How Facebook has killed the Christmas letter

I have very clear memories of my mother spending hours and hours organizing herself to prepare  Christmas cards for mailing to family and friends. She would camp out at the dinner room or kitchen table for a couple of days and work from her list. 

Each card was selected from her stash with the particular addressee in mind. She would take the time to hand write a note telling the receiver of all the news from the Harty household in the past year. She would hand address each envelope and her one shortcut was the pre-printed return address labels she received from St. Jude's. 

Having this as my role model creates lots of pressure. I can still hear her critical comments when she would receive a Christmas card in return with no personal note. Even worse were the ones where the people would have their names pre-printed on the inside of the card. Lazy people, can't even sign their names. It might even have been an insult for her.

Fast forward to the late 1980's/early 1990's, when it started being trendy to include a Christmas letter with your card. (I think this was acceptable to mom, but at a much lower standard) 

I remember when my friends started sending Christmas letters where they would either outline the many successes of their offspring or the fabulous locations they had traveled that year. Or worse, both. Since I could talk about neither (unless I listed the ice rinks that I had visited in the past year), I would just use my creative writing skills and make them humorous, but still include various tidbits of what I had done in the past year. I did Top Ten lists, I wrote poems. Anything to distract from my semi-pitiful life.

A few years ago, I started doing a Christmas blog (Ye Olde Yule Blog) and would send everyone an email with a link to the blog post. I would claim "green," but honestly it was just so much easier and cheaper. (You don't claim "lazy.")

Now, because of Facebook, I don't even do the Yule Blog. I'm diligent in posting updates, so people can know my every move and thought (and isn't that something everyone wants to know??). And with so many people in my demographic group who are now on Facebook, I think the list of non-Facebook people to whom I would send a card is fairly small.

Regardless of that fact, right now, a bunch of boxes of Christmas cards are stacked on my kitchen island for the non-Facebook list and I'm lacking motivation. I worry if I work on these cards, my resentment might sneak through and I might write something like, "why the heck are you not on Facebook?" or give them a warning that unless they join Facebook, they risk being cut off from receiving highly-valued information about me. I mean, that's got to be a motivating factor, right? 

Endings

Nothing lasts forever. 

I'm fine with that. Truthfully, there are times in your life that you can get through only because you know they won't last forever. Bad times have endings and good times have endings. 

Just as the year 2010 was coming to a close, so was a moment in my life.

The question that I'm asking myself over and over is, "Do I want closure?" I think my friends might ask me, "Why do you need closure?"  "Do you need a placard that says, "The End" to be satisfied?"

I attempted to attain my mythical closure via an email. Not sure why I sent it, but moments after hitting SEND, I started to wonder which would be better? Getting a reply or not? 

No reply would make my email similar to a balloon being released into the air, silently watching it get smaller and smaller and farther away. **heavily symbolic with a great visual, but only symbolic!** On the other hand, if I do get a reply and it's not perfectly phrased or, worse still, vague, will it make this desired closure more difficult?  Honestly, I really don't know which one I prefer.

The cock-eyed optimist that dwells within my psyche is repeatedly tapping on my shoulder **okay, it's a bit aggressive and sort of slapping me on the back of the head!** and pointing at the calendar.  Look! It's a new year and a chance to create something new, something better. 

It's the perfect opportunity. That was last year. This is the new year. Let go and let God.

Don't ask "Why?" Ask "What's next?"

The Christmas I'll Never Forget

A couple of weeks ago, after a successful blog hop about Christmas ornaments, I suggested a blog hop about the "Christmas I'll Never Forget."  One of the bloggers thought it would be okay, but "not everyone has a Christmas miracle story."  This is not a Christmas miracle story. This is not "It's a Wonderful Life." It is a mixture of "Christmas Vacation" and "Christmas Story." 

December 1983 was a horribly cold and miserable month. The week of December 18-24 was the coldest ever seen in the month of December. We had lots of snow already and the temperature never rose above zero. The average was -16 degrees F and windchill ranged from -50 to -70 degrees F. 

I had graduated from college that spring and was gainfully unemployed and living at my parents. On Christmas Eve day, my brother and his family (well, wife and 2-year old daughter) arrived in the afternoon. My mom was working that day at the Roadrunner - a 24/7 roadside gas station she co-managed. The station was just on the outskirts of town, right off I90. 

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My brother and I were driving out to pick her up and because of the slick roads and my brother's lack of fear of said road conditions, we ended up in the ditch. The windchill was dangerous and even a couple of minutes exposure could mean frostbite. Fortunately, another car came by, picked us up and took us back home. 

