What's in Your Heart?

This is a Xmas with plenty of green, and no, I'm not in Costa Rica staring out of the window of my hut with a coconut in hand, listening to the ocean, as many people seem to believe. I'm in Hungary, wrapped in my boyfriend's robe, at night, in an apartment, surrounded by green fields. Weather these days seems to be somewhat bipolar, rather than the usual "maniac depressive" self, so proper of these changing, schedule oriented latitudes. Not that I mind, as this allows me to lose one layer of clothing, but still. A Christmas-in-three-acts has begun Today. Act one: Christmas with my family.

According to an impromptu plan communicated to us today in the morning, we had lunch at my aunt's place, where my brother and his family are currently lodged. The present-constriction due to the loss of the luggage (due to weather, KLM has blatantly decided to lose each and everyone of our 5 pieces of baggage - for which I was almost made pay $100 for 3 Kg in surplus on 2 suitcases, while the other 3 ever over 5 Kg under the maximal weight alotted, EACH), was somewhat felt, but everything did their best to shower with presents the children, who got an enormous amount of presents, and the two Costa Rican's  - 100% Costa Ricans -  with us.

Act two is to be done tomorrow, when we have lunch with my father-in-law, whom I love to madness. Act three will be the lunch-and-afternoon with The Hag, from which I've excused myself months ago, given the fact that I'm so freaking sick, like you can't believe. Thus my boyfriend will go to the lair of the Hag alone, while I have lunch with my family, and spend some quality me-time with me. :-D I'll be reporting about these if the happenings merit it.

In this Christmas time interesting sides of people surface. Some show out the Grinch side of them, openly hating Christmas, others pull out the Christmas Depression face, which often looks like something picked out of a Christmas story, others pull out the all-over-the-place-I-wish-Christmas-lasted-all-year kind of fever, or the gushy side, or the corny side, the uber-spender side, and other take out the "Gift Philosophy" side. Some get more religious, others suspitiously turn towards the "the best gifts are not the expensive ones" and so on. Now, I believe that the presents that matter  -for any occasion - are the presents that have a positive, unique, personal meaning and intention. Call it "presents from the heart" or "presents with love" or whatever, I'm talking about those presents that are not the ones you exactly needed, or the one's that you asked ofr, but those that tell you something about what the person giving them to you wants to say to you: the thing you share - a story, a hobby, a memory - or the way that person sees you. The money matter is a matter for the person giving the present, not for the one receiving it, so money doesn't come in consideration, however a lot of people don't think that way even if they say they do. 

It never fails to amaze me how this happens in Christmas.  Often people who say that "presents that matter cost nothing" basically are saying that they don't have enough money, so they are sending ahead the message that they will give "poor presents" and expect to be forgiven for it. So, exactly what do we see in a present? A tool or a needed produce we require - which by some social artifice we can't get ourselves and expect to be provided for by our friends and family? A way to measure love in regards of size, number and price of the gifts, or the rarity of them (again a matter of money)? A social obligation to exchange whatever thing impressing enough to be a present?

Perhaps we could think of presents as a way to communicate. In a present, this way isn't the matter to give someone what he or she needs - just as you don't say only the words others need to hear - but you say to him or her something in a language you share. Dragonfly, for instance, never fails to include something green in my presents. This way she says "I know you are crazy about green". It's not like she thinks I need more green in my life, but she knows it happens to be my favorite color. Skylar never fails to give me something related to writing and a book (at least one :-D), because she knows I've a never dying passion for reading and writing. My aunt always thinks about youthful, yet not trendy or too young things. She reminds me of our relationship, which is sweet, as we have the same name. My sister-in-law always gives me something related to clothing, in connection to our shared love for shopping, and my Mom always gives me things that have a sweet, soft nature. Soft fabrics, sweet colors, tender details. It's her way to say I'm still her little girl.

