Dashing Through the Season
November 29, 2009

This past weekend was the retail industry’s “official” start of the holiday season shopping. Though it was hard to tell from the reports of stores being jammed, it is for many people a difficult financial time. Jobs have been lost or hours have been cut back. Home values have dropped. Credit card issuers are pulling back on credit limits. Discussions about cutting back or even cutting out gift giving this year are dominating some online forums. Even if your job is secure you can feel that sense of uneasiness in the air. And now with the holiday season in full swing, what do you do?

First, you take care of yourself not just in financial ways but in all ways—physical, mental, and emotional. Now more than ever you don’t listen to or allow yourself to be swayed by what others, especially advertising, tells you that you should do or feel.

I am adamant about everyone taking possession of their holiday season and making careful, considered choices. No one has to follow “tradition” as defined by anyone or anything else. Even if you love this time of the year, are there things you wish could be different? And if you hate this season, could it be because you feel as if you are squashed under the weight of these “traditions”?

Regardless of where you stand on the holidays, may I suggest that if you haven’t done so before you use this year to  decide what you and yours would love to do if there were no “traditions” to think about.

For me, I savor  the holiday season. I tend to go all out enjoying it. But I do it on my terms. I do not get caught up in the stress. I don’t do more than I want, and those things I choose to do give me as much pleasure as they do others. For example, I know both from having worked retail in the past and in occasionally visiting a website called Customers Suck that this is the worst time of the year for those underpaid and over-abused employees who work in retail. The abuse by more customers each year and the acceptance of it by store management who seem to expect their frontline employees to just take it appalls me. While I dread seeing it I can’t change it. But what I can do is buy large bags of miniature chocolate candies and carry them with me at all times to hand out to any retail clerks I see along with a genuine smile, a hope for a happy holiday season, and perhaps even a kind word about them to their manager.

At this time of year so many organizations ask for donations. They are for the most part worthy. And I do help those I care about. But it’s the unexpected that means more to me. When I see a harassed clerk’s face change from tired frustration to astonished pleasure at the gift of a dozen chocolates  I find myself grinning wildly. And feeling more holiday-ish than ever. That’s my tradition, and I grow more addicted to it every year. 

Another “tradition” is that I no longer buy a tree nor do I put up indoor lights. Prices for live trees have risen to beyond reasonable for me. As for the lights, well, the cats have a fascination with anything green and/or bright so to avoid an annual emergency trip to the vet—not a tradition I wish to start—I have eliminated them. However, the home into which I moved in May is perfectly suited to outdoor lights so this year I will string them all along the porch and around the windows. The cats and I can then sit and enjoy them each evening after dusk, and everyone will remain safe.

As for making things for work-related potluck parties, um, no. For the last several years, I have firmly declined all “opportunities” to spend extra money in the grocery store and extra hours in the kitchen just so people with whom I am friendly but not friends can have cookies or whatever. I save that energy for personal gatherings. And it’s the same with gifts.

What these changes and choices have wrought for me is a genuinely happy holiday season that works for me. I encourage you to do the same thing, to think about your personal preferences and to make the choices that work for you.

Beginning next week, I will be linking to places with all kinds of gifts perfect for book lovers and readers. But I am not pushing anyone to buy. As I said in the beginning, take possession of your holiday season. Choose what feels comfortable for you this year. After all, it’s your holiday season. Now, go and make it. 

Upcoming Book Festivals:
The last book festival for 2009 will take place next weekend in southern California On the weekend of December 5-6, the Pasadena Antiquarian Book, Print and Paper Fair will be held at the Pasadena Civic Center. Saturday hours are 11”00 am to 7:00 pm; Sunday hours are 11:00 am to 5:00 pm. The admission cost is $7 for most and $4 for seniors with children aged 12 and under free. Thirty-four dealers are currently signed up to showcase rare and collectible books, photographs, autographs, and related ephemera. Even if you don’t buy it’s fun to look.

The Pub House:
Starbright Books is for children, or at least their books are. And they specialty is multicultural, bilingual and foreign language books in sixteen languages (some bilingual, some monolingual). Their books come in hardcover, paperback, and as board books (for young readers). There are even special books for children with disabilities, and unique books that are “not just for kids” including The Best Loved Plays of Shakespeare for those aged ten and up, and Hidden Letters, a real story about an eighteen-year-old Dutch boy who sent letters, postcards, and a telegram while imprisoned in a Nazi labor camp in Holland during World War II. But not all the books are this “heavy”; regardless of what kind of story you want or age group you are focusing on you’ll find a great selection of lovely books. 

Of Interest:
PoetrySpeaks.com was launched recently by Sourcebooks, which has published the successful Poetry Speaks book series for nearly a decade. It is designed to among other things, serve as a social networking venue for poets and poetry lovers so anyone who loves poetry—modern or classic—should check this out.  

Through the use of audio and video, visitors can listen to great poets read their own work, experience poetry performances, join the online community, and even upload their own poetry. PoetrySpeaks.com also sells individual poems in different formats; books, e-books, DVDs and CDs; and tickets to online performances, slams and readings.

This Week . . .
I want to share with you a particularly lovely online exhibition, Publishers Bindings Online 1815-1930. It is hosted by the University of Alabama, and offers a vast and stunning array of more than fifty galleries (including Art Deco, The Art of Metal Stamping, Confederate Imprints, Southern Writers & Local Color, Token of Affection: Gift Books, Representations of the Industrial Revolution) with excellent descriptions, numerous links, and gorgeous illustrative examples. If you love cover art, as I do, you could spend days here!

Until next week, read well, read often and read on!

Lauren