Opening the door to go back into the house, the metal handle of the storm door snapped off in my hand. 

I insisted on driving for the second attempt to pick-up Mom. As I was backing out of the garage, I noticed that there was a small drift of snow in the driveway, so I started to steer the car to avoid it. Unfortunately, the front end of the car was still in the garage. In my parents' new garage. The side of the car hit the garage door mental track and bent it.  

If you believe that everything happens in threes, you are going to have to continue counting. 

The car was drivable and while I was a bit upset about the whole garage thing, I was determined to still drive out to the Roadrunner. Mom was waiting for us and ready to go home. Yes, it was a 24/7 station, but it would close Christmas Eve at 5 and re-open the following morning, so Mom had to lock the place up. Which she did. When she tried to remove the key, it was frozen in the lock. As we pulled on the key to get it out, it broke. Half of the key was left frozen in the lock. At least the place was locked. 

When we finally delivered Mom home safe and sound, my sister and her hubby and two-year old son and 6-month old baby girl were now there. We had our Christmas dinner and when my sister started to mix the baby's formula, the can of formula was bad with what looked like grubs in the mixture. Since the two-year old had an allergic reaction to milk, we didn't trust just giving her regular milk.  It's Christmas Eve, there's a -70 degree windchill factor outside and there is no place open to buy formula and it's not like you can just walk over to the neighbors to borrow a cup. 

I don't remember how we solved the formula issue. But I do remember the decision I made that week. A friend of mine was going to attend graduate school at Rice University in Houston the next year and she thought I should go with her. One year later - January 1985 - I said goodbye to snow and windchill factors and I moved to Houston, Texas, bragging to my friends how I would never have to deal with those concepts ever again. 

It was my second day in Houston when the weatherman announced that snow was on its way and because of the cold temps, he warned Houstonians about the possible windchill and explained what it was. As I pounded my head on the table, they announced that the schools would be closed the next day because of the chance of snow.

It's the Holiday Season

It will be a strange holiday for me. New job, new town and a temporary living arrangement.  So, I'll have a Christmas tree, but it won't be my Christmas tree since I'm living at my sister's. Who, by the way, really gets into decorating the house for the holiday, as I witnessed when she pulled tub after tub of holiday decor out from storage. This ADD kid got a bit overwhelmed by it all.

Christmas is really very distracting for those with ADD as it is truly the holiday of bright shiny objects! Lights, tinsel and ornaments. 

I'll be honest and say that there were many years when I didn't even put up holiday decorations if I was too busy or not in the mood. Besides, the last thing I would need is something to further distract me. Plus I think single people have to be really motivated to decorate for the holidays.

If your home is small (like my condo), trees can take up a lot of space. I own two "wall trees" that I would hang on my ever-gawdy mirrored wall. These are half trees, so on the wall, they sort of looked fuller - or at least I thought so.

The two trees have different themes. One is my angel tree and the other - no big surprise to anyone who knows me - is a skating tree. (Suddenly I get a visual of tree skating, but I digress.) 

I am SO NOT an angel person, but WAY back in 1988, my mom - who is also a holiday fanatic and should have owned stock in Hallmark - started giving me a Hallmark ornament series - Mary's Angels. As those you who are good with numbers have figured out, I have 21 of these ornaments, with #22 under the tree (hopefully). They are named for flowers and the first one was Daffodil. At least that's my memory of it. I can't be sure because all of my holiday decorations are packed away in a storage unit about 100 miles away from where I am right now. (The photos here are from a website called "Hooked on Hallmark")

I remember opening the gift and looking closely at the ornament and getting a weirded out feeling when I saw the artist's signature on the bottom of the ornament - Mary -was dead-on to my signature when I sign my full name Mary Elizabeth. If you look closely at the ornaments, they also have a very tiny, ridiculously small triangle with a number in it that tells you what number it is in the series.  Even when my eyes were younger, I couldn't read it.

My other tree is the Skating tree that has so many ornaments that I may have to get a bigger tree to hold all of them.  Many of the ornaments were gifts (hmmm, what do you give a skating judge at Christmas???) and sadly, I might not be able to tell you from who or when I got them - except for one. It was the first one and it was also from my mom. It was Christmas 1978 - my senior year in high school. Mom and I were at the Hallmark store at the Mall and I spotted the ornament and begged her to buy it. I really wanted something special to remember my senior year and an ornament with a skating theme seemed perfect. It hung on the family tree for many years. I don't remember precisely when she gave it to me for my own tree, but I've had on my tree for at least the last 10 years.  

It, too, is packed away in storage, in its original box with an old rubber band wrapped around it (that was how my mom would secure all the ornament boxes).  Mom wrote on the back of the box the date it was purchased and "This is Mary's." And it is.

