Buy Something

have been busy busy shopping, wrapping gifts, planning my trips away for the holiday, and so on. i can never understand people that *complain* so much about the season, about the chaos which seems inherent during this time of year. i enjoy the time between thanksgiving and christmas possibly more than any other. it makes me happy to find the perfect gift. it makes me happy when it snows. i can't *wait* for the cheerful music and elaborate decorations in every shop.

tibor machan recently wrote a fabulous article, which appeared on solohq.com, titled "meanings of christmas revisited." it was written in response to emma thompson's recent comments about the commercialisation of christmas, and her decision to ban gifts from her holiday this year. tibor says:

"I have this wish that we be spared this year all the talk about how Christmas is turning into a commercial orgy, how people so shamelessly indulge their desires, whims, and materialistic concerns and thus forget the true, spiritual meaning of the season."

"When the world is clamoring for a better life, when we are wringing our hands about unemployment, hunger, destitution and sickness, let us for once admit that what we really want is for everyone to buy a great deal and produce a lot. Why shouldn't Christmas be a time to want more and better and to resolve to do what is necessary to get it-earn more, work harder, produce and create?"

"...We should flaunt the fact that we like life here on earth. We should indulge, sensibly, but unashamed. We should enjoy all there is to give, to take, to play with, to use, and think of what we might have next. That is the way the world can be better fed and housed, become more healthy and even wiser, since the time required to gain wisdom is affordable only when one has some wealth."

on that note, i received the gabriel garcia marquez book "love in the time of cholera" from my secret santa a few days ago. thank you! it came from my amazon.com wishlist, which still has plenty to choose from if you want to generate some joy for yourself by sending me a gift.

Wednesday 24-Dec-03