I try to catch A Christmas Carol every year. The black and white version, from 1951. I must confess that I really dislike all of the Christmas carols on the radio and streamed in all the stores. Partially, the aversion is actually my intense dislike of  the bludgeoning mechanism of consumerism and the hyper message to buy! buy! buy! The embedded mini narratives in the saturated texts of advertisements fall like blows upon the mind. Thud! Thud! Oooooph! Who decided that diamonds are a girl’s best friend? (Personally, I’d much rather receive a multi-tool, or a good folding knife….) How did the diamond narrative become such a dominant social force? Never mind where his hands have been…. Do you know where that diamond came from? What is up with that mcdonald’s commercial telling little children their father wants deep-fried fake sponge-chicken meat with frog-green goo dipping sauce for Christmas? It’s unbearable!

Don’t get me wrong– I did go to shops and buy some presents for my big children and small things for my friends. I enjoy choosing something nice, staying on a budget, and then wrapping gifts with brown paper and string. A little sprig of mistletoe. I’ve also been knitting and making cards. I enjoy the giving of gifts and the feasting with family and friends. I just don’t like our North American culture of “big ticket items” and “buy now and pay later!” and eleven-year-old children dreaming  not of sugar-plums, but of Blackberries instead….

I don’t understand the plastic inflated lighted decorations that people put in their yards and on their decks. Why have an air-filled plastic “snowman”? It’s not snow. Therefore, it’s not a snowman– it’s plasticman. It’s raining. It’s been raining for four days in a row. The plastic snowman is an impossible manifestation. I suppose the same could be said for multitudes of things like toys, for instance. A plastic baby doll, is  not a real baby. But for some reason the plastic yard decorations agitates me into a profound Scrooge state! I would dearly love to sneak around late at night, with a garbage-picking stick with a pointed tip, and puncture the lot of them…. Hahahahahahahaaaaa! (Really, if someone does this at your place, it wasn’t me. I’m just lying in my bed, imagining destroying plastic holiday lawn decorations, before the Ghost of Christmas Past comes to pick me up for a date.)

Meanwhile, I’ve had the lovely fortune of being interviewed by the kick-ass MissAttitude at Color Online, a blog focussing on women writers of color for adults, youth and children. Please check it out if you like: http://coloronline.blogspot.com/2010/12/wwoc-hiromi-goto.html

Happy holiday vibes to everyone running around prepping for the festivities!

End note: I must confess– I have a fake Christmas tree…. Hahahahahahaaaa! Mujun shiteru, wakatteru! But it’s because I started feeling bad about all the baby trees being cut down and then tossed into the back alleys like post-Christmas corpses…. It’s a moral connundrum– ooooooooo! The turmoil!

Look over there! —->