that I'm their nanny (no particular reason, just trying to sell the cover story, for the fun of it), we'll go up to the house for . . . more doing stuff.
All that's left is painting in various places, shampooing the carpets, and a few minor repairs. *cue happy-dancing*

And, umm, let's see. What else is going on? Well, there's attempting to read two-hundred pages of John LeCarre's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by tomorrow afternoon. It's due back to the library. I don't usually freak out over due-dates (our library doesn't do the whole fine-thing), but last week when I went to renew it, I couldn't. Somebody else had reserved it. Which means somebody else wants to read this delightful book. Which means I want to get it to them as soon as possible. If they're like me, they want to read the book in time to see the movie. Or possibly, they saw the movie and now want to read the book. Either way, I can definitely identify. So I'd like to get them their book as soon as possible. Actually, I'd like to talk to them about the book, that would be nice. But let's settle for the one that's actually possible.

And, then there was last night's new episode of Sherlock. The one whined about in the post preceding this one. Well, I wasn't whining about the episode, I was whining about the forces of the internet combining to keep me from watching it.
So yeah, finally got it to load when the traffic on the website went down a bit, and it was, well, amazing. More than awesome, but I don't want to go into too much detail (spoilers!!). Let's just say... that only Steven Moffat could take the thing I had been dreading most about the episode, my absolute biggest fear, take ninety minutes, and turn it into the one thing I wanted most in the world by the end of the episode. It was emotionally trying in the utmost. I started the episode sitting on my bed with my laptop on my lap...and ended it on my side, curled up in a ball, with the laptop in front of me.
Of course, it wasn't perfect. I have my quibbles with the way they handled it. It wasn't quite canon, and there was a sizable bit of . . . yuck added in. Unnecessary yuck, but isn't that standard with everything these days? The ending was emotionally satisfying, but (can I say it?) a bit rubbish. Too easy. That's a pretty popular opinion, from what I can gather, and yet, I have to say, that I loved it completely even though I knew even as I watched it that it wasn't exactly a genius bit of writing.
All-in-all, it was so absolutely worth the ages-long wait, probably thirty or forty times over. Irene Adler was, for the first time in my experience, thoroughly likable, Ben Cumberbatch's Sherlock is as spectacular as ever, and the way they played Watson's reaction to the whole Sherlock/Adler thing was brilliant. And, wonder of wonders, Molly Hooper even redeemed herself. Really, bit of a confession here, I adore her to pieces. I have to admit I can identify more with her than any of the other characters.


...........And now that I'm done completely geeking out, I think that's about it for the moment. G'night, everybody. :)

Oh, this is SO just my luck......
Yesterday I was so proud of myself because I got the little FireFox plug-in to disguise my IP address so that BBC iPlayer would think that my computer is, in fact, a UK computer, thereby letting me watch BBC things when they come out on BBC.
It was working! I tested it! Actually, it's still working, on everything but what I want it to be working on.
Which is Sherlock! Which officially started half-an-hour ago. But nooo. I've been sitting here, trying to get it to work, for half an hour.
And I keep getting the same. error. message. "This content doesn't seem to be working. Try again later."
Because everybody on the planet is doing the exact same thing I'm doing. Attempting to watch the long awaited first episode of the second season of an absolutely brilliant show.
......................................lovely. So now I get to wait until traffic on the site goes down a bit. So, back to the packing-cleaning-organizing game for me. Woohoo.

Oh yeah. And Happy New Year!!! :)

Ella, Spider Hammer strikes again...

