Laura Lee Carter
I’m beginning to dread a lot about Christmas…
Just saw my first Christmas ad last night. It must be time for my annual tongue-in-cheek Christmas piece, first published in 2009…
Here we are enjoying Halloween, and along comes the first of a future onslaught of “holiday” commercials! Yippee! Yes, they can be subtle at first, but they are there. Look closely. They creep on to our TV screens like ghosts and goblins sent to disturb our mellow post-Halloween days. Panic sets in.
It must be my age. Each year I face the “holidays” with increasing dismay instead of the previous joy. The “holidays” make me tense and uncomfortable. Instead of childhood visions of sugar plums from my ancient past, I now feel dread, pure and simple.
The advertising is ugly. It does me in… Is it the good old American hard-sell or the nauseatingly sweet, happy families advertising anything you need RIGHT NOW? We all know this is pure fiction!
Why do the Hallmark ads bring a wee tear to our eye? Because we know they aren’t real. They try to capture a life we wish we had instead of the one we live now. And don’t get me started with those male fantasy commercials, where he buys her that one special piece of jewelry so she’ll fall into his arms for a night of amazing sex, suggesting not too subtly she’s nice for a price.
I admit, when Mike and I first met, we had a lot of fun going out to buy our first tree together. We were so happy to have someone to share ANY holiday with. But now it all feels so crass to me. The “holidays” have turned into a gigantic embarrassment. This tradition has soured.
I swear if Jesus came back and saw what’s being done in his name, he would slit his wrists. It has really turned UGLY. Pushy people fighting over parking places at the mall, really?
We decided to opt out years ago. Enough is enough!
Fight Hate with Love
Have you ever considered the power of hate versus the power of love? Which do you believe to be stronger? In a nation where it is not so unusual for parishioners to be shot down in their own church or synagogue because of their beliefs, this can become a serious dilemma. How many Jews have died for their beliefs in the history of mankind?
If I were the president today, I would recommend a day of reflection for our country, a day to reflect on how hate and violence have become far too common. We might also reflect on who we are as a people and who we aspire to be as a nation.
Hatefulness is not the way to greatness, for a person or a nation.
In this season of nastiness and negativity, better known as election time, stop and notice who the haters are. Who has the most nasty and negative ads to represent the way they see their opponent and their world? Stop and think about how this reflects on their character. We already have a nasty, negative president who apparently enjoys disparaging more than half of us for not supporting his policies or his way of running our country. Do you want others to join him in embarrassing us around the world?
Let us instead meditate on love and peace around the world. Peace for the families who have lost so much in this most recent act of hatred and violence. Peace to those who know not what they have done…
Autumn in the shadow of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains
We are having a warm lovely fall here in southern Colorado! We had our first snow in the Sangre de Cristos south of us a couple weeks ago, and then some weather in the 60s settled in to warm our winter-fearing souls.
The 60s are my favorite temperature, just right for sitting outside and observing the many birds and quadrupeds that happen by our home. We have seen herds of deer and a couple coyotes walking by recently…
and the Road Runners come right up to our glass doors.
Unfortunately that first hard freeze did a number on my first crop of lavender.
We have had such a strange summer season this year. The winter and spring, which are usually super wet, were quite dry through June, when the Spring Creek Fire hit this area, destroying over 108,000 acres and over 140 homes and other structures.
This was my first view of the fire as it emerged south of Mount Mestas on June 27th.
Fortunately in July the rains finally came, saving our area from complete devastation, but still for the 2017 – 2018 water year we received less than half of average precipitation.
My brand new foothills garden did not like these ever changing conditions. It died way back in June, but made a phenomenal comeback with the 3.35 inches of rain we received in July! My garden is perpetually a work in progress. We are now waiting to get a bunch of red pavers to place in the lower level around the bird bath.
It gives me great joy to wander around outside and think about how Mike and my brother John worked so hard to help me realize this lifelong dream!
LOTTERY LOVE in the USA!
WOW! I just heard one fun fact: Americans will spend $73 BILLION this year on lottery tickets! Coloradoans spend right around $100 per year, while the overall average spending in the USA is $223 per person. REALLY?
For a GREAT article on this topic go here. The numbers will astound you!
Next I wondered who spends the most on the lottery by income. There I found that some households earning less than $13,000 a year spend a shocking 9% of their money on lottery tickets. The lowest-income households in the U.S. on average spend $412 annually on lottery tickets, which is nearly four times the $105 a year spent by the highest-earning households, according to a recent study by Bankrate.com. And almost 3 in 10 Americans in the lowest income bracket play the lottery once a week, compared with nearly 2 in 10 who earn more than that.
“Lotteries have become an alternative mechanism of social mobility—a way of achieving financial success in an economy that’s increasingly bereft of those opportunities,” said Jonathan Cohen, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Virginia who’s completing his dissertation on American lotteries. “There’s an understandable belief that the economy is rigged and your best chance of making it out and getting rich is through the lottery, not through your job or savings.”
At least in Colorado the lottery has invested more than $3 billion into protecting Colorado’s wilderness and wildlife by creating trails, parks, and also public school construction. That’s the only reason why I occasionally buy a ticket. No illusions of grandeur here 🙂
Local Talk by Me!
Adventures of the NEW??? Old Farts 