Gaia: The Integral Pod - Announcements and Feedback - Merry (Happy) Christmas!

Merry (Happy) Christmas!

Mon, 25 Dec 2006 16:46:51 -0000

To everyone who celebrates it around the world.

Peace on Earth,

Liz

Re: Merry (Happy) Christmas!

Mon, 25 Dec 2006 17:08:32 -0000

Merry Christmas to you, too, Liz, and to everyone else here who celebrates this day!

It's a good day to honor the ongoing dawning of the Light of the World.....

Re: Merry (Happy) Christmas!

Mon, 25 Dec 2006 17:12:47 -0000

Merry Christmas peeps!

Re: Merry (Happy) Christmas!

Mon, 25 Dec 2006 18:29:09 -0000

Happy ho ho to all!

love to all
arthur

p.s. play O Catmas Tree for your cats if you want to drive them crazy.

Re: Merry (Happy) Christmas!

Mon, 25 Dec 2006 19:07:53 -0000

HO HO HO, this is Santa speaking. Have you heathens been good girls and boys? Hmm?

Re: Merry (Happy) Christmas!

Mon, 25 Dec 2006 21:39:26 -0000

Merry Christmas!

So who actually has snow? We don't :(

Re: Merry (Happy) Christmas!

Mon, 25 Dec 2006 22:14:29 -0000

We have snow! I have spent the better part of the afternoon digging out after a foot of it feel overnight.....It is beautiful and pristine......and Happy Christmas to everyone too.
love Jane

Re: Merry (Happy) Christmas!

Mon, 25 Dec 2006 23:31:00 -0000

We don't have snow...but we can drive to it if we like. Best of both worlds.

Last week, we did have what my daughter and her friends call "Sacramento snow," which is frost on the ground and houses when you wake up in the morning. It's been unseasonably cold all December. I know this doesn't elicit much sympathy, but many people here don't even have proper winter coats, and really cold weather throws us outta whack. Homeless people really suffer in it.

In pleasanter news, my kids are both happy with their gifts. The one that surprised my son the most was a portable hammock--he's always looking for a new way to relax and do nothing, just like his mother. My daughter is thrilled with her new roller skates, the quad kind, not inline. She refused to take them off, even indoors, and she dumped her entire breakfast on the floor this morning in a skating related accident. so she was banned from indoor skating. I'm such a hardass.

Christmas adventures...you don't really have fun shopping until you've put it off until Christmas Eve. The last gift I got was some DVD's for my son at 8pm last night. I went into Blockbuster and there were something like 6 or 7 guys working there with nobody to help but me. Unfortunately, they were all video store employees, so it wasn't exactly a fantasy come true or anything. One guy went into this soliloquy about how the series "Lost" had disappointed him. I am so glad he couldn't hear me thinking "Dude, get out more!"

Now I'm just happily drinking a beer and waiting for the ham to cook.

Liz

Re: Merry (Happy) Christmas!

Tue, 26 Dec 2006 02:19:13 -0000

Around here we usually like to keep snow up on the mountains, as god intended. :) It's easy to visit if one wanted to...

The snow is nearby enough to visit if you want to (the next picture is of nearby Whistler, which will host the winter olympics in a few years).

...and occasionally the snow will come visit us...

...but now right now. :)

arthur

Re: Merry (Happy) Christmas!

Tue, 26 Dec 2006 06:36:57 -0000

L-O-L on those roller skates; I can just see it now! ;-) But you're certainly not a hard ass if you let her skate in the house and attempt to eat her breakfast in them to begin with (becsue you were so sensetive to how much she loved them) . . . so, again, looks like your ass has integral written all over it..

The latter part of today was a parent's dream; the kids were all so preoccupied with their gifts it was truly as if my wife and myself lived here alone!

Actually though, there is this moment which I forget is coming every year. That moment where a certain anticipation threshold is finally crossed and over and an "it's finally Christmas" gate is opened and suddenly out of nowehre my eyes begin to sting uncontrollably due to the unbridaled elation and innocence and . . . (keep it together man, keep it together!) . . . it only gets more powerful every year.

Merry Christmas one and all!

Peace on Earth
Tim

Re: Merry (Happy) Christmas!

Tue, 26 Dec 2006 14:38:55 -0000

Best wishes from me too.
Had both kids at home this year so that was a treat. At 19 and 22 we still have to place their presents on either side of the fireplace just like Santa used to do. And we have silly presents. My musical son loves his kid sized keyboard, my daughter loved the woolly hat her brother found for her in the 3rd world shop and wore it all day. Bill spent ahes making everyone hats from those balloons people make animal shapes from, and we all had to wear the hats at the dinner table! (Karen wore the balloon hat on top of the wooly one)

Mother in law didn't have a good day, she seems to get in such a state now for any occasion that she ends up feeling ill and having to go and lie down. She is getting very frail.
However I think she still enjoyed being here.

Ate too much, cooked too much......Craig's mates all came round last night so the house was buzzing again, I love the way the kids' friends know they are home and everyone just arrives. Good day.

Liz

Re: Merry (Happy) Christmas!

Tue, 26 Dec 2006 18:33:19 -0000

Back home again. I changed my first two diapers ever this Christmas, my sister insisting that I practice on my nephew. Hmmm, could she have a hidden agenda? Naahh....

Christmas was fine actually without any snow; blue skies and a blue sea was a nice change.

So, as we say in Swedish, "God Jul ! " to everyone.

Pelle

Re: Merry (Happy) Christmas!