Kari basically asks me for guidelines, so I give him ideas, and he works around them. His message is "I'm listening to you, yet I will interpret you my way, and that way is always the most beautiful one I can think of". My friend Laura has this way to pick gifts that always go back to our days at the University. They have a youthful, bohemian, traveler quality you simply gara love. It's like being back in jeans and T-shirts before we used make-up and plucked our eyebrows. My friend Roo's presents are all about fun, party and guilty, guilty pleasures. Everything is "OMG, Roooo!!! Hahahahahahaha!". Carrie's presents are all about shared fangirling items. Those are the kind of things that send you shrieking like a groupie all around the place. Almost as if you had unwrapped the real Jesen Ackles with a bow and a smirk.

How much do they cost? I've no freaking idea. Some are handmade, some are bought, some might be expensive, some might be a bargain, but all of them are so freaking awesome! So, when people speak about the importance of the cost in gifts, I always wonder "the importance to whom?".

In Preparation

Then end of the year is close again, and I'm once again scouting the net for gingerbread recipes - something that doesn't include utterly straneg things I'll have no idea where to look at - and winter coats. Yes, I have one of my own, thank you very much, but it's already like... 3-4 years old? I want a new one, and this time, I'd really love a black one. Thus, have been scouting the net, searching in Macy's, JCPenny, but I can't seem to find what I want, not to mention that I'm afraid the coats won't be as thick as I want them to be... unless I buy, of course, a Michelin-like coat, and that I won't do. I'm seeking a solid, serious, black, wool winter coat, like the ones everybody has in Paris. Sure, if I were to pass by Paris nothing would be easier than to take a small detour into the city and buy myself the coat, but since this time there's no Paris for me, I'll have to get my coat from the Internet. This will be a new one for me.

In the meantime, also from the Internet, I must find the recipe for gingerbread and make a pilot test of it before we (yes, Kari and me, as we BOTH are going to do the baking and stuff) bake the cookies for real. We already have some cookie cutters, trees and boots and such, and my aunt I guess, can find us some more, like stars and comets and other things. The point og it is multiple. For once, we'd like to decorate our Christmas tree only with edible things, thus taking it off, means to eat all that's hanging on it and then fold the tree and store it for next year (I'm against tree-killing for Christmas, thus no natural, freshly murdered trees for me, though the fact that it's not organic, but the result of metal mining (all the wire)  and brent extraction (the plastic parts), doesn't make me all that happy). Hungarians have these candy they usually hang from the tree called "szaloncukor", which translates like "Salon Candy". These are nicely wrapped bonbons (all I've tried so far are chocolate covered something), that come with a thread, lace or piece of wire that helps you hang each of them from the branches of the tree. Thus the revolutionary thought of "eating the things that hang from trees" is already present in Hungarian Lore. ^_^

Up to this point, sure my good friend Smurf must be nauseated, thinking I've betrayed the Grinch Team, but I haven't. You see, I do not decorate or start any sort of Christmas celebration before the 24th, 23rd for earliest. I still loath Christmas Carrols, and I doubt I'll be ever caught dead singing them. I'm a Halloween Girl and that's what I like, but there are particular things I like to prepare for before hand, such as making sure the gingerbread is good. You see, last year we used an untried recipe and the cookies ended up pretty, but unedible. Not again. I want to eat my Christmas. Therefore, pilot tests are a must.

Another thing, with me, that can't be happening in December are the gifts. I've plenty of friends with whom we have this habit of giving each other a small detail, and honestly, running around in crowded stores, between hordes of shrieking families, and desperate crap-buyers isn't my idea of festive or fun. Personally, I love to hit December with a list all checked out.

The whole Christmas thing often is a Celebration of Mayhem. It's crowded stores and streets with annoying carrols pouring from every sound system, families halting the traffic - both pedestrian and auto motor - uncertainty about alleged discounts and lots of new stuff that suddenly look so crappy because everybody has touched the boxes and they are all fraying at the edges. Everything is about rushing, running, parents getting anxious and berating their annoying children in the street - children often all snotty and screaming, annoying anyone in a 2 block radius. Then, the mayhem doesn't stay in the streets and the stores and the impromptu markets in every corner, but walks everybody home, where you have to fish out from the most unaccesible part of the closet lots of mouldy boxes stuffed with decoration. Oh, not to mention that you had to spend a small fortune buying new decoration, because last years, that you thought it was so pretty and you could use this year, has lost the shine and looks like garbage (flashnews: it always was garbage). So, get the box open it, try not to die with the dust and the toxic fumes bred there, and start decoration the house.

