Christmas, Canadians and Consumerism

The word of the week is longevity.

Dec 22 – Longer Days

Summer’s coming.

That is to say, the days are now getting longer and soon Spring will be here and we will see warm weather once again. I found the dark days a little hard to take on occasion, but I haven't had to resort to any light treatment or other means to pick up my mood; having a solid day job really helps. The weekly routine sets a nice rhythm to one's life, at least that I have found so far.

With those longer days, one has to do something.

I intend to be productive this spring, in more ways than one. Finding time… No, scratch that: making time is going to be the order of the day. Relaxation will become a privilege this coming year, even a reward, given to myself when I have the luxury of knowing I've completed one or more of the tasks I've set my mind to for the near future. Working smarter as well is harder on my own projects while retaining the luxury of a well-paying full-time day job( which is also a privilege )will be the backbone of the coming year, where productivity is secondary to enjoyment and lazy procrastination will become something completely unknown.

Who knows? Maybe my blog entries will even get shorter, though there's no guarantee of that.

Dec 23 – Evangeline Lily is what?

Whoa, I didn’t see this coming..

Who knew that Evangeline Lily is a writer first and an actor second?

Not me, that’s for certain. Fascinating, all the same: to think that someone so well-known, lovely to look at, skilled in the ways of Hollywood and a Canadian to boot, is most happy when writing.

Yep. That sent a chill up my spine right there.

The article over at Buzzfeed.com goes into some interesting detail about how Ms. Lily got into the world of acting, of how things seemed to just fall into place for her numerous times to get her to where she is now.

Funny thing is, she’d rather be writing than in front of the camera, or enjoying fame’s fickle attention. Mind you, sometimes things work out, as was the case when Peter Jackson offered her a role in The Hobbit, which coincidentally is one of her favourite books( mine too! )… and she accepted. Again: things working out for her. Here’s what she had to say about writing:

“There are so many reasons why, for me, writing is superior to acting,” she says. “One of them is anonymity. Writers can live relatively normal lives. Most [working] actors can’t. Writers can work from home and be near their family most of the time. Actors usually can’t. Writers expend a lot of intellectual energy, but not so much emotional energy. And I have intellectual energy coming out of my yin-yang, but emotional energy — I am so lazy. I just don’t have a lot of emotional energy to give. I don’t like drama in my life, and I don’t like having to pretend [to have drama].”

I’ll admit, I never watched Lost past the first season. Heck, the only reason I watched the show in the first place was because of Ms. Lily: there was something about her that appealed to me, on several levels… and now I know why.

Writers: they know their own, just like g33ks… and Ms. Lily is both. Huzzah for us!

Dec 24 - Relax, it's Christmas Eve

I can't recall ever having more relaxed day at work than I did today.

There was simply nothing stressful going on.

A few phone calls came in, a fair amount of paperwork was done but overall, the mood in the office( I feel weird saying that, even now that I work in one ) was one of relaxed merriment. Quite a few people had taken vacation days today to coincide with having Christmas and Boxing Day off, meaning they had a five day weekend without loss of pay - quite a sweet deal overall, I think.

It was really lovely to be able to just get work done without any sort of pressured feeling for once. I did what I had to do without being lazy, talk to some coworkers here and there, enjoying my brakes and my lunch and generally just watched the day get about its business without hurry.

My workspace today. Not seen: Christmas music, or stress.

Some of us were allowed to leave work a little early. Finding myself among this select group, I made good use of it by heading down to cook Street village while the sun was still up for a brief time and seating myself on the patio to simply enjoy the decent weather. While it was cold, the sun was out and shining brightly, so I settled back with a pot of tea for about an hour until the not-so-warm fiery orb vanished behind a row of houses and the chill came back full force.

My sister and I spent Christmas Eve relaxed in our apartment, watching a few Christmas specials before we started in on Love Actually… But didn't end up finishing it as we both started to nod off. I'm afraid it was an early turn-in for myself and her, so neither of us saw if Santa drop by.

Good thing though: I forgot to leave out any cookies or milk!

Dec 25 – Family Time

Merry Christmas!

December 25th is always been a day I've( almost always )been able to count on having off, which has at times been a luxurious feeling. While I don’t mind working holidays more often than not, Christmas is the one day of the year( not even counting my birthday )that I just want to do zilch.

Understandably, it's also most often been a busy day with family obligations.

Today was no exception, though it was a much smaller scale than what I was a kid. My Family and I went to the Empress Hotel for brunch, all dressed up and anticipating a lovely time - we weren't disappointed. I was surprised that the room was not as crowded as I thought it might have been, given the nature of the holiday but perhaps the full-on Christmas Dinner was more booked up - I wouldn't know, as we weren't enamored of the exorbitant price or likely to need even half of the foods listed on the large dinner menu list. All the same, we enjoyed our time together in the luxurious surroundings, with great food( no turkey though: dinner only ):

I really do love this place, all the more because I don't visit often.

