Christmas is Christmas

The Christmas season, a time for happiness and wonder. A time for celebration and joy. A time for children to sit with wide eyed splendor and listen to Christmas bedtime stories.
I’ve heard lately that this is changing, shifting right under our own noses. Christmas carols have been banned from being sung, decorations have not been put up, and wishing someone a “Merry Christmas” raises eyebrows. Even signs with the words “Merry Christmas” have been taken down or not displayed.
What’s happening? What’s so wrong with Christmas that all of this has started to emerge? Nothing.
It’s the political way of stopping a very joyous thing from happening. It’s the big honchos saying, “Oh, we don’t want to offend anyone.” It’s the big department stores saying, “Oh, it brings us big profits, but we don’t want to offend anyone with the real reason for our profits.” It’s the bigots and the hypocrites saying, “Let’s not offend anyone, so we’ll ban Christmas.”
Well, let me say something here. You just have offended someone! Me! And the 82% of other Americans who believe that Christmas is a celebration of the baby Jesus’ birth. Christmas is not about the presents, or the profits, or the million other things society has made Christmas into. Christmas is about the birth of our savior, Jesus Christ. It’s about the journey that his mother, Mary, and Joseph took to Bethlehem. It’s about the little barn and manger. It’s about the star in Heaven and the angel that came to the shepherds who watched their flocks. It’s about the wise men who first visited the little baby Jesus. Most importantly of all it’s about the one act that God did for us. He gave us his only son.
Now, some of you may not agree with what I’m saying here. Some of you may not even celebrate Christmas because it’s not your religion. That’s ok. You’re in America, you have that right. And I have the right to celebrate Christmas. I also have the right to celebrate Christmas without persecution or restraint of freedom.
I was raised Catholic and I was taught to believe that God sees everything I do. Jesus died on the cross for me and God forgave our sins in his place. Mary was a sacred name to be repeated in prayer. The word God was not to be taken in vain. The story of the journey to Bethlehem was repeated over and over, until I could repeat it to everyone around me. The names of Jesus’ apostles were repeated until I had them memorized. But the most important thing that I had ever learned was that I was one of God’s children and Jesus loves me.
You may not have been raised Catholic, or Christian, or Buddhist, or whatever other religion there is out there. You may not even have a religion, and that’s ok. I have a right to celebrate Christmas. You have the right to celebrate and practice whatever religion is native to you.
That phrase keeps coming back to me from Catechism, “God sees everything you do.” I wonder, how much will He take before enough is enough? We’re already trying to take Him out of our schools, out of our Pledge, out of our public places. How much will He take? How much until He turns a shoulder on us, like we have on Him? And now we’re trying to take away the birthday of His only son? How much until He says, “Ok, I wash my hands of you.”? How much?
All I’m asking for is my Christmas. My chance to celebrate the birth of the man who saved me from my sins. To celebrate the mother who brought him into this world. To sing the songs for him. To remember him.

Taking the Christmas out of Christmas Tree?

There's a new buzz going around about some cities around the US taking the word Christmas out of Christmas Tree. This harkens back to the time when the word Xmas starting popping up all over the place. They're calling them "Holiday Trees".
You know, it just doesn't have the same ring to it. It smacks of religious indignation. It's like taking "under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance. Are we going to take that phrase off of our money, too?
Taking Christmas out of the phrase Christmas tree is defaming and demeaning. Would it be right to call a menorah a candlestick? It's not right and it offends the people who the religion applies to.
I'm a Catholic, not particularly practicing, but I was raised Catholic and I believe in God and Christ and Jesus dying on the cross for me and everyone else. Christmas is not a time of presents and gifts, and getting everything that is on your list for Christmas. It's about Jesus and the Christ child and Mary and Joseph, taking that long walk to Bethlehem. It's about the three wisemen and the manger. The star in the sky and the angel looking down upon little baby Jesus. It's about family and friends and the celebration of a birthday. Christ's birthday.
Too little time is spent now a days on the fact that Christmas is not about presents and what is on the list. Christmas should be about waking up on Christmas morning with family and friends surrounding you, not about what's under the tree.
The fad today seems to be making everything general to cover all people of the world. Like taking the Christmas out of Christmas tree and "under God" out of the Pledge. It's all to appease everyone and make sure that no one gets offended by these things. Well, what happens when the simple act of taking those phrases out offends not just one person but a whole group of people? So much so that there is retaliation? I say it's worked for hundreds of years, and to change it now would be blasphemy.
It's not about presents and what's under the tree, it's about the reason for Christmas: Christ. And the fact that Christmas is on a Sunday this year, well, it's carries a little more weight for some reason. I just have one question: How much will He take until enough is enough?

