Does Christ really belong in Christmas

This year around the holidays I received many emails and saw many a post on Facebook, with the same overall message "Keep Christ in Christmas", and personally I find this well... outdated.

Many have their holiday traditions, and most of these traditions involve family. The holidays are just that. A time for family. A reason for us to stop what we are doing, to take time out of our always hectic lives and spend some time together. To enjoy the festivites of the holiday season, which seem to always come down to tradition. And traditionally for many of us, their is no religious practice during the holiday season.

Valentines Day originated from beheadings, now it is the holiday of love and chocolate  I have yet to receive an email asking to keep the beheadings in Valentines Day. Halloween was a pagan practice to dress up as the dead so as to fool the dead who would walk amongst the living, again, not many postings requesting the dead to be kept in our trick or treating, now is there. Christmas may have originated from the story of the birth of Christ, but it has evolved, just as everything else has.

If you have faith and the belief in the holiday, then by all means, enjoy your religion. But remember that there are many of us out there who really do not believe that Christ belongs in Christmas. This does not make us terrorists, this simply makes us honest.

The on set of darkness

A teenage girl with daddy issues, meets an older man and foolishly develops a crush. This older man leads her on, and encourages this inappropriate crush, until the young girl truly believes that she is in love. The man seeing that this could never be, love between a teenager and a man well past mid life, he tells the girl to stop contacting him, that he doesn't care about her, and that she must move on. Knowing how teenage girls can be, this girl goes into a depression, she feels that her heart is broken and that her life is over. Her friends and family are more than thrilled that this man has left her alone as they can plainly see that he is trouble. They could never tell this to the girl though, because being foolish and "in love" she continues to defend him, and his honor. Then one day the man returns to this girls life. He has selfishly decided that he wants this girl all for himself. She takes him back and throws herself into his arms and into his life. . He is over bearing and over protective, some may say jealous, and controls her every move. He knows where she is and who she is with at all times. He tells her that he loves her, but his actions are a little off. He then insists that she marry him. So that she is his and his alone. She reluctantly agrees. She knows she is too young for marriage and really doesn't believe in it, but she will do anything to make him happy. They get married, and after a while she gets pregnant. During her pregnancy he is unsupportive. He doesn't want a baby, not at this point in his life. He has never wanted children and pushes her every day to get an abortion. She is too in love with him and the thought of having his child that she refuses. This does not stop him from being aggressive about his thoughts on this baby. He prays on her naivity and her inexperience in love ,by taking her away from her family, and her friends. She can never see them again, not as long as she is with him, he makes this very clear. Again, because she is in love she agrees. He takes from her, her sense of self, and her life. She is all about him and nothing more.

If I told you a story that went a little something like this, what would your thoughts be? Would you think that this is a happy ending? Is this what you would want for your friend, you daughter or for yourself? Is this the type of story we would tell our children as a warning of what could be?

This story line is taken from the Twilight saga. Twilight: the on set of darkness, couldn't have said it better myself. A saga that has teenager girls, (and their mothers, who really should know better) swooning over the dreamy vampire that essentially does all of the above and yet it is considered in their eyes to be romantic. A story of true love. A happy ending. I dunno about you, but I find this disturbing and very much so. It bothers me to think of young girls seeing this as anything but what it is.. a creepy old guy taking advantage of a young girl and eventually taking her life, literally in this case.

Oh yes, we had our bad boys. What girl doesn't love the bad boy. All of our bad boys were viewed that way by society or parents or teachers, but they were always misunderstood and needed the love of a good woman, Johnny Castle, Danny Zucko, and Maverick, are a few that come to my mind. Who doesn't know the line " no one puts baby in the corner" ahh yes now that is romance.. they danced. He didn't kill her.

Love is not about what you will sacrifice for the other person, to make them love you. Love is not about giving up who you are, what you believe in and changing that for the person to make them love you. Love is not truly understood by a 17 year old girl

I cannot possibly be the only one who sees what is wrong with this picture. This is 100% setting the wrong example for young girls. Give up everything for the man you think you love in high school... where would we be if we did that. If we had given our lives at 17 and chosen to live an eternity with our so called true love at the time.. how many of us would be kicking ourselves in the ass everyday for eternity for the stupid choice we made when we were barely old enough to take care of ourselves. Yet, this is the message of true love that is being delivered to our youth. And if this wasn't enough, they add in an adult werewolf who falls in love with a newborn baby. If this is the new version of romance hollywood and idiot teenage girls can keep it. You can call me old fashioned, I call it rationality. And you can bet I will preach it, to any young girl who needs a good dose of reality.

Happy Valentines Day....