So. Erm. Umm. We're moving.
(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
I'm not going into details. I'm not, I'm really not, because I haven't the time.
And . . . I can't really go into my reaction. My response to it. Because it's not really cyberspace-safe. But . . . getting out of here, having a place of our own, I can't really tell you what that means to me.
And there's a lovely back deck and a clothesline and a hammock . . . and a gorgeous kitchen and a lovely little half-wall separating it from the living room that's just right for sitting . . . and I can bring my kitty with me, and she'll be safe and happy . . . and the neighbors are perfect . . . and it's a gorgeous old white farmhouse, which I love, with an oddly bungalow-type atmosphere, which is great . . . and there are two bushes of those lovely pink-and-white camellias like we had four houses ago . . . and I get my own room.
Yes, you heard me right. I get my own room. It's small, but that's perfect, and it's warm and sunny and has wood-paneled walls and lovely wooden blinds and it lends itself very naturally to the theme I want to take with it. So very naturally it was barely even a creative decision, more like just seeing what was there. I'm going for a sort of writerly, Victorian-era type feel, which will be . . . utter perfection.
So about the post title---- We were up at the new house today, cleaning (there's a lot of that to be done) and I'm attacking the cobwebs and dust bunnies and spider corpses (and a few live ones) in the corners and the ceilings and the window sills with a broom, sweeping and stabbing with a vengeance, which called to mind another similar time cleaning up at the church. I killed so many spiders that day that I made a couple of ill-fated jokes about finding some sort of name for myself (Ella, Spidersbane? Ella, Foe of Spiders? There's something in there, I just can't find it). So today, when I was doing quite the same sort of work, I had an epic little narration going on in my head about rousting the spiders and annihilating them. Spider Hammer strikes again?
Anyway, we'll be back up at the house tomorrow, and the next day, and basically every day for the next three weeks, when we'll just stop leaving. Things are going to get crazy. Wish me luck!

Four trailers . . . Oh, it's Christmas!

Yes, I try to steer clear of Sherlock-related topics on here, but sometimes it's just not possible.
Because BBC gave us four trailers . . . in one day!!! Add that to the two scenes from Scandal in Belgravia they gave us earlier this week, and you have absolute insanity. I think they're just trying to kill us with suspense so that all of their fans will be dead and cannot watch the new series. Or something like that. Because we're all gonna die.

Trailer one.
Trailer two.
Trailer three.
Trailer four.

Aaaaand the sneak peek scenes.

Would You Call This A Movie Review?

Or random ramblings on the topic of a movie I just watched? Either way.
So Toy Story 3. Never seen it before, didn't really feel like giving it the time of day. Saw it as corporate monster Disney milking one last sequel out of an old franchise.
But then I realize . . . that's not where they're coming from. That movie was the emotional climax of my generation. They waited this long very very on purpose. They were always going to tell that part of the story, but they waited until I, until we, those of us who were Andy's age at the start, are the age they wanted him at the end. Until that sad-sweet growing-up-time was where we were at in life. Because we've made the same journey as Andy, and now we are exactly where he is in the movie.
So, yes, no sequel is ever as good as the original, but this one really meant something. It was intentional.
And aside: That ending, people? Andy playing with the little girl? My kid brother is like, "Haha, what a dork!"
And in my head I'm like: "Come on, somebody tell me guys like that exist."

My Brain Right Now...

Consists, vaguely, of the paper I have due somehow pertaining to Jane Austen's Emma, trying to ignore the fact that I'm nowhere near ready for Christmas. A strange obsession with Scottie dogs that I can't entirely explain (ohmyword, I want one so bad). The novel I'm attempting to write; trying, as usual, to figure out what comes after high school; and the novel and the movie of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine; The fact that I'm turning eighteen in February; New season of Sherlock starting January first (and trying how to figure out how to watch it January first, outside the UK, without turning to piracy); and that stupid game Minesweeper.
And, yeah, I think that's about everything. Have a great day!


