It's Spring!!

The birds are singing; the spring bleeze a-waftin'; the daffodils about to be a'bloomin'.

Oh. It's.... global warming. Actually, let's hope the daffodils aren't going to start blooming now. (Note the date of the article on that link. An especially bad day for Ms. Planet Earth, no?)

Actually, it's December. Although sometimes this warm weather freaks me out a little, I can just pretend I'm back in Louisiana. So where's my crawfish pie and dacquiri, ma cherie?



December, of course, means THE HOLIDAYS. Actually, there is part of me that likes this time of year, though there's another part of me that's loathe to admit it. Many of my friends who tend to be rather anti-social these days (mainly b/c of the B-A-B-I-E-S) actually come out of the woodwork a little. There's parties, and I'm usually a fan of parties and potlucks. And it is nice to go home and visit my father and my grandmother and gorge myself on cajun food.

I also have a deep abiding love of Christmas lights, probably due to the many years I spent in Natchitoches, LA, the City of Lights. So if people wanna string all sorts of crazy madness all of their yards, I'm hip.

Mainly, though, I stay rather disconnected from the shopping hoopla. I watch little TV and tend to avoid shopping centers. Gluttonous consumption, even in the name of giving, makes me a little ill. Inevitably, though, I end up at Pierre Bossier Mall in Bossier City, LA--the mall of my teen years, usually on the 23rd of Xmas Eve, and I usually need that family-sized dacquiri by the end of it all.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I'm ambivalent about Christmas. I've never been a practicing Christian, even as a child, so certainly it means nothing to me whether there's "a Christ in Christmas"--actually, now that I think about it, I'd prefer if there weren't. Though I must admit, I find it highly ironic that this oh-so-important Christian holiday has been totally co-opted by rampant commercialism. How bloody American. Shopping in the name of the Lord. Wal-Mart, anyone?

Actually, if you want to do some gift-shopping, I'd highly recommend that you do it here.