The holiday of Valentine's Day probably derives its origins from the ancient Roman feast of Lupercalia. In the early days of Rome, fierce wolves roamed the woods nearby. The Romans called upon one of their gods, Lupercus, to keep the wolves away. A festival held in honor of Lupercus was celebrated February 15th. The festival was celebrated as a spring festival. Their calendar was different at that time, with February falling in early springtime.

One of the customs of the young people was name drawing. On the eve of the festival of Lupercalia the names of Roman girls were written on slips of paper and placed into jars. Each young man drew a slip. The girl whose name was chosen was to be his sweetheart for the year

Legend has it that the holiday became Valentine's Day after a priest named Valentine. Valentine was a priest in Rome at the time Christianity was a new religion. The Emperor at that time, Claudius II, ordered the Roman soldiers NOT to marry or become engaged. Claudius believed that as married men, his soldiers would want to stay home with their families rather than fight his wars. Valentine defied the Emperor's decree and secretly married the young couples. He was eventually arrested, imprisoned, and put to death

Valentine was beheaded on February 14th, the eve of the Roman holiday Lupercalia. After his death, Valentine was named saint. As Rome became more Christian, the priests moved the spring holiday from the 15th of February to the 14th - Valentine's Day. Now the holiday honored Saint Valentine instead of Lupercus.

Now let me ask you this what the hell does any of this have to do with chocolate hearts and flowers..nothing yup you heard it here first nothing. Valentines day is just a sham. a ridicoulos holiday fashioned to make those of us not "in love" feel lonely and inadaquate. Oh I have no one to give me chocolate and flowers which we have already eshtablished has nothing at all to do with anything. It's stupid and silly. All weekend I watched commercial after commercial "show her you love her with a $700 diamond heart pendant" like that is the only way to show true love on Valentines day. What happened to the words "I love you" or a hug or anything for that matter. However if you don't go out of your way to impress on this sham of a holiday you get the height of hell. You are dubbed an asshole insensitive and a jerk. And why? Cause in the early days of Rome, fierce wolves roamed the woods nearby. The Romans called upon one of their gods, Lupercus, to keep the wolves away. A festival held in honor of Lupercus was celebrated February 15th. Does this really make any sense to anyone?? Cause it sure as hell doesn't to me. I appreciate a gesture of love just like anyone but I would rather receive it from the heart not from Hallmark. So for all of you who do or don't receive diamonds flower or chocolate remember it doesn't really matter anyways cause apparently Valentines day has nothing to do with love at all. Fierce wolves and be headings don't exactly coincide with the warm fuzzy feelings of love. I guess chocolate and flowers are better that receiving a head in a box or a fierce wolf delivered to your door, they still don't make any damn sense to me. I hate Valentine's Day I just thought I would share some ramblings with those of you I love. Instead of the traditional diamonds and flowers.

Garden Gnomes = Evil

Every wonder why in the world people put lawn gnomes on their lawns. Garnted they are designed for the lawn but I still ask why? What the hell does a gnome have to do with the lawn? Does he use his magical little powers to help your grass grow? Hello people the thing is made of plastic and sold at Wal Marts across North America where the hell is the magic in that? Everytime I see one of the gnomes I feel like ringing the doorbell and talking to the idiot that bought it. But I don't and why don't I? Because I know they are going to give me an answer befitting an idiot. " Because they are cute" As to which I must reply by first smaking them in the head and then telling them that this so called cute little mass produced plastic thing that they bought at Wal Mart is in fact frightening. Don't they notice the children crossing the street pointing and running in the other direction crying? That is not what children do if they see a cute little creature. No it is not. I have yet to see a child cuddling a lawn gnome or asking if they can have one in their rooms and why? Because they are very similiar in likings to a troll. And what are trolls know for? Yes thats right hiding under bridges and scaring young children. So some moron decided to take a troll shrink it down in size put some stupid bright clothing on it, a beard of course to mask the troll resemblance,and giving it a sharp jagged gardening tool. Then they mass produce this little evil creature,sell it by the thousands to Wal Marts across North America and selling it to idiots. So if you yourself have a garden gnome you may want to ask yourself why oh why do you hate children?

My new mantra... "Let it go"

I need to learn to just "let it go". Three small words, insignificant on their own, but put together they create a phrase that I am hearing again and again in my head these days... "let it go" just "let it go".


Now, this could be because I have an obsessive personality and things that bother me, cause me to obsess over them, and the only real way to make everything okee dokee again, is to solve what it is that is causing the bother. Ahhh much much easier said than done. It is not an easy task to solve the issue, when said issue does not only include yourself. And these are the times when I need to learn to walk away and let it go. Try and try as I may, I will not be able to change someone's way of thinking, or change their idiotic self absorbed personality, hypothectically speaking of course.

