Avoiding the Binge

Apparently it is February. Apparently the darkest, lamest, boringest month of the year is over.

Apparently.

In a month where time seems to almost stand still, time has flown by. Makes me wonder what the rest of 2009 will be like?

While today it looks and feel like spring (I'm wearing capri sweats), I'm gonna go back and FINALLY post a wee bit of Christmas 2008. Like I already said, my computer was on the brink of a big crash because it was so full that I couldn't even upload pictures from my camera.

So now come the posts. There will be a lot because I took a lot of pictures with the posts in mind, and sometimes I am so not interesting, so I hate to waste anything remotely interesting.

As the last guests left our home just after Christmas over a year ago, I knew that something had to change. Being that Christmas is such a consumer-driven holiday in North America, it's SO hard not to get sucked in.

And man, have I been sucked in.

After the Holiday BINGE is over, I am always left feeling mentally and emotionally sick. It became really apparent to me last year that I'm an adult chasing after the Christmas' of my childhood, and kinda like the drug addict who keeps chasing his first high, I was chasing after those magical feelings that accompanied my childhood Christmas'. Being that I could never quite capture it, I did what my North American upbringing tells me to do...

Up the ante. Buy more. Get more. Do more.

Looking back on my past adult Christmas', I feel pretty sheepish. I was the bratty girl who would make up specific lists outlining what I wanted (rather, expected to get). I would give every detail, right down to the style, size, colour, and location. While people in my life were way too kind and would buy me what I asked for and tell me that they preferred having the specifics instead of aimlessly wandering crowded malls only to buy me something I wouldn't use- it only encouraged the unfillabe monster.

Last year, I kinda "got it." I asked for a $50 bag and then bought Scotty a PSP, and I found that I didn't feel near as disappointed even though I got a lot less stuff. What I couldn't shake was that my favourite part about the Holidays was a sunny Christmas Eve afternoon spent wandering the local bookstore and a lunch of sushi with Scotty.

So simple, yet it felt so great.

Inspired by the fact that I enjoyed that quality time the most, Scotty and I agreed not to buy gifts this past year, but instead, to do homemade gifts.

My time was seriously cramped by the fact that we got back from Cuba three days before Christmas, and I worked 36 hrs at the group home before Christmas morning.

I did manage to write him a poem, make him a coupon book (inspired by a funny conversation with a couple girl friends last fall... he even got a coupon that read: "I will admit that you are right and I am wrong in ONE argument of your choosing) and paint him a tee shirt.

His gift won him the "Crafts Genius" award (I have a funny plush toys craft book that reads "and once you are finished, hold up your new plushie and say to yourself: 'I am a crafts genius'") for this year's gift...



My bike.

Every year Tsawwassen has this killer "Spring Cleaning" weekend where everyone in Tsawwassen puts whatever they no longer want/need on the curb in front of their house to be collected on the following Monday on the oversize garbage day. People really get into it here. On the Sunday afternoon, all of Tsawassen becomes especially neighbourly. Children ride their bikes from pile to pile looking for treasures. Families load up their cars, and people even put signs on what they are giving away ("still works"... "only 2 years old" etc.). The sun always seems to shine on that day. I have found a floor lamp that we still use, a big grass curtain that I made into a rug and Scotty scored a Hip-ity-Hop. Last year I decided I wanted to find a bike. Within an hour we were back at the house with my "new" set of wheels, which was in dire need of a good scrubbing and tires.

Then summer came like a whirlwind, and my bike just sat in the carport until Scotty pulled out my Laurentian to give it a second "life".


(Took my bike for a spin around the kitchen and livingroom)


While Christmas was a true whirlwind (I had exactly 12 hrs to enjoy it between shifts at the group home), I didn't make myself ill on the Christmas binge; instead, I am bent on winning the "crafts genius" award next year.