I'm A Shopping Machine

I am not, in any way, a power shopper. No one with ADD could be a power shopper as there are far too many shiny objects out there to distract us. But it doesn't keep me from shopping on Black Friday (and Saturday)

I will also claim that I'm not one of those crazy people who stands outside of Target or Best Buy or any other big box store for "doorbuster deals." (How can it be a doorbuster if the deal lasts until 1 p.m.? hmmm???)

I've seen the people camped out in front of Target on Thanksgiving Day. I have to wonder if the person you are buying for would rather have time with you on Thanksgiving instead of the materialistic item you are waiting for? And if not, are they really worthy of your generosity?

Traditionally, I go Black Friday shopping with my two sisters and while we check out the ads and plan our travels around town, we start very slow, with breakfast at 8 am and then shopping by 9 am. 

This year, my sister Chris couldn't make it, so her daughter Kelly took her spot.  After a good breakfast at Perkins, we headed to Rosedale. Walking through JC Penney's was a bit disturbing with very, very long line at the registers. We learned from one of the workers that their computer system had crashed about 30 minutes prior and while the system was back online, the programming was messed up and none of the sale prices were ringing up. They had to look up all the sale prices by hand! Talk about a retail nightmare. 

As we exited JC Penney's (without buying anything - not surprising), we walked by a woman with several packages, slumped over on the bench, asleep. Underneath the bench were several empty 1/2 & 1/2 cups, perhaps for the cups of coffee she was trying to ingest to keep her awake.  I would have taken a photo, but thought it would be rude.

Herberger's was almost as bad, except they hadn't had a computer glitch. The lines were long in the housewares department, but not in the women's department, so while others waited 30 minutes in line, we had maybe 5 minutes to wait. Those shoppers were obviously novices! 

When it was time to leave a couple hours later, we discovered that a tire on my sister's car was flat (not until we were driving - ugh!). Got to a service station close by and filled it back up with air.  Re-checking it several times that day and it was solid from that point on. Thus, I concluded that we perhaps ticked someone off by taking the parking spot they wanted and they got their revenge by letting the air out of the tire.

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We spent the afternoon in Woodbury, teasing my sister as she kept referring to it as the Woodbury Outlet Mall. It isn't an outlet mall, it's just outside. 

We ended the shopping day at the Mall of America. I know Black Friday at MOA may strike fear into the heart of many, but we learned long ago that after 5 p.m. on Black Friday, MOA is relatively normal.

We finished the day with dinner at my favorite Hawaiian steak house - Outback Steak House. (That's sort of an inside joke that has to do with my only visit to Hawaii, several margaritas, drunk dialing and lots of time in the bathroom.) 

Kelly had to work Saturday, so Sue and I were on our own. We started at Best Buy at 8:30, but they didn't open until 9. So, we went to the Galleria in Edina (Crate & Barrel, Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn!), but they didn't open until 10! Ok,back to Best Buy (which was just opening when we got back). After a few hours at the Galleria and lunch at Chipotle, we traversed down I-35 to the Medford Outlet Mall - which really is an outlet mall, but has seen better days - and then to Cabela's to spend quality time looking at stuffed animals. I'll admit the place really creeps me out. 

Finally, we got back to Kasson-Mantorville and our final stop of the day was the Kasson Hardware Hank store.  Yes, I certainly covered the full spectrum of retail from the Galleria to a Hardware Hank store.

Did I get all my shopping done? Hardly - since many of my purchases were for self-gifting.  One of the best gifts I got myself are these "baby beads." They are brightly colored wooden beads that I can fidgety with during long conference calls. Although primarily for babies, the guy did say that people with ADD really like them. Must be the bright colors - now if they were only shiny!

What I'm Thankful For

It's been one year since I started this blog - November 21, 2009 - and as I look back, I am so thankful for all I have learned in this past year and all the positive changes in my life.

 Photo by Schlusselbein2007

Last year, I didn't spend Thanksgiving with my family. On purpose.  I wasn't in the mood for Thanksgiving as I had been having regular pity parties for myself leading up to it.  I figured that I needed something to snap myself out of the funk, so I volunteered to spend Thanksgiving with strangers, working at homeless shelter serving Thanksgiving dinner. I wanted to remind myself that I was blessed even when I couldn't see the blessings; that I was successful even when I was feeling like a failure. And that your life can change in an instant.