Get the tree. Decorate it. Untagle the tangled up boas and fake snow, laces, lights and other crap that seems to have still bits of last year's tree. Put it all on, play some carrols and expectantly wait for Christmas. You might forget that Christmas is about celebrating Jesus Christ's birthday, and the meaning of all that, but hey, you have Christmas Spirit! Yeah, only to leave it on as long as you can, because when it's done, everything shall go back to the mouldy boxes, back to the unreachable spot of the closet, and you are there to face the bills.

So, maybe, just maybe, you'd like to take the advice of a Grinch Team member, and do something slightly different. You can remain your usual, merry Christmas Elf self, but still, you can be a bit more foreseeing, and a bit more rational. How about you make a list of the people you want to give a present right now and start now thinking about a good gift? Now, good gift doesn't mean expensive, it means right. take the time to think and find something that person would appreciate. Oh, and btw, most of the time edible gifts are a great success, and it doesn't matter if you give them the same thing next year, so think about it!

However, now it's about the decoration. Think, my elfy-friend, about baking this year your decoration. Leave the dusty box and it's toxic spores in the closet, I'm sure in February China would be happy to buy it from you as biochemical weapon, and bake your decoration. Make cookies for the tree, or buy candy and hang it from the branches.

Gingerbread cookies give you the chance to make just about any figure out of them, so you can have your globes, your little houses, bells, stars, angels, and anything and everything you want. Add to it, usually in a baking portion you get more cookies than the ones you can hang on your tree, so it doesn't matter if you eat them off the tree because there's plenty more from what those came from. Possibilities are endless, and you save yourself from all the hassle of dealing with the mouldy box.

Of course, if you live in some place crowded with bugs, where leaving a breadcrust on the table means to wake up with ants, cockroaches and mice, you may not be able to apply these hassle-free, fun-full advises, but if you are bug-mice free, try it out! It's gonna be fun!

Handmade Gifts

I may have not been able to send my Christmas Cards this year (and I not to myself that I will plan this better from now on), but I did manage to make some jewelry for some of my friends. Here are the pictures.

Nautica: Blue and Gold

Heart-in-Heart Lace Choker and matching Heart Pendant Earrings

Sunbead Flower: Amber Glass Flower necklace and matching earrings

Angel: Blue bead, pearl-like beads and wire angel "concept" with wing earrings.

It's Not 20 Yet!

Yes, it's Christmas, thanks for noticing. I've called my friends and my friends have called me. Others sent me SMS and others... well, others are out there waiting for a very, very long talk about what does it mean to be my friend and when the boundaries start in aboundless friendship when a third party, namely some real pain in the ass girlfriend is brought into the mix. I mean, don't get me wrong, I do not wish for my friends to end up all alone like me, even though I believe that the freedom conquered through eternal singlehood is the mankinds natural and most blessed state, BUT please let me stress this out loud and clear: your relationship is YOURS so no bring no shit of it to me! I no getting to rubba-dubb-dubb outta it, then I no want to part of it. Very nice, yeah, keep all the luvin' for yo'selves and THEN include me into the frott'n drama! C'mon Dude, get real! I have no problem lending ya an ear when you want to bitch or share, but I don't see why I have to be forcefully included in the drama by witnesing how you SMS with 'er when you are supposed to be talking to me, or that you won't even answer my greeting through the MSN because you are waiting for 'er. Okay, maybe have no idea about how to handle it. Here, lemme help you:

"Hi! Sorry, I'm kind of busy right now. Please don't get upset, but though I wish to speak to you, I really can't. can I get back to you some other time?"

Guess what? Works like a charm. Worry, not. I'm not charging for the advise.

Anyways, Xmas is in town, and we celebrated. I couldn't contact many of my friends, but I know their love reach me just as my love reach them all, from Sweden to South Africa, and from Malasia to California. Hey there, I feel ya! ^_^ Keep it real!

Gara go now. Battery is low and I have no place to plug Nagi in this room. I love you all.

Oh, and the 20 Thing? I don't have 20 Swatch watches just yet. Today I bought my number 19... and received one previously bought, and selected by me. Number 20 is saved to be ourchased in Paris.