Malakalekemaka...or however you spell that

That song is kind of weird but that word has been sing-song stuck in my head throughout the Christmas season. That, plus the choruses to Love the Way You Lie, Let Your Rain Flow, and all of the songs from White Christmas. I thought about writing a deep reflection - and wrote a few drafts - on this particular Christmas and on Christmases in general, but I think I'll just comment on a few random silly somethings.

I realized that my favorite part of Christmas is the lights. I really love them, love them, love them! I'm not sure why. They are the same general concept as street lights, lamp lights, head lights - and I don't necessarily love those things. But I love Christmas lights! They are white and yellow-white and red and blue and green and orange and all strung together in a pretty little line of magical goodness. I slept on the couch this Christmas (having spent it in CT with the immediate familia) and on Christmas Eve I left the Christmas tree lights on all night just because I could.

I only have flashes of Christmas memories: go-carting one year with my cousins, GG Nor getting the grab-bag gag gift one year (have you ever had to explain edible underwear to your great-grandmother?), my first GPS (because I got lost on my way to T-giving that year), an Etch-A-Sketch. Most of my memories, though, are one hazy, soft-focus lensed amalgamation of Christmas Eves. I can easily say it is in the soft place in my heart, a bright light joyful feeling I can always rely on to be there. It's not that my family is any more special or amazing than anyone else's, it's just that, well, I love my extended Knippel family for better and for worse. And Christmas Eve is when we have all traditionally gathered for a night of eating, playing, dancing, joking, catching up, and drinking Rosemary's toxically spiked egg nog.

One year in the not-too-distant past, Christmas day fell on a Sunday. I boycotted Christmas that year because the day we celebrate Christ's birth had the audacity to fall on a day in which I had to get up and go to church, instead of on a day when it should have fallen: any other day in which I did not have to get up and go to church. Priorities, anyone?

An Egg? Buddy, you just laid a Vermont volleyball

Christmas tree angel. From this angle, she looks pissed!

Obviously our true calling. Arrr matey.

Mystical. Literally, it's from Mystic (Julia Roberts was here)

And Kenni was here

Can you call it a massacre if it only killed 5 people?

Oh yeah, and Jill and I went to Italy!

bad nose jobs

the Colosseum. glad that's over.

freezing our butts off in Venice

Leonard of Vinci was here

That, plus cheese and gelato, was pretty much the diet :)

Blah blah blah, I'm a dirty tramp

I cut a lot of wood the other day (I know, it sounds bad, but I really did cut actual fibrous tree particles - for Habitat for Humanity, nonetheless). I used a 10” table saw to cut 4x4s (which are really 3.5x3.5) and 1x6s (which are really less-than 1 x less-than 6…yeah, wrap your head around that). I helped shoot nails into concrete with the construction equivalent of a pump action, pistol-grip shotgun. I laughed at nails that had been machine-gunned into baseboards.

And then I went and watched The Town with Ben Affleck (hey, there), some girl (the one in Please Give, the brown-haired sister), some other people (the guy from Mad Men, two other guys I recognized but have no idea of their names). I saw people get shot with shotguns and with machine (well, semi- and just-plain-regular automatic) guns. Over money. Sooo cliché. I mean really, money? Because that ever works out. Haven’t they ever seen a movie??

I really loved the movie, but I realized that I’m getting to the point where emotional movies make me really emotional! I mean, really. I apparently can’t watch people get fake shot in fake life or handle fake heartache in fake life. I watch two hours of fake problems and then spend the rest of the night trying to solve them. When did I stop being able to watch a simple movie? Or, more accurately, when did I stop being able to watch a movie simply??

I just did my capstone paper on reality television, particularly The Bachelorette. I looked at how television has been, and reality television is becoming (and/or has become…let’s just get in all the verb tenses. It will become and then it became) major myth builders for our society. How what we see is who we are or at least who we think we should be. You’re afraid you’re going to get sucked out? Well, I’m afraid I’m going to get sucked in!

Life is pain, your Highness, and anyone who tells you differently is trying to sell you something. I think that’s true a lot of the time. And it’s probably because the more I see and understand about real life, the less able I am to dismiss fake life as much as I once could. Real people get shot in real life every day. Maybe not in epic police battles in the middle of a street after 10 minutes of dangerous car chasing, but it happens. Real people lose real people they really love. Maybe not with 100 FBI agents standing over their shoulder, but it happens. Real parents really suck at raising real kids, and real people with power really oppress people without it. Maybe not with wide angle lenses and cut-away shots, but it happens. You gotta chase the bunny if you want to get its tail. My mom told me that. A gem, really.

Whew! It’s been daylight savings time for a while now. Hope you set your clock back and are enjoying the extra hour :)