After brunch, we toured the display of Christmas trees that the Empress puts on every year. Dozens of trees lined the major hallways of the hotel and I took a fair number of photos, each tree impressive and unique in their own right. My favourite was one tucked away in a corner of a lower hall, whose ornaments were exquisitely detailed; have a look:

Stunning!

Family time continued at my parent’s place, where we watched a lovely film that I’ve never heard of before entitled Midnight In Paris. It’s about a writer visiting modern Paris who inexplicably finds she can travel back in time, meeting notable figures from the past who had me Paris their home for a time. I thoroughly enjoyed it and hope to watch it again soon; it was a nice end to the day.

Dec 26 - Boxing Day Bah

Consumerism didn't affect me this year, not one little bit.

Bombarded with the usual Boxing Day ads on all sides, I found my attention wandering to other things, to my surprise. Browsing through the ads idly, I was astonished to discover that when I've gone through every one of them as is my habit this time of year, there was not a single thing I was remotely interested in purchasing, electronic or otherwise. That's how change from last few years really, which have borne witness to my growing disinterest in Boxing Day in general as I've noted in this blog for the last few years.

That realization startled me a bit, as upon further examination in terms of wants and needs there's nothing I really wanted and definitely nothing I really needed. I have a new phone, a nice TV, a computer that works just fine along with a nice light laptop suited for writing… and that’s about all I use. I don't really game any more, so there were no Xbox or Playstation games I was interested in nor was I looking to pick up any PC games for that matter.

If I had minions, I'd send them out today instead of me...

I certainly didn't need to anything for the household; as I've said in previous posts, a reduction of material goods and possessions has been going on for some years now, whittling things down to where the only purchases necessary are replacements for items that have worn out. I'm rather pleased that I have no need of any outdoor gear for gardening or lawn care or house maintenance, nor tools for crafty hobbies I don't have or any other sundry thousand things that people tend to pick up for themselves or their family this time of year.

It's rather liberating to simply dump all of the ads into the recycling and be done with them. I may do the very same thing next year and the year after that, enjoying the feeling of not having spent money unnecessarily and most certainly enjoying not getting up at 5 AM to line up for a sale.

Dec 27 - Reflection

How’s everyone been doing this year?

One thing about writing a blog is that it’s rather one-sided; you hear about me, but I don’t( for the most part )hear back from you folks following along, week to week.

Take a moment and leave a Comment below – it’s easy and I’d love to hear from you.

While I do get an idea from my visitor stats as to how many people visit each post( and Facebook tells me who links in from the Beginnings group )it's still a one-sided equation.

I have a lot of friends, but I don't keep up with enough of them.

Having been told several times that I observe rather than interact with folks more often than not, I'm looking to reverse the trend and train the habit into myself of asking about others first. While that may sound like a seasonal affectation, I'm quite honest when I say that it's something I'd like to change about myself for the better. I've always been extremely interested in everyone around me, even when I don't express it, but if it's not obvious to others, then I'm failing at the task.

Leave me a Comment, please - it'll help me to know you better, even a little.

Dec 28 - Wearing Thin

I'm a little tired.

Being the holiday season, there has been a lot of opportunity to pick up shifts at both of my jobs and I've made the most of it this month. Except for Christmas and two other days, I worked every day this month and I really felt that by the end of this weekend. Which is not a bad thing, as I'm not exhausted, just feeling the effect of working every day without a major break.

Trucks get tired too...

The Staples job was actually rather pleasant these last three days, including Boxing Day. With only one or two exceptions, almost everyone I’ve dealt with was in a great mood this year and that's really made the back-to-back shifts easier to deal with. Despite being somewhat out of sync( and not caring much about that fact )with the details of the job at Staples, it's been a nice month at my second job, with so little stress that I can hardly believe that I'm working at the same place. Given that my position is one of my choosing, in that I could leave at any time, the shoe is on the other foot. A actually feel appreciated as I know the management knows I don't have to be there to help as an experienced employee; I could just have left them hanging this holiday season.

All the same, the feeling that I have to leave Staples sooner rather than later has been growing in me and depending on how my benefits workout, I may just end up leaving regardless. It would be nice to have my uninterrupted weekends back to relax and get some work done on my creative projects. I could even take a day trip somewhere, which I haven't done in… well, ever.

We’ll see what the new year brings.

Things should settle down from this point on, with regular 9-5 weekdays interspersed with the occasional weekend Staples shift. Apart from those two mainstays, it's the usual juggling act of social life and creative output... always a challenge!