Lol. I'm joking. By far a bigger deal than Sherlock or Scottie dogs was my best friend's wedding this past weekend. Joy and her Mark were married Saturday morning; yours truly had the honor of being the maid of honor. Corinne, Reese, and Joy's roommate at college Sue were bridesmaids.
Friday evening, the wedding party and assorted friends and family of the bride and groom got the church all set up for the reception; then all the bridesmaids slept over (or rather, didn't sleep) at Joy's house. Woke up before dawn to leave for the ceremony. Which was at the beach. The BEACH. Yes, it is the middle of December. Your point?
All of us girls got dressed at the groom's grandmother's condo on the beach. Typical fighting with hair and makeup, finally getting to wear those gorgeous dresses we'd picked out (ensemble was grey sweater dress, teal scarf-belt, teal tights, lacy black ballet flats) then had the traditional honor of helping the bride into her dress, buttoning the back, etc. She looked absolutely gorgeous. :)
Me, Joy, and Corinne had a sweet emotional little moment waiting for the elevator. Hugs all around and tearing up enough to endanger our eye makeup.
Everybody but the bride hobbled down to the waterfront, absolutely freezing. Took our places opposite the groomsmen, waited for Joy and her father to appear over the ridge. Played a few bars of the wedding march on the kazoo, shivered through the beautiful ceremony, tried not to cry (can you imagine the pain of tears literally freezing onto your face?), tried not to laugh when the wind tossed sea foam over the heads of the wedding guests, or when the waves started licking the pastor's shoes.
Hobbled back up the aisle after the new Mr. and Mrs. --------; arm-in-arm with the best man (who reminded me enough of my father that I couldn't take him or myself seriously); wedding party pictures in the lobby of the condo; piled in a van with Corinne, Sue, Reese, the flower girl, and Joy's parents for the hour ride back to our church for the reception.
Read the note Joy wrote me, that I hadn't been quite brave enough, and had been depending too much on my makeup not looking raccoon-ish, to read when she handed it to me. Tried not to cry.
Reception; sitting at the head table nibbling at meat and fruit and a bowl of chicken noodle soup. Checked on Joy every few minutes. It has to tell you something about the kind of friends we are that we chatted about Doctor Who and quoted an entire scene from Meet the Robinsons. Some things never change.
Tried not to cry during Joy's incredibly sweet daddy-daughter dance.
Danced with the groom for about thirty seconds while the best man danced with Joy (to Song of the Cebu, oddly enough) to start off the "Dollar Dances," which is apparently a tradition, though I had never heard of it; then held the styrofoam cup out for anybody who wanted to pay a dollar to dance with the bride.
And the one time I really started crying: my Dad coming up, sticking a dollar in the cup, and dancing with my best friend. Watching the two of them dance and chat. I can't entirely explain why that was the moment, out of all of them, that got me, but it was.
Cha-cha slide and the Macarena; listened to my brother trying to get up the courage to ask his girlfriend (Corinne, had I covered that? Well, yeah, Andrew and Corinne=together. Everybody say it with me, "Awwww!!"), to dance with him. Snuck a dance with my baby brother Riley while giving him pointers on asking Joy's little sister to dance.
Tried (or pretended to try, knowing that there was absolutely no chance) to catch the bouquet. Held the pen and paper to scratch out what presents they got from who like a good maid of honor. Tossed birdseed at the happy couple as they made their way to the car, watched until they pulled out of the church parking lot, FIN.

People keep asking me if I'm sad, or trying to "commiserate" with me over losing my friend; and it's all I can do not to look at them like they've grown a second head. I'm not sad!! What kind of friend would I be if I could be so selfish as to be sad about the thing that has made her so happy? And you couldn't have watched the two of them during their first dance and not know that they are so happy.
I am over the moon happy for her, for both of them; and contrary to whatever anybody else seems to believe, I haven't lost a friend!! It's true that it'll be different now, because her husband has to be her best friend. That role doesn't fall to me anymore; and I'll definitely miss her, because we won't get to see as much of each other; but none of this means that I'm anything but happy for them both.
So, umm, congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. (I don't feel like making up fake last names).
Aaaaaand, now that's it. For reals this time. Ttfn!!
~Ella

If I have to slog through another Wikipedia article, I might scream...
This has been maybe the most frustrating (though definitely the most fun) research paper I've ever had to write. Most of the frustration stems from the fact that I know, off the top of my head, most of the information I want to use, but I still have to find something to cite for it.
Thus the slogging through Wikipedia articles.
So I'm breaking and blogging, yes in the middle of a school day, and yes my rough draft is due Monday, but whatever.
So I had a sweet little moment last night, with my precious kitten Trudy. Less of a kitten now, but anyway. So last night, when my kitten curled up in my lap and buried her head under my arm, when she rubbed her head on my glasses and licked my nose, well, it reiterated to me why I'm a cat person.
See, dog's best quality is that they're "loving," but the thing is, they're totally indescriminate. They'll throw themselves adoringly in a very Doug-like fashion at the feet of, well, just about anybody. Sure your dog loves you, doesn't that just make you feel special?
Now cats? Cats are choosy. Call it snobbishness if you want, but they don't adore just anybody. They've got a sadistic sense of humor, sometimes they'll choose to shower they're attention on the one person in the room who hates cats, but that doesn't bother me too bad. I usually think it's funny.
But when a cat really decides to like you? It means you're something special. For some reason, the great cat mind has judged you worthy.