There is a wonderful book out right now that I've downloaded from Amazon called "Open Our Eyes: Seeing the Invisible People of the Homelessness" by Kevin Hendricks (who by chance lives in St. Paul)  It contains the stories of families, children, veterans and executives who are now homeless.  All the profits of the book benefit a project by Mark Harvath called InvisiblePeople.tv - Mark shares the real stories of the homeless in their own words.  And Mark knows homelessness himself, so to say he has the credentials is an understatement.

So next time you think your life is a challenge or start to throw a pity party for yourself, spend 10 minutes watching one of the stories on InvisiblePeople.tv or reading one of the chapters in the book.

Mark usually ends his interview with the question, "if you had three wishes, what would they be?"  Their answers show their humanity and their true character. What would your answers be and what would they say about your character? 

Moving on

Today is my last day at Hazelden. Not unlike other "last days" at previous jobs, it will be jammed packed with lots of projects to finish or to hand off, and saying good-bye to an amazing group of co-workers and friends.

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Ten days from now, I will unofficially move* to Rochester, but these days, most my free time now is spent packing, throwing and sorting my worldly goods. I've been very reflective in the last week (reflective as in thoughtful, not shiny in bright light) and thinking of everything I will miss and what I won't miss.

I will not miss my 45 minute commute to work. Giving up seven and half hours each week to non-productivity while driving back and forth has been frustrating. Granted, I now know all of the songs from Glee and completely enjoy belting them out in my car, but I wouldn't consider it an investment in my future skill sets.

I will miss my condo, but not the location at the bottom of hill at the end of a dead-end street with hairpin turns that the City of Saint Paul tends to forget about after snow storms.

I will miss the Saint Paul Farmers Market - great people watching, fresh flowers and vegetables and always something new to discover.

I will miss Whole Foods, Byerly's, and Kowalski's. I thought I would miss Trader Joe's, but have heard that one is being built in Rochester.

I know that the number one thing I will miss about the Twin Cities is the Basilica of Saint Mary. I've been a member there since '96 and it is an amazing place. I was lucky enough to be a member of the Basilica Cathedral Choir for 12 years and I met some amazing people whose friendships I will always treasure. The choir was like my family when my real family was miles away.

I loved being able to say that my church "picnic" lasted two days, attracted 40,000 people and had bands like the Goo Goo Dolls and 10,000 Maniacs. I would add after saying that, in a rather snarky voice, "And yours?"

My holidays will never be the same because of my Basilica experience. I haven't been singing with the choir for the last two years and I haven't known what to do with myself during the Easter Triduum. It is the Catholic Marathon since the choir sang at most of the services for four straight days. Some years, I wouldn't have a voice on Easter Monday and one year I got a respiratory infection from an overdose of incense. 

The Basilica is unlike any church I've attended and I know whatever church I attend in Rochester, it will most likely never match the Basilica experience.

I moved to the Twin Cities in January 1991 and never imagined I would stay here for almost 20 years. I adapted to the big city lifestyle, but underneath it, I remained a small town girl. In the coming months, she'll have the opportunity to reappear.

Sort of looking forward to meeting her again.

*I will officially move when my condo is sold.

I Really Did It!!

Yesterday was a huge day for me as I ran my first 5K race.  It was the Father's Day 5K run.

It was a day for achieving goals. I'm all about baby steps and breaking down your goals into small pieces.

Goal #1 - If you're going to train for a 5K, you're going to have run one. Register already! 

Goal #2 - Actually get out of bed and go to the race course.

Goal #3 - Finish the race.

Goal #4 - Try to run it in less than 50 minutes.

I didn't register for the race weeks in advance; I registered Friday night for the Sunday race. I needed something to get me to the race and it wasn't a car ride. I needed to feel accountable to someone. So, I asked my friend and co-worker, Kelly, if she would be available Sunday morning to come to the race - cheer me on and provide advice. (Kelly is a runner/marathoner.) She was very supportive and enthusiastic and asked if it would be okay if Nathan (her main guy and another friend and co-worker of mine) also came to the race. Absolutely!

So, when I woke up Sunday morning. instead of playing my usual mind games and talk myself out of something, I focused on the fact that Kelly & Nathan would be there. I had to be there - no excuses!

When I got to the registration table to pick up my bib, I saw my name on the sheet of runners. It suddenly felt very real and it seemed strange to see my age listed on there as 50. I just don't feel 50. And then I realized that at the age of 50, I was running my first race. HA!

Kelly & Nate showed up and kept me walking and distracted until the race started. It wasn't a big group of runners, being the day after Grandma's and at the same time as the Stillwater marathon. I was thankful for that. I think I would have felt overwhelmed with a large group! 

