My Take on Holiday Sadness A huge hurt builds inside me. My father died on Christmas Day 1986. It is a familiar, old hurt. This past year freshly layered that hurt with new hurts and loss. All four of my brothers have passed on. One in 1998, another in 2005. Mom died in […]
Christmas Music
We all have our favorite music. But when it comes to Holiday music, I have found that people have very strong preferences. I have seen perfectly innocuous Gene Autry Christmas compilations drive 20-somethings up the wall after a mere two play-throughs. Alvin […]
When Christmas Hurts
A huge hurt builds inside me. My father died on Christmas Day 1986. It is a familiar, old hurt. This year it is freshly layered with new hurts and loss. Five months ago the my last living brother died. He was the eldest of my siblings. 13 months ago my brother who was closest to […]
Give Local Shopping a Try for Last Minute Christmas Gifts
There is a divide in the United States that played out last week, as it does every year, that typifies the chasm between Black Friday and Buy Nothing Day. Black versus Nothing may not be the first divisive pairing you think of when you think of opposing groups in the U.S. You probably think of […]
Yuletide Greetings
Hello dear friends and readers, Merry Christmas and Happy Yule! May whatever holiday of the season you most cherish be a blessed one spent with family and friends making memories to treasure. I will be taking a bit of time off from blogging over the next couple weeks to organize myself for the coming year, […]
Why Buying Local Is Better, Usually
If you are a small business operator starting out in a new direction, as I am, there is so much to consider beyond the usual business plan if you are also a political creature, as I am. When I was a graduate student studying semiotic analysis of cultural systems, my major professor told me there […]