It is especially frustrating when I go against all of my gut instincts, and all of my best judgement and try to make the best of a situation, only to get shit on it the end. Because again, when dealing with a hypothetical self absorbed idiot, can you really expect an outcome that is actually beneficial for everyone, and not just what suits this hypothetical idiot? Sigh... no, no you cannot. But I try to be the bigger person, actually I am the bigger person because I even put forth the effort in the first place. This in and of itself should be the grounds to "let it go" and walk away from the situation, a better person having learned a lesson. Nope. Can't do it.

I read once that holding a grudge is just letting someone rent free space in your head, and again you'd  think this would be enough to say you know what, fuck it, Im moving on, letting it go. Nope. It's not so much of a grudge then a need to solve the situation make the problem go away, then and only then can I move on. This is obviously not working out so well for me. I need to be able to look at a situation and say to myself, "this is the best that it is ever going to be" and just "let it go".

I am not sure why I feel this need to right all the wrongs and make every situation in my life a tolerable one, at the very very least. I guess it is because no one really enjoys having to deal with an akward, uncomfortable or anger filled situation. But we can't all get what we want, so we have to find alternatives. And I have decided that my alternative is to forget about it, and to move on and to truly let it go. No it won't always be easy, but it is what is best for me and my situation and sometimes, especially in cases like these, it is okay to be selfish and look out for yourself. And with these words.. I am taking a deep breath... counting backwards from 10...

10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1...

and letting it go.

I am fully aware that some of you may take this blog, personally, so I ask you in advance not to. Take it with a grain of salt and remember it is only my opinion...

I would think that in this day and age, where we have cars that can park themselves, and cellular phones with the internet on them, and fingerprint detection technology that maybe just perhaps they could perfect this thing called birth control? I mean really how hard is it to not get preganant?  Or is it just that in this day and age people don't put the same importance on having children like they once did. I mean ok, I do think that a child born out of wedlock being called a bastard and shunned from the rest of civilization is more than a tad bit extreme, but what of a child having half brothers and sisters from different parents? Is that not also a tad bit extreme as well?

I heard a story, where an OBGYN was actually surprised when a couple told her that their pregnancy was planned, I mean ok really how awful is that? We can put a man on the moon, build nuclear power plants, but we cannot seem to prevent fertilization? I find this hard to believe. It is not that there are not effective methods of birth control out there, I believe that it is because people just don't care anymore. It is not uncommon for a couple to get pregnant months after being together, and even less uncommon for  them to later break up and start families again elsewhere. Am I the only one who sees issue with this? Am I just old fashioned? I do not think that you need to be married to have children but I do believe that you have to really have a level of commitment to the relasionship before you can even fathom the idea of a child, and there is no way you can acheive that level of comittment in only a few short months.

And ohh yes, how can we forget the woman, ohhh the woman who gets pregnant to keep her man. Don't we all hold a special place on our hearts for this girl. Men, word of advice, do not trust a woman's birth control. Never ever leave this in her hands alone, if you do you are only asking for trouble. Cover up. Protect your self and your future and your unborm children, because let's face it, who wants their child raised by that type of woman? In fact who wants to be with a woman like that at all? Ditch the bitch.

Or the man who will not take responsibilty for his child and simply turns and walks out. Forfeiting all possibility of being a good father and robbing his child of a crucial relasionship they require in their lives. Ohhh how we all love the deadbeat dad. Ladies, I believe you can tell this quality, if you can call it that, in a man from the get go, and if you feel that he would walk oit on you and your child if the situation were to occur, you do not need him. Lose the loser.

Of course accidents happen. Nothing in this world is foolproof. but I am curious to know how often these "legitiamte" accidents happen and how many are just neglegance.. missing a pill or forgettting to buy condoms.

Having a child changes your life, and every other child after that affects the life of your current children. Family dynamics have definately changed and evolved over the years, but are we really on the right path? We are teaching future generations that it is ok to have children young: out of a serious relasionship: with multiple people; to simply pay child support and move on.. is this really the life we want for ourselves and the message that we want to be putting out there to our children?

to breed or not to breed

Why does there seem to be such a huge rift in the lives of those who have children and those that do not? I mean ok yes  having a child does change your life and yes they do take up loads, if not all of your time, but just because you are a parent does not mean that you are not the same person that you once were. I have friends that are parents and they are perefctly capable of being the same friend to me that they always were. I hate the notion that there are now seperate groups of friends, those with kids and those without. And what I hate even more is the way that both sides pity the other, as though non one could possibly be happy on the other side of the fence. Those without kids pity the parents who are tired, cannot go out like they once used to, who spend all day caring for their children. Those with kids pity those who are not parents because they are still partying like they used to at their age, they have no one to care for and do not understand the wonderment of being a parent.
Who cares if you have no kids, or 3 kids, if you are still the same crazy woman that I once knew and loved, then what do I care if you have a family or not? One choice is not better than the other, so really people it's time to remove your head's out of your asses and see things for the way they really are.