Real or Artificial - Either Way I'm Afraid

I fear Christmas trees. I realize it is like fearing lollipops, children’s birthday parties, frosted chocolate cupcakes, fuzzy bunny rabbits, or dishes of pudding. I am sure it is considered un-American, satanic, and the 73rd reason I will be going to hell. But to me Christmas trees are big and intimidating and overbearing and needy.


They start out naked and need lights and garland, and bows, and a tree topper, and popcorn, and sentimental ornaments you need to have some story about, ornaments that some kid made you with peeling glue and despite the fact it’s falling apart you love it more each year.

Everyone around me has these fabulously rich stories of growing up with Christmas, decorating the tree, rising early on Christmas morning to sparkling gifts magically placed under the tree, and I just can’t relate making me feel like a foreigner.

Recently, we got a tree and I have attempted to join in the magically delicious fun to decorate it and it never looks like the one’s I see in magazines. One year I imagined the tree as a person instead of a thing and hung vintage air fresheners with pictures of tantalizingly naked ladies on her. I gave her a tree skirt made of a fur stole. And I added some shiny, rhinestone costume jewelry to top it off. We had a party and I could tell from our guest’s reactions this is not how other people had decorated their trees in their homes and I would not be rewarded with gifts next to my furry tree skirt on Christmas morning.

Some of our friends had travelled to Spain during the Christmas season. They were so desperate for a tree they drove their rental car into a wooded area and illegally cut down a tree to take home. Very conspicuously they drove past suspicious eyes back to town with a freshly cut tree riding high in the back of their convertible.

I am uncomfortable with my very unpopular indifference toward trees when most people are willing to risk an unsavory encounter with the Spanish police for their passion for the Christmas tree.

Recipe for Comfort

Thanksgiving is my most beloved holiday. No religion claims it. No sending of cards, buying of gifts, decorating a house, dressing up in costume to participate. The only requirement is to be thankful for something or someone and to eat. Thanksgiving is full of many of my favorite foods from side dishes to pie.

My most memorable Thanksgivings have been times where we have travelled to a bed and breakfast out of town. I love how full the houses were of “odds and ends type family members” like my husband and I who don’t always fit into a family’s big picture. I felt comforted there, probably like you are supposed to feel on holidays. I was reassured knowing that even if I’m alone on a holiday I can find a bed and breakfast on the west side of Michigan or the southwest side of Ohio who will welcome me. They may have some sheep that listen to Christmas carols and eat buttered toast, or a Shepard-mutt who demands a belly-rub at the door.

I think holidays should be about finding comfort for ourselves however unconventional the recipe might be. I hope this Thanksgiving tastes delicious and you sit down and enjoy as much as you want.

Gender-free Parenting

My dad often comments on how great it is that both my husband and I are involved parents, which I appreciate. Usually my son is in daycare part-time and my husband cares for him the other days of the week.

My father is impressed by my husband’s ability to be both “mother” and “father.” I wonder on the days when I am alone with my son if I am successfully engaging in both roles or am I simply being defined as a mother. Mothering seems to be all encompassing to include any and all tasks and roles but no additional titles or accolades. But to co-parent (this is actually a term for parents parenting equally) is out of the norm and modern, and gives father’s a new title.

This is not to say I am not grateful for my parenting partner, because I am, but my expectations with the birth of our son were that we would share the workload. As we have done with our marriage, our home, our dog, and however many other things. Nothing is ever exactly split in half evenly of course, but things are certainly shared so it is comfortable and manageable for us both. Otherwise, having a baby would have been too overwhelming to me and too detached for my husband.

But, as I am reading this phrase co-parenting in magazine articles and on blogs more often, I realize this is a newer concept. As silly as it seems to give parenting the name co-parenting, I do appreciate it receiving the credit it deserves. I simply can’t grasp how one gender could be more tuned into parenting than another. This concept just seems outdated.

If our families are fortunate enough to have two caregivers available for a child, then unleash whatever you have to give. Two males, two females, one of each, whatever, just love the kid up. Just sing some songs off key. Just make up a silly game that involves jumping on one leg. Just start dancing that involves turning in circles. Just do anything that ends up with tickling. Isn’t that the bottom line? Your child doesn’t know if he or she is being mothered or fathered or grand mothered if they are feeling loved.

We wait for the sound of hiccups to tell us we’ve done a good job. When our boy is really, really giggling he gets the hiccups. This brings me a happy, settled satisfaction. What signs do you look for?

Perverse Payola - Bring It On

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8291825.stm

Apparently, new rules are coming down for blogger's on how they deal with all the free loot companies give them to try and then make recommendations to their readers.

So far, these companies have missed Dysfunctional Bungalow in their marketing meetings. But I like to imagine the types of products that could be a fit for my 4 perversely, sophisticated followers.

Free therapy comes to mind...this seems like a natural way to promote local shrinks, therapists, support groups, and soft-core cults. Interventionists, hoarding specialists, rehabilitation programs, any 12-step program. Self help books, bats with pillows (to beat them with), dishes to be broken, phones to be screamed into and them slammed, bubble wrap, peanut shells to be crushed on a wooden bar room floor, any Wal-mart to relive your dysfunctional childhood or easily participate in creating a new one with a child you've never met.

So, marketing guru's, you may think this is a tricky and tiny audience to pin down, but just give it some thought, and send me the goods.

A future baked from scratch

I shared two pieces of honey cake with my 14 month old son last weekend on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Seemed simple enough, I found a recipe that appealed to me, baked it with the usual mishaps (hand mixer started smoking, couldn’t find 3 ingredients I was sure I had), and then the cake was consumed on a lovely fall-like afternoon.

But this was different. Yes, the cake was especially delicious and Duncan could not get it into his mouth quickly enough, but this moment made me cry. I had accidentally started a positive family tradition where I had none prior to this moment. I had started a positive family tradition with food to top it all off.

Starting out being a parent I felt so inadequate because of my upbringing. But as I move and live through parenting, feeling my way around it, I am finding that I don’t need a schedule or a how-to book for creating traditions or even spur-of-the-moment-fun. This seems to occur naturally when fairly happy functional people who love each other are together.

Earlier I was convinced I was lacking the mommy-gene, but I seem to be finding my way around the honey cake crumbs and sticky-little-fingers just fine.

Fortune Teller

The late Neil Postman, author, New York University professor, and prophet, predicted how and why people such as today’s members of the evangelical/fundamentalist movement and other right wingers would be living in a dream world cut off from reality. Postman is best known for his 1985 book about television, Amusing Ourselves to Death, in which he wrote

"Television is altering the meaning of ‘being informed’ by creating a species of information that might properly be called disinformation. Disinformation does not mean false information. . . . What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. . . . Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumble puppy."

New Marketing in Death and Mourning

I'm not sure why I had the presence of mind to start thinking of my funeral arrangements in such detail and well before the average age of death for a white female. But more and more I am feeling like it is an important task. Perhaps I am a little controlling. Yes, I also have some concerns about the lack of crowd I could draw. A positive is that I am planning some storytelling, a "best of" for entertainment purposes that could sway some in.

Now I am thinking of a raffle. People love believing they can win something even if it is associated with death. This darkish raffle could get some strangers to fill seats.

The reality is I have friends and family all over the country, their bank accounts are not what they expected due to the stock market, and people in general don't want to bother anyone or be bothered. This has to lead emptier, more lonesome, and sadder funerals.

Any ideas on how to fill funeral seats will be appreciated. A carnival themed funeral...who wouldn't want to mourn over an elephant ear on a Ferris wheel?