When the race started, I was trying to figure out my pace. I did most of my training on the treadmill, so I wasn't sure how to determine if I was at the pace I wanted, about 4 mph. I ran and I walked and I jogged and I walked and I speed walked and I walked. I was talking to myself the entire time - not out loud as I'm sure the rest of the runners would wonder about me. 

The race was around Como Lake in Saint Paul. Almost twice around the lake is the 3.1 miles and it is a wonderful place to run - spots with shade and mostly flat with only one area with a slight incline. Now that I know about it, I'm going to have to go there at least once a week to do more outdoor running. 

I was so nervous about the race, that I completely forgot about my fear of running in front of people who can see me!  (Harry Potter's invisibility cloak would be an ideal gift for me.)

I kept the pace pretty well through most of the race. There was this 82-year old racer there doing it as a speed walker. Got a bit stressed when he passed me. For about a 1/2 mile we were playing leap frog. I was like, "Oh, no, I am not going to get passed by an 82-year man!" He was a motivation for awhile and then I realized this guy does all these races and is most likely in better shape than me.  

When I was lapped by the real runners (and winners) and I was okay with that. When I got lapped by them the second time, it was a bit of blow. Then I realized they had already finished and this was just their cool-down lap. My cool down lap was walking to my car to drive home. 

Many people have told me that having people cheer you on during a race provides great motivation. Now I understand. Having people cheer for me as I was coming around the first time made me kick a bit harder - I was motivated to get out of my walking mode and back into the jogging mode.

At the end, again having people there cheering for me, I kicked up the pace and got ready to cross the finish line. As I was coming in at the finish, I could see the official clock. I broke into a huge smile when I saw 43 minutes on the clock. No way! I was going to finish in less than 50 minutes, less than 45 minutes. I crossed the finish line at 43:28. 

I had imagined that I would cross the finish line and drop over or go all jelly legs. I didn't. I wasn't even out of breath. I just wanted to know where the water was! Got a bit of water and then a banana sounded like the greatest treat that God ever created! Luckily, they had plenty. 

During the race, I kept looking behind me and I didn't see anyone. Was I the last one?? I thought there were some walkers that would be behind me, but I couldn't see anyone. About a minute after I crossed the finish line, more people started crossing the finish line. "I wasn't the last one." Kelly just laughed and said, "Of course not."

Several people who knew it was my first race (I suppose because I was telling everyone) came over to congratulate me and one woman wearing a half-marathon t-shirt said, "see you at more races."

Today was also my first hit of the dopamine that runners talk about - my 5K runner's high. Kind of liked it. 

Wait, I have to go backward in the story here, not just pre-race, but pre-leaving-my-house. I had laid out the clothes I would be wearing the night before. (I never do that for my regular days!) I wanted to be able to get dressed and be ready to go. 

I put on the outfit and then determined I didn't like how it fit. Seriously? It's 10 minutes before I need to leave and I'm trashing about my fitness clothing. I found a gray top to wear, but it was wrinkled. For one brief second, I thought about ironing it. I'm about get it sweaty and I was thinking it would look bad? 

So, of the four goals that I had set for myself, I got all of them! I would like to do a couple more 5Ks this summer and perhaps start thinking about a 10K later down the road. My friend Lisa left a message on my Facebook wall asking me I wanted to do the TC Marathon 10 mile this fall. Baby steps, Lisa, baby steps.

Marathon? I don't think I could keep my concentration that long. With my ADD, I'll lose interest and just go wandering off...

If someone would have told me when I was turned 40 (when I was at the highest weight and the most unhealthy I had ever been) that I would be running at age 50 (when I never had before), I would have laughed. If they would have said, I would do a 5K race, I would have insisted they do a drug screen. 

It was just so damn cool!

(my first race t-shirt!!)

Holidays

Thanksgiving should be the best holiday because it has remained the purest. There is no expectation of gift giving or receiving and there hasn't been much commercialization of it. I don't have to worry about having a date that day like New Year's or Valentine's Day. It's supposed to be about people gathering to be thankful for all they have.

Thanksgiving's purity doesn't last long because at the stroke of midnight, the craziness of holiday shopping starts. It's a competition for opening the earliest - having the most doorbusters or lowest prices. It's a competition for people to say they were up by 3 am and were done shopping by 8 am and back in bed.

Actually, Thanksgiving's purity can get tarnished on its day due to the newspaper ads. You have to get the paper to get the retail ads and plan out Black Friday. The kids have to go through the ads to write out their Christmas list. So now, instead of spending time with your family being grateful for all you have, the young ones are giving you a list of all the things they don't have and absolutely need. So much for gratitude.

Happy Thanksgiving. I'm grateful for all I have and all that God decided I didn't need.