In other, non-cat-related news, I'm finally getting somewhere in Spanish, which is grand. I feel like I'm actually starting to get the hang of the grammar system. Still not much for speaking it, but the way I figure it, that'll come with time.

By way of scheduling; tonight is the children's ministry Christmas party, which I may or may not go to help with, depending on how much of my paper I still have to get done (so I should probably get off blogger, huh?); tomorrow possibly cleaning at the church in the morning (which I may also stay home from in favor of research paper); Stock-the-Pantry party for Joy and Mark tomorrow night; Sunday. And that's the plan. Sound like fun? Lol.

Weeeelll, enough procrastinating. Getting back to the schoolwork now. Wish me luck!

It's Christmas Time Again

(no, not referencing that Third Day song, though I thought about it)
Can you believe it? It doesn't feel like it should be here, but it is. And today, it's definitely here.
There was cleaning this morning, with Grandma zipping around the house in her annual Christmas-decorating frenzy. Then Tabby's birthday party (which usually falls on the the first weekend of December, and kind of marks the opening of the Christmas season). She decided to go ice skating, which I absolutely adore. So I got to dust off my puffy coat and use my incidentally-matching gray hat/scarf/gloves. And the Christmas music and the time with friends, it's so definitely Christmas time.
Came home, had supper, and decorated the Christmas tree with my family, sat around the tree with the lights down low and sipped eggnog (and Constant Comment tea, quite a Christmas staple).
Christmas this year isn't quite how I'd have it, if it were all up to me. The Christmas tree is Grandma's artificial one, the ornaments are hers. Ours are buried in storage. And there's other stuff too, it's just, different this year, somehow.
Part of me wonders if it's just growing up. Does Christmas become less of a big deal the older you get?
The magic of the season is still there, it's still a big deal to me, but the older I get, the more disgusted I am of the consumerism of this time of year, from the stores to the commercials to the little kids whining for the latest craze to my kid brother begging for an iPod touch. My mind's ingrained reaction is, "But, that's not what it's about, Jesus is the Reason for the Season," or whatever.
But Confession Time: you know the scary thing? Jesus' birth isn't, really, the point of this holiday to me either. It's what Christians try to make it about, but it's really not! The scholars tell us that the birth of the Messiah lines up more with March, or September, but not December. We know that making December 25th about the birth of the king was really just a ploy on the part of the church to try to turn around a pagan festival into something the church could conscience. None of this is news to you.
But why is my Christianity still governed by this lie, this piece of propaganda that started circulating however many centuries ago? I still "celebrate" the birth of my Savior, in the wrong month, by giving and receiving gifts and all of the other trappings of the holidays. There are enough real reasons that I don't need a fakey reason to celebrate the God I follow three-hundred-and-sixty-five days a year. dThis. Isn't. Working. For. Me.
Now, the thing is, I'm not willing to give up Christmas because of this! But if it isn't about Santa Claus, and it isn't about Baby Jesus in the manger, then what is it?
I've found the answer. And, of all places, I've found it in Doctor Who. Last year, the Doctor Who Christmas special was set on a far-off planet, on that world's equivalent of Christmas. One of the characters explains it thusly,
"On every world, wherever people are, in the deepest part of the winter, at the exact midpoint, everybody stops, and turns, and hugs, as if to say 'Well done. Well done, everyone! We're halfway out of the dark.' Back on Earth, we called this Christmas, or the Winter Solstice. On this world, the first settlers called it the Crystal Feast."
Well done, everyone. We're halfway out of the dark. Isn't that what Christmas is about? It's about taking a moment to pause and step back from life. It's about the solstice, the longest night, the darkest day of the year; about shaking a fist at the elements and refusing to let the darkness around us seep into our soul. It's about brightening our world with little sparkling lights, making our kitchens smell heavenly, eating wonderful food, giving presents to the ones we love, and ringing silver bells to drive off the encroaching darkness. It's about making a reason to celebrate, or celebrating without a reason, in the very darkest part of the year.
So sure. Merry Christmas, if that's how you like it. Three cheers, well done, my fellow man. We're halfway out of the dark.