Trans-Siberian Orchestra

Last night we went to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. They are amazing. They play mostly classical music adaptations on rock and roll instruments. Really cool to see a modern day take on the Classical Composers' works of genius.

Something you want, something you need.....

So, is spending $100 on the holiday's an achievable goal? Well, probably not this year. I think it would need a year's worth of "education" if you want to call it that. Setting expectations with the kids about a new way to celebrate the holidays. Planning way ahead so that everyone would have time to come up with creative alternatives for gift giving. But having said that, we have actually been talking about alternatives since around May, when my mom was here visiting us and we were talking about ways to save money at Christmas. We said we wanted to move more toward a "Handmade, Antique or Fair Trade" holiday. Rachel has been thinking about gifts she can make for several months now. She's actually even made a few! I've been doing a lot of thinking too - that's where it has ended though. Alex and Pat are kind of at a loss. They don't do crafts, and I don't even think Pat knew what fair trade was until I starting organizing the whole CRS Fair Trade Sale at church. So, I'm still not quite sure what to do about the holidays yet. I am planning to keep it simple though. No expensive, electronic gifts. Nothing large and heavy that has to be shipped from Chicago to Seattle (we say this every year and every year spend almost $200 just to ship things...) Most of the gifts for members of my family are very small tokens from Peru (fair-trade - ha!) and in Pat's family we always do a White Elephant deal, so that cuts down on the frivolous buying. Somewhere I heard this catchy little piece of holiday-buying guidance - "Something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read". So, maybe that's what we'll use this year for a gift-giving strategy for the kids.

What is everyone else doing????

Hundred Dollar Holiday

(an excerpt I found on the website of the author of Deep Economy - this really makes sense and reflects a goal I am working towards as well)

Hundred Dollar Holiday

The Case For a More Joyful Christmas

By Bill McKibben

Introduction: Who Stole Christmas?
I've been called my share of names, but the only one that ever really stung was "grinch." The year that a few friends and I started the Hundred Dollar Holiday program through our rural Methodist churches, several business-page columnists in the local papers leveled the G-word—we were dour do-gooders, they said, bent on taking the joy out of Christmas. And, frankly, their charges sounded plausible enough. After all, we were asking our families, our friends, and our church brethren to try and limit the amount of money they spend on the holiday to a hundred dollars—to celebrate the holiday with a seventh or an eighth of the normal American materialism. There's no question that would mean fewer "Pop guns! And bicycles! Roller skates! Drums! Checkerboards! Tricycles! Popcorn! And plums!" Not to mention Playstations, Camcorders, Five Irons, and various Obsessions. Perhaps my heart was two sizes too small.
So it was with some trepidation that I carefully reread my daughter's well-worn copy of the Seuss classic, neatly shelved with Green Eggs and Ham, Horton Hears a Who, and all the other secular parables. There on the cover was the Grinch himself, red eyes gleaming malevolently as he plotted the sack of Whoville. He hated the noise of the kids with their toys, and he hated the feast of rare Who-roast-beast, and most of all he hated the singing. "Why, for fifty-three years I've put up with it now! I MUST stop this Christmas from coming!...But HOW?" Simple enough, of course. All he had to do was loot the town of its packages, tinsel, trees, food, even the logs in the fireplace. Even the crumbs for the mice disappeared back up the chimney.
But of course it didn't work. That Christmas morning, listening from his aerie for the wailing from Whoville below, the Grinch heard instead the sound of singing. Christmas had come. "It came without ribbons! It came without tags! It came without packages, boxes, or bags!" After puzzling three hours till his puzzler was sore, the Grinch was forced to conclude that Christmas came from no store.
And so I breathed a sigh of real relief. Not only was I not a grinch trying to wreck the meaning of Christmas, it was abundantly clear who the grinches of our culture really are: those relentless commercial forces who have spent more than a century trying to convince us that Christmas does come from a store, or a catalogue, or a virtual mall on the Internet. Every day, but especially in the fall, they try their hardest to turn each Cindy Lou Who into a proper American consumer—try their best to make sure her Christmas revolves around Sony or Sega, Barbie or Elmo.
But Dr. Seuss's message went deeper for me. You see, when we'd begun thinking about Hundred Dollar Holidays, it was mostly out of concern for the environment or for poor people. Think of all that wrapping paper, we said, all those batteries, all that plastic. Think of all those needy people who could be helped if we donated our money to them instead. Think of all those families who went deep into debt trying to have a "proper" Christmas.
All those issues are important, and I've spent much of my life writing about and working on them. But the more we progressed on our little campaign, traveling around our region having evening meetings at small rural churches like the one I attend, the more we came to understand why people were responding—indeed, why we had responded to the idea. It wasn't because we wanted a simpler Christmas at all. It was because we wanted a more joyous Christmas. We were feeling cheated—as if the season didn't bring with it the happiness we wanted. We were Christians, and we felt that the story of the birth of this small baby who would become our Savior, a story that should be full of giddy joy, could hardly break through to our hearts amid all the rush and fuss of the season. And many of our friends, Christian or not, felt that too much of the chance for family togetherness was being robbed by the pressures of Christmas busyness and the tensions of gift-giving.
Christmas had become something to endure at least as much as it had become something to enjoy—something to dread at least as much as something to look forward to. Instead of an island of peace amid a busy life, it was an island of bustle. The people we were talking to wanted so much more out of Christmas: more music, more companionship, more contemplation, more time outdoors, more love. And they realized that to get it, they needed less of some other things: not so many gifts, not so many obligatory parties, not so much hustle.
Once, after an evening program filled with carol-singing and kids' stories and general proselytizing for the idea of simpler Christmases, one woman said to me: "Thank you for giving me permission to celebrate Christmas the way I've always wanted to." What she meant, I decided, was that the message from the pulpit allowed her to stand up to the pressures of the advertisers, of the glossy magazines with their endless decorating tips—to stand up to the voice that had been planted in the back of her head that told her what Christmas should be. What she meant, too, was that by giving her a target—a hundred dollar Christmas—our small campaign had provided her with an anchor to hold her fast amid the gale of holiday commercialism. There's nothing magic about a hundred dollars; truth be told, I chose the name because it sounded good with "holiday." And obviously big families may decide to spend more at Christmas, and small ones may be happier spending less. But the hundred dollar goal seems to work well as a kind of check, a way of saying that your commitment to a better Christmas goes beyond merely complaining or telling yourself that this year it will be different.
None of this means that changing your Christmas patterns will be simple. It may cause tensions with other members of your extended family, or with kids who have grown up thinking of Christmas morning as a lootfest. It may take you years to build down to a Hundred Dollar Holiday, years of talking and writing to your near and dear. In an obsessively commercial society, it will always seem a little odd to many.
But it will be worth it. I am writing this in April, and already I am looking forward to Christmas, secure in the knowledge that it really will be a time of calm and happiness, a season to linger in and not to "get through." A time to celebrate the birth of a Savior. This book offers plenty of practical ideas for new ways of celebrating. But it's as much a why—to book as a how—to book—it's my stab at a way to think about Christmas in our place and time. Christmas, this burst of light at the darkest season of the year, is too precious to surrender to the various grinches; it's time to build Whovilles in our families, our communities, and our nation.

