the daily snivel

  "Merry Christmas"

I hope everyone had a happy and relaxing Christmas, though since the holidays seem designed to produce anything but happiness and relaxation, I regret to say most of you are instead probably tired, frazzled, and drinking. I myself had a quite nice Christmas, because my family is mostly in Ottawa and my plans normally include only my immediate family and close friends, and this year was another in a string of such pleasant gatherings.

On Christmas Day, I got together with my older sister, who is in town from Toronto where she is articling with the Crown Attorney's Office, and we attempted to go visit some relatives as per the normal holiday familial obligations. Strangely, we were not able to get ahold of anyone, and so instead we just went in search of an open coffee shop at which we could raise our respective blood caffeine contents to acceptable levels. We indulged in some savoury extra large cups of Tim Horton's coffee, accompanied by Lindt chocolates, and toured around the city in my sister's new car, and caught up on events and talked an awful lot about (of course) the law. It was kind of a weird day for her, since she was staying with her boyfriend, who had left at 11:00 am that day to see his relatives in Kanata and was going to stay the night, meaning that she was on her own and stuck in his bachelor-esque apartment, which she was attempting to air out to remove the smell of his chain smoking. You know it's bad when the smoker you're dating can't abide the smell of your heavy indoor smoking. Anyway, she was also stuck nuking herself a TV dinner, which would have made for a pretty crummy holiday except for the fact that we had plans to make this Christmas a night to remember. Meanwhile, I got to have Christmas dinner with my lovely friend Mélanie and her mother and younger sister, which was very intimate and relaxing. Even the cat (of whom we have shared custody) and her mother's dog got along over dinner, in the true spirit of the holidays.

Then it was off to the main event at the Dom.

My older brother likes to moonlight as the door guy at the Dominion Tavern here in Ottawa's Byward Market, because he gets to see his friends, have a few beers, and gets paid to do so. This means he does what he'd normally be doing on a given night out, but he makes a net profit. Every year he takes the Christmas Day shift and welcomes those weary persons who have managed to escape the stresses and internal pathologies of family gatherings and who really need something to drink. The Dominion is a great place to spend time, since it's all about cheap beer, quart bottles, rock'n'roll, and unpretentious company. It was also prominently featured in the cult classic Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter for you movie nerds out there.

There's something very refreshing about not surrounding oneself with extended relations who you really don't care for but feel obliged to see. There's something wonderful about keeping Christmas presents simple and home made and meaningful (such as simply cooking Christmas dinner for the family, as my older brother did). Christmas should be about appreciating what you have and those you love, and not about excess, guilt, obligation and stress.

Last year, my mother, sister, younger brother and I all met up at the Dominion on Christmas Day to spend time with my older brother. This year, it was just my sister and myself meeting up with Scott there, but we had a grand time. After all, the pints were cheap and flowing, and the crowds were all appreciative of a respite from the cold and the misery of awkward hours with the in-laws , the conservative relations, the fogeys, and and the crusty aunts and uncles. We skipped all of that, and simply enjoyed the good company of close family. Ands as she did last year, my dear friend Celeste joined us as well, and we exchanged Christmas presents. Thank you, Celeste, for the brilliant laptop vacuum! As Celeste knew, I lost a key from my iBook this summer when I tried to clean out my keyboard with my household vacuum cleaner, and had to order a replacement for the vast sum of $25. Now I can clean it safely. My gift to Celeste was simple but full of love. I made her some candles and bought her a hand made bracelet with mother of pearl and peridot (her birthstone). Best of all, I got the chance to awkwardly apologize for nagging Celeste about her blog, and while she said she really did want to update it more often (and had composed a special Christmas message especially for me in it), I promised to actually use human contact to stay informed about her life rather than passively and parasitically feeding on her online expression.

On Boxing Day, my brother prepared a marvelous feast for us all at the apartment upstairs that he shares with his wife. In attendance were my older sister, her daughters, and her boyfriend, as well as my mother and my uncle (who, as a bizarre result of a divorce and second marriage by my maternal grandfather, is only a few years older than I am and is a very cool guy to spend time with). My best friend Natalie came, too, and together we had a fabulous time. There was lots to eat and drink, the very mark of a wonderful Christmas (or, for that matter, any gathering) and marvelous conversation. We exchanged presents and had lots of laughs and talked into the wee hours.