Feeling a little beat and broken...

It's been a rough couple of weeks with Finals for the semester coming up and tons of group projects piling up, so I'm ready for Thanksgiving break which starts Wednesday. Then it's back to the grind with Finals around the corner and the semester drawing to a close, but the universe sees fit to throw a monkey wrench into the mix. I will be on an outbound plane to Phoenix two days before Christmas to visit with my Mom and stepdad who is suffering from brain tumors. We're not sure of his outcome from this, don't know how long he'll be with us, so we're trying to get together before it's too late. I just feel helpless, though. When you're dealing with something like this, where the unknown is simply the norm, it's hard to keep the positive thoughts in your head. The what ifs start piling in and before you know it you're blaming the doctors. Then something new comes up and you're given a little bit of hope just to have it dashed to the floor even before you really had a chance to grasp what the possibility is. My Mom's having a real rough time with this and I feel so helpless for her. I can't take her pain away and I hate having her suffer this. They've only been married for a little over a year and that's not enough time to love someone. But she just counts the days she has him. It's so unfair. I know that sounds like a petulant child but it's not fair. A year? That's not enough time.

The World Shocked by Katrina? Yeah right....

I just read an article on Yahoo! about how the world is shocked by the New Orleaneans reaction to Hurricane Katrina. People in Asia and the Middle East are saying they expected them to react that way, like Americans are savage at heart. What a crock!
"Anarchy in the USA" declared Britain's best-selling newspaper The Sun.
"Apocalypse Now" headlined Germany's Handelsblatt daily.
Those are some of the headlines in their papers! I don't remember hearing a bad word out of us when London was hit by bombs. We didn't go around saying crap like that!
And I love this: "I am absolutely disgusted. After the tsunami our people, even the ones who lost everything, wanted to help the others who were suffering," said Sajeewa Chinthaka, 36, as he watched a cricket match in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Really? Did all of them want to help? I don't think so.
I don't know who said this, but it's really low: "Not a single tourist caught in the tsunami was mugged. Now with all this happening in the U.S. we can easily see where the civilized part of the world's population is." Whoever you are....you bastard. Don't cry when the US decides to pull all foreign aid from whatever country you live in. We don't want to hear it.
"Many newspapers highlighted criticism of local and state authorities and of President Bush. Some compared the sputtering relief effort with the massive amounts of money and resources poured into the war in Iraq." Hmmmm....maybe we should just let everyone fend for themselves. Screw all the other countries in the world, we'll keep our money.
And this was fabulous: A female employee at a multinational firm in South Korea said it may have been no accident the U.S. was hit. "Maybe it was punishment for what it did to Iraq, which has a man-made disaster, not a natural disaster," said the woman, who did not want to be named as she has an American manager. Well, that's too bad. If it were me, she'd be fired on the spot. Maybe that's just the bitch coming out in me.
Has any other country sent money? Or supplies? Or food? Don't think so....
But we rushed in when that tsunami hit, didn't we? Just like the stupid, over generous people we are. Maybe we're just hitting our heads against the wall over and over and over and over and over....