Let's hope this proves true - I'd like to send the kids to college...

From MSN Money ...

The world's markets are poised for a broad-based rally with Barack Obama's presidential win.
With U.S. stocks pulling back today after a big Election Day gain, that may seem a bold prediction. But the reasons are simple.
In the short term, at least, stocks respond to sentiment more than fundamentals. For example, even in the face of an oncoming recession, the recent downdraft sank many stocks to prices much lower than justified by their fundamental outlooks.
With Obama's win, the same thing could happen in reverse. Whatever the reality, in many people's minds, the Democrat represents hope for a better future.
That's true globally, not just in the United States. Polls in Russia, Germany, Spain and even China tell the same story. People around the world express optimism that Obama, as president, would change U.S. foreign policy for the better. Further, the win by the Illinois senator proves to many doubters that the American dream is alive and well.

Yes We Can!!!!

We can finally hope for so many things - too many to list.

For the war to end...
For global warming to be taken seriously...
For the economy to improve...
For corporations and the rich to pay their fair share...
For national debt to be reduced...
For our country to regain the respect of the rest of the world...
For more accessible health care and tax-free health benefits...
For an overhaul of "No Child Left Behind" and more support for education...
I'll add more when I have more time.

YAHOO!!!!!!!

We need a change

and let's hope it's the right one...

Another Mother for Peace

Another Mother for Peace is a non-profit, non-partisan association dedicated to eliminating the use of war as a means of solving disputes among nations, people and ideologies.

A friend gave me this card for my birthday. I wondered where it came from, and found that it is the logo for Another Mother for Peace (AMP). This not-for-profit organization was formed during the Vietnam War and revived due to events taking place currently. The website has a lot of important insights. Included are: 1) war is obsolete - that civilized methods must be creatively sought and implemented to resolve international differences; and 2) citizens must be encouraged to support legislation aimed at dismantling the war machinery and war mentality so pervasive in Washington. My favorite part is the Pax Materna or motherhood pact - which states, "No mother is an enemy to another mother." AMP's Pax Materna is "a permanent, irrevocable condition of amnesty and understanding among mothers of the world." Despite differences in ideology, politics, religion, and other values, most mothers agree that they do not want to see their sons and daughters at war. When the kids and I went to see the Dalai Lama speak this past summer, he said that if the world wants to see an end to wars, then women should be the leaders. Sounds like even he would agree with AMP philosophy!

If you haven't voted yet (and even if you have) check out this newsletter - Fall 2008.

And finally - the complete Pax Materna-

THE PAX MATERNA
I JOIN WITH MY SISTERS IN EVERY LAND
IN THE PAX MATERNA —
A PERMANENT DECLARATION OF PEACE
THAT TRANSCENDS OUR IDEALOGICAL DIFFERENCES
IN THE NUCLEAR SHADOW, WAR IS OBSOLETE.
I WILL NO LONGER SUFFER IT IN SILENCE
NOR SUSTAIN IT BY COMPLICITY.
THEY SHALL NOT SEND MY SON
TO FIGHT ANOTHER MOTHER’S SON.
FOR NOW, FOREVER, THERE IS NO MOTHER
WHO IS ENEMY TO ANOTHER MOTHER.