What's been truly silly this year is the renewed whining of the religious right about the "War against Christmas." Supposedly, evil liberals have polluted the season with their messages of tolerance and inclusion, and nobody says "Merry Christmas" anymore, and Christmas carols are banned and Jesus is nowhere to be found. Unfortunately, this lamenting is nothing new:

The 'war' on Christmas, 1921...

And it has become pretty general. Last Christmas most people had a hard time finding Christmas cards that indicated in any way that Christmas commemorated Someone's Birth. Easter they will have the same difficulty in finding Easter cards that contain any suggestion that Easter commemorates a certain event. There will be rabbits and eggs and spring flowers, but a hint of the Resurrection will be hard to find. Now, all this begins with the designers of the cards.

Henry Ford
The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem
1921

With a word of sanity on the subject is Francis Volpe:

...
I'd like to say that the host of Fox News Channel's "O'Reilly Factor" really believes that Christmas is in danger of being rubbed out by, pick any three, atheists, liberals, Christian-haters, Kwanzaa celebrants, Islamofascists, secular humanists, leftist documentary filmmakers, communistic billionaires, gay decorators who are sick of all the red and green, and Jews who didn't vote for George W. Bush.

But he doesn't, really. And neither do Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, John Leo, Cal Thomas or those radical clerics Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. By exaggerating the significance of a few odd stories from around the country, and throwing in untrue interpretations of others, they are exacerbating the skepticism of a skeptical age.

They are doing this to encourage their followers to think the worst of fellow Americans who have done nothing to them except to hold different opinions on a handful of political issues. If this is how they celebrate a holiday founded on peace and brotherhood, Virginia, you might want to hide in the basement when these guys party down for Guy Fawkes Day.

They love to tell how a performance of "A Christmas Carol" banned at a school in Kirkland, Wash., because Tiny Tim says "God bless us every one." Apparently they didn't talk to the school principal, who explains the play was banned because the non-scholastic organization putting it on intended to charge students admission -- a violation of the school's policy on outside building use.

But the first version fits the fake story line better, so that's the one you hear repeated more often than "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer."

And did Macy's, as the "defenders of Christmas" claim, ban its employees from saying "Merry Christmas?" Decide for yourself -- the "banned" words appear on Macy's home page.

And I'll bet the store's customers have been routinely serenaded with Christmas carols since at least Halloween. Do you hear what I hear, Virginia: "We Wish You a" ... what were those two words again? I doubt any Macy's customers are busy trying to get that overplayed anthem "O Kwanzaa Tree" out of their minds.

Even if you give complete credence to the half-dozen or so shaggy-dog stories O'Reilly and his ilk are peddling, you end up with something less than the kind of groundswell it would take to overturn the Western world's most celebrated holiday. Are the British aware that Christmas is in danger? How about the French or the Germans?

Part of the alleged anti-Christmas jihad is the idea that the atheists, liberals, secular humanists, etc., see above, are trying to take religion out of the holiday. If they knew any history, they might steer clear of that particular story line.

Through most of the 17th century, Puritans in America banned the celebration of Christmas, even supporting laws that levied fines on people who stayed home from work on Dec. 25. Sure sounds like Christmas had to defend itself against Christians for a lot of years.

Virginia, from the time I was your age I was always told that the real danger to Christmas was too much materialism -- letting shopping and decorating elbow aside the spiritual meaning of the holiday.

But big retailers buy big advertising on cable news outlets, their associated entertainment networks, radio stations and websites. That's why the screaming head brigade emphasizes a fake liberal-atheist campaign to stamp out the holiday instead of the more pertinent threat posed by over-commercialism.

Indeed, O'Reilly and his fellow travelers, in their eagerness to pit Americans against each other, are turning Christmas into something that sounds a lot more like the "Seinfeld" show's "Festivus," a holiday made up by George Costanza's dad that is marked by the "Airing of Grievances."

No Christmas, Virginia? No way! It has prevailed against the Dark Ages, the Puritans, the great wars of several centuries and two terrible Ben Affleck movies based on the holiday, "Reindeer Games" and "Surviving Christmas."
...

So, I'll leave you with the true meaning of the season: galactic peace and good will towards all Wookies named Itchy, as told to us in the good book of the Star Wars Holiday Special. 