Fun in the Sun

Ah...the 4th. Such a wonderful, happy, exciting time...as long as you don't lose anyone.
My Dad flew in from Pennsylvania for a week and a half to visit me on the 4th holiday. My husband and I, my Dad, my father-in-law, brother-in-law, one of our friends, and a bunch of my father-in-law's friends went out to Trinity Lake on the 4th of July for a day on the water and fireworks that evening.
Our friend who wasn't very familiar with the territory, since he is not from the state, decided to get himself lost. When you get a bunch of people out on boats and waverunners on the lake, there is most definately alcoholic beverages aboard one if not all boats. We had two boats out there. Brian, our friend, had had a few while kicking back with the rest of the people on the boats, so he was a little tipsy by the afternoon. About 2:30pm he decides he wants to go to shore because he's feeling a little sick. You have to understand, this is a guy who is 25 years old, does not have any money on him because he has asked me to hold it for him, has no cigarettes, no ID on him, and he jumps off the boat with three beers in his hands. That's it.
After getting in the water he decides he can only carry two beers and throws one back in the boat, then heads for the shoreline. Law says that you have to have all waverunners off the water by dark and being the people we are we usually abide by that rule. 5:30 rolls around and our group decides to pack everything up and head for the boat ramp. No one's seen Brian since he jumped off the boat.
We get the boats and three of the waverunners off the water. One person in our group goes back on a waverunner to see if he can find Brian. He comes back 20 minutes later without a passenger. Another person in our group goes back to the beach in a vehicle. He comes back empty handed too.
Our group is setting up in the spot we will watch the fireworks from and still Brian has not shown up. Being that Brian is our friend, my husband and I decide to take off and look for him. We take his truck up to the closest store we can get to and walk the rest of the way to the beach. We start by looking around the area where we last saw him. No luck.
This is the scenerio. It's dark, there's about 10,000 people on the beach, and there's live bands playing. Everyone's waiting for the fireworks. There's no way we're going to find him in the crowd, and we can't even call out for him because of the music. We walk back to the truck.
My husband makes a drive by of his dad's house, thinking maybe he showed up there, but there's no one there. We regroup with everyone back out at the lake, and the fireworks are over by now. Everyone loads up and goes to my father-in-law's house.
My husband and his dad take Brian's ID and hit every bar and store around the area. No one's seen him. They stop by the sheriff's office but they don't want to do anything til morning. They come back to the house, decide they can't do anything until morning, and we all go to sleep.
It's 9am the next morning, my husband wakes up with the intent to continue the search. He walks over to his dad's house to check things out. Brian is sitting there on the living room couch, just big as day. All my husband could do was flip him the bird and walk out the door.
He had spent the night in the back of a truck in a car lot owned by a friend of the family then walked down the road to my father-in-law's house in the morning. It was unreal. I really thought we were going to find him floating in the lake and I was trying to figure out what we were going to tell his mom. "Well...he came down here to visit...but...he's not coming back..." Yeah, it sounded really lame to me too.
I've never had the experience of losing a person before. Dogs and cats, yeah. People is a whole different ballgame. Skip the chance if you get it.
On a different note, I had lots of fun with my Dad. We got matching tattoos, saw the movie War of the Worlds, which by the way is excellent, and just hung out. It was long overdue and much fun.
Texas_chic signing off.

And The World Goes On...

Ever had one of those days?









On a happier note, I got my promotion at work this week. A good thing to start the weekend off right! Plus a raise always sounds good. Wonder what I'll do with the extra dollar an hour....
My Dad flies in tomorrow from Pennsylvania! I'm so excited!
Anyway, back to work.......blah......
Texas_chic signing off.

As If The Week Wasn't Long Enough

Two days until my Dad gets here! Can't wait!
This week is so busy! And I have to have a tire fixed on my car...freakin' thing has a chunk missing. I was just glad it didn't blow on the way to work.
The weekend is almost here though, and I am so ready for it. It's been a hell of a month. So much crap to do and never seems like enough hours in the day to do it all with. Gonna go out on the lake, get drunk, and hopefully not drown from falling off the boat. Maybe someone will save me before that happens...
It's only Wednesday and already I feel like I've run a marathon this week....will it ever end?
Texas_chic signing off.

