Christmas Time

I am a little bit of a Christmas fiend.  And I know that a lot of people believe that if you are a Christmas fiend, you must be a commercialized whack-job.  I even enjoy the parts of Christmas that people brand as not the true meaning of Christmas.  And I'm okay with that.  Because I think that there's nothing wrong with liking happy music and pretty lights and seeing people having a good time.  You just have to make sure that you don't let that be all that Christmas is.  And I enjoy the presents a lot.  Mostly because I love picking out presents for other people.

I've gotten to the place where I know that some people don't like Christmas.  I've also gotten to the place where I know that some people act holier-than-thou because they don't like the trappings and thus must have a better understanding of Christmas and it's "teleos" as the Greeks would say.  But, even if you're one of those people, I wish you a Merry Christmas and help yourself to a virtual, anti-teleological candy cane.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Over-analyzing Disney Movies: The Little Mermaid--Why Eric is White.

Image
I have recently noticed a trend of just purely over-analyzing Disney movies.  In this category, I also include the fascination with photoshopping Disney characters to swap genders, races, or eras, as well as making princesses have "realistic" body shapes (which is something I could write a whole other post about, and it wouldn't be pretty.  Spoiler alert:  I find it to be one of the most unempowering trends of recent years).  However, I sometimes wonder at how much people are reading into Disney movies.  Today, I'm going to over-analyze their over-analysis. I recently read that the fact that Eric is a white prince is a representation of how we white-wash racial expectations for our children.  I'm not even sure what that sentence means.  It seems to have a lot of buzz words.  But I'm going to show you today, using evidence from the film, why Prince Eric is, in fact, the correct color. (I will, however, say that Eric is the only Disney prince wh...
Read more

Derevaun Seraun! Derevaun Seraun!

James Joyce is my kind of guy. He made puzzles that I like to think are just for me. He was a great lover of languages, and he is sometimes called the father of a literary technique called polyglotism. This is when you insert other languages in there. Just 'cuz. So, in James Joyce's wonderful story, "Eveline" there is a phrase that nobody knows what it is. Even to this day. "Derevaun Seraun! Derevaun Seraun!" Many people believe it to be corrupted Irish Gaelic. Needing a break from homework, I have approached this by taking the words and then transliterating them into Irish Gaelic, trying to create Irish Gaelic that would be spoken by someone of this status in this time in Ireland. Nationalist, but not educated enough to actually understand all the ins and outs of the language. I came up with two possible phrases that I find very probable. And I'm not pretending to solve the mystery. If Joyce experts over the years have not discovered the mean...
Read more

What does it mean to be a Russell?

Image
As many know, most European families (not all, but most) have a coat of arms, a crest, a motto, all that good stuff. So, I decided to look a bit into what being a Russell means. And maybe I'll do the same for Hatches, because I am a Hatch too. The last name Russell is Scottish and means "Red-headed" and derives from the Norman name of Roussel. The Russells are a well-respected Highland Scot clan, complete with Scottish crest and tartan: The motto on the crest "virtus sine macula" means "Virtue without blemish." As Scotland incorporated more and more into England, the Russells became nobility in that world as well, and were thus presented with a coat of arms: And yes, the motto written on that one is "che sara sara." You've got to admit, that's pretty gosh-darn cool. It really does mean "Whatever will be, will be." And in honor of that:
Read more