  The guilt-based economy

Well, in response to my wretched pestering, dear sweet Celeste did indeed feel guilty enough to update her blog after a year. I read her post, and then I felt kind of bad. The funny thing about making people do your bidding is that it leaves a hollow feeling. When you realize that people only do things because they feel they must, you end up being the one feeling guilty. Lousy double-edged sword. I know that this self-critical and soul-searching post was only written because I made Celeste kind of feel awkward, and not because she really felt like writing about herself and how she's doing. So, I rightly feel like a bit of a heel and will say so the next time I see her.

I guess for me, I love the instant gratification that comes with being able to read a friend's journal and see how they're doing each day, especially when we don't have the ability to regularly spend time together because of obligations or distance. My good friends Celeste, Natalie, Tara, Angela, and Jennifer all have journals, and it's a treat to read their thoughts and even see myself mentioned from time to time. It's a great way to check in and know that all is well in the universe. Or, if all is not well, then I can try to intervene. And since I'm so rarely in one place for very long, the internet is a much easier way to keep tabs on people than the telelphone. I refuse to get a cell phone until the firm I'm articling with next year forces one into my hands (and they've promised they will) so I'm a hard guy to get ahold of. I even enjoy reading my weird and long-since-erstwhile ex-girlfriend Adrianne's blog, and not because we have any connection after ten years, or even speak, but because she is one hilarious seething cauldron of rage and fart jokes, and I'm happy to see she's doing well. I'm also incidentally happy that:

1. I'm in no way messed up by our brief and messed up relationship;
   
2. She's not looking back to me in regret or anger either;
   
3. I'm not dating her, what with her rage and her copious and joyful farting; and
   
4. She's found someone who loves her anyway
   

But back to Celeste. She's an important person to me, and though she lives just three blocks away, we don't get to see one another as often as we might like. Sometimes we'll make plans that just fall through, and sometimes we'll just play phone message tag, and sometimes we live in different provinces (and next year we'll be back to living in different cities), but we've known each other through the past ten years, since I was she was just a sassy fourteen-year-old girl with green hair who borrowed my Porno for Pyros tape one fine summer afternoon at the Lois 'n' Frima's Ice Cream Stand in the Byward Market. Since then, we've always found each other again, sometimes by chance and sometimes when Celeste will just call out of the blue. I've had a serious crush on that girl more than once in my life, and she confessed the same thing about me. I think our timing was always just off. I've since gone on record as saying we'd probably make a destructive couple, though sometimes I wonder. In any case, it's a special friendship. Celeste is very sweet and helpful, despite her self-professed neuroses. She's shoveled my front steps when she was supposed to be a guest, she's helped me clean my kitchen, she's taken the initiative to clean the windows in my bedroom, and we did a wonderful purge of my excess clutter this summer. And talk about lovely. She even out-pretties the luscious and eminently touchable designs of her iBook and iPod (both of which are nicer than mine...). Mainly, though, she's just fun to talk to and spend time with. We can carry on a great political or pop culture conversation for hours but, as I said, we don't frequently get the chance to do so. So when I was leaving guilt-inducing posts to update her blog, it's just I like reading her witty thoughts and checking out her amazing graphic design. She's gone through so many brilliant websites that looked smashing, and is always whipping up clever images. That's why I came on strong with the guilt. It was meant as encouragement, but it turned out all wrong. For shame, Rob.

In other news, I'm finally finished my exams and essays and am soooo much closer to graduating. Come April I will be finished law school forever, and I cannot wait. I'm practically drooling with anticipation at the thought of articling in Toronto and getting away from essays and homework and crushing student poverty. I promise though: I'll keep the cocaine, shady deals, mattresses stuffed with money and sexy affairs with desperate clients to an absolute minimum.

On a related note, my dear and brainy bestest friend Natalie scored in the 87th percentile on the LSAT (Law School Admissions Test). This means she's a shoo-in for all of the schools she's applied to, especially the University of Ottawa, which I'm highly recommending. I'm super proud of her, and knew all along that she could do it. Her persnickety ways will take her far in the rules-based world of civil procedure.

Oh, and it's my birthday. Happy 29th to me! 

  The Wages of Sloth

Just wanted to note that I am deep in the darkest mires of essay mode, as I have a series of journals for my Forensic Science class due today, all about the wonderful evidentiary and strategic issues of introducing and challenging goodies like DNA evidence, toxicology, forensic psychiatry, ballistics, forensic pathology, and bloodstain pattern analysis.

Soon I will be done, though, and man will that be sweet.

Meanwhile, everything is terror-ific!