Mondays....

I hate Mondays...they're so boring and not good for much of anything.
So much stuff to do today, and all I want to do is go home and crawl back in bed, pull the covers over my head, and sleep for a year. I don't want to see daylight today, it's Monday for crying out loud, the sun is supposed to be hiding! It's too bright for a day like Monday...
Can't wait til Friday! Dad's coming in and I have to go pick him up at the airport. I haven't seen him in like 6 years and I miss him. I hope I don't cry when I see him...
I had a yard sale for the past two weekends to try and declutter my house. It didn't go too well. Don't know why...so now all the stuff that's leftover is going to Good Will.
Anyways...Mondays
Texas_chic signing off

Party Friday

Well it's Friday, last day of the work week and they are running me hard today. The weekend is hovering like a pale mist and my only focus this weekend is the yard sale on Saturday and Sunday. Well and maybe some relaxing time in the evenings. Can't wait for next week, as my Dad is visiting for the 4th of July and we're going to get matching tattoos together. Party at the lake, tattoos, Seadoos, boats, fireworks...what more could you ask for? Can't wait.........
Texas_chic signing off

Good for a Good Laugh

There are just some people who should not be allowed near a computer.
I just watched a 50 some odd year old man, who's been around computers for years (or so he claims), try to type. He had insisted that his keyboard was not allowing him to type capital letters when he used the shift key. So I thought ok, maybe he just has the caps lock key on and is trying to use the shift.
As I stood watching him type in an effort to show me what was happening, I had to restrain myself from bursting out laughing. He has the peck and poke syndrome; for those of you who don't know what that is, it's where you use only your index fingers to type on a keyboard. Most of you know you have to keep the shift key held down to make a capital letter.
Not wanting to alienate the person, as that would probably have landed me in hot water with my boss, I offered to pull the shift keys off the keyboard and clean them. With that done, I replaced them and took a turn on the keyboard myself. As you might suspect, the keyboard worked fine for me. This guy stood there and watched as I typed, then decided he wanted another try on the keyboard while I was there. I relinquished the chair and he sat down and typed a few words, which of course worked until he typed a letter where he didn't hold the shift key down long enough.
He turned to me and said, "It just did it again. I held the shift and typed a k and got a lowercase letter." At this point I didn't know what to say to this man. He typed a few more capital letters with success and decided it must be working correctly.
I told him it might have been that I cleaned the shift keys. He said it might be his touch. What can you say to reasoning like that?
Texas_chic signing off

Virgin Entry

Well, I'm new to this blogging thing. I had some aversions to it, as I am normally a private person, but I figured why not try something new. I'll get you acquainted with me, let you into my world a little.
I'm a writer, poet, computer tech, college junior, daughter, sister, and a girl who likes to party every now and then. Now, I know you're probably wondering how all of those things can fit into one small little package, but I manage.
I'm Italian and I love to cook. I go horseback riding when I get the time, I read alot of books (and not just textbooks either), and family is the most important thing to me. You mess with my family, you mess with me. All us Italians are like that.
My Mom and stepdad live in Glendale, Arizona, along with my 20 year old little brother. My Dad lives in Reading, Pennsylvania. I have a host of cousins, aunts, uncles, and extended family, and love them all very much.
I'm working on my Bachelor's of Science at the moment and plan to get my Master's later. I'll be graduating next summer. My career passion is robotics and artificial intelligence, my dream to build robots that will have an impact on the way we live, play, and work. It's amazing how much technology has changed, and keeps changing everyday.
I work at a Computing Services Center on my college campus, and I love it. Plus it's a real resume builder. I've been around computers since I was in grade school, it's second nature to me, and I don't think I would be able to do anything else.
Hope you learned a little about me, thanks for reading.
Texas_chic signing off