Tue, 26 Dec 2006 19:54:09 -0000

Yeah, Tim, and I have new carpeting, too. But it doesn't stop my kids from acting like I'm a drill sargeant when they don't get their way! Especially fun was the moment at dinner when my daughter mentioned that she didn't get one of the things she wanted, and when could she go shopping with her Christmas money to get it? Her father and I looked at each other and asked her innocently, "What item was that?" She wanted a special stuffed dog that wagged its tail and made cute noises. We happened to know that Dad's girlfriend was bringing that item over right after dinner. She also got my son a really nice pair of headphones. Both kids were delighted, and we had a nice visit. Her belly is huge and she can barely walk. We're all hoping she doesn't go into labor before she moves this week! She's due in mid-January, but we'll see. It's not the Christmas I would have chosen, sharing it, however briefly, with the woman who caused me such grief. But it's not a time to adhere to rigid notions of propriety or to hold onto grudges. Our family is expanding, and hopefully, so am I. I've been letting go of my attachment to this idea of a nuclear family. When I'm looking at it from a more exterior perspective, I can see clearly that nothing is diminished. That, in fact, adding these people to my familyâ€”Arthur, my ex'es girlfriend, and her baby, is taking nothing at all away from me but my illusions about how things are supposed to be. What I lack is appropriate names for all these new relationships, is all! I suspect that "Auntie" and "Uncle" will be lovingly overused in the future. Liz

Re: Merry (Happy) Christmas!

Tue, 26 Dec 2006 20:50:21 -0000

Liz, I have to tell you that I am amazed, my hat off to you, at how easily, and promptly you have accepted what is...under other circumstances, when I had been proactive in the disintegration, it took me years to metabolize all of my feelings of outrage and betrayal.....Thankfully, those feeling appear to have fuelled a particularly important burn-off in my psyche, so this is good...but for quite a while I was as toxic as a nuclear reactor.....yuck.....anyway, great for you!....you are likely to get a lovely new baby out of the deal.....sometimes I think my boys' sisters from another mother are going to be my friends too. They are still little squirts, but they are gorgeous...and I love how my boys take care of them.
Thanks for sharing this part of your adventure with us.....you are amazing!
Jane

Re: Merry (Happy) Christmas!

Tue, 26 Dec 2006 22:21:09 -0000

Quickly, yes, but not easily. I still have moments of great unhappiness about the whole thing. But each time I voice or witness that feeling, it gets less. On Christmas, I told my ex that I still felt resentment that I've never gotten an apology from her. She simply doesn't see what she did as wrong. He and I know differently, and he's given many a heartfelt apology over the last 6 months. It's one of the reasons I can let go of my anger at him much more easily. That, and the fact that I had a part in it, too.

But one can never expect real understanding of the situation from someone who is, in essence, a child, which she is in many ways. Irritatingly enough, she's a well-meaning but self-centered one, like any other child. She is, however, about to grow up fast! Don't think there won't be a certain grim satisfaction if, say, our wee newborn has a bit of colic [wink]...but hopefully nothing serious.

It comes and goes. My daughter was thrilled when she found out that the GF was coming over on Christmas, and I found myself smiling, even though there was nobody to see it, as I was walking behind her at the time. The whole process is helped along by my need to help my children in this situation.

Liz

Re: Merry (Happy) Christmas!

Wed, 27 Dec 2006 20:07:20 -0000

This quote from Ken on his recent bout with death did two things: affirmed my choices in this matter of the divorce, and scared the bejesus out of me, added italics are mine:

"As a matter of fact, from at least one angle, the “bad things” that are happening to you now actually indicate a good fruition-it means your system is finally strong enough to digest the past karmic causes that led to your present rebirth. So if you were reborn-that is, if you are alive in a body right now-then you have already horrifically sinned, and unless you work it off in this lifetime, guess what? You're coming back. Illness itself does not cause more karma; your attitude towards illness, however, does. Therefore, if you are undergoing some extremely difficult circumstances right now, and you can meet those difficulties with equanimity, wisdom, and virtue, then you are doubly lucky-the causes that led to your being reborn now are starting to surface and burn off, and you're not generating any new karma while you burn them (as long as you meet them with equanimity and awareness)."

The thing that scares me is, if I'm so strong, what the fuck is next????

Liz

Re: Merry (Happy) Christmas!

Thu, 28 Dec 2006 18:02:20 -0000

Merry belated Christmas and early new years, Liz and all!!

Christmas is a wonderful time. I've been playing with my sons new pirate ship and castle non stop. ..... I mean he has been playing with it. Actually I'm a sucker for all the little boys toys... Super heroes, star wars toys, castles, race cars.. Its kinda a dream come true for a juvenile minded guy like myself.

I'm glad that we can tell each Mery Christmas here without offending other religious groups, the green meme,or the ACLU.

I'm also glad that when someone says merry christmas here they don't mean,

"Jesus Christ is my personal lord and savior and this is his holiday, just a reminder that if you fuck with my interpretation (mythic) of Christmas you will go to hell and burn forever."

Liz, .. Its awesome that you are so transparent about your personal struggles between accepting and contracting against your changing family circumstances, and your definition of family whether it be nuclear or extended, modified, mixed, whatever they call it.

I could go on and on about the disfunction in my extended family and it seems like the holidays are a great chance to really experience all the shadow and paradox between in-laws and kids and aunts and uncles. Its all part of the beauty of life though.

And about burning off the karma from the past ,.. hopefully none of us are too strong ; )
From the way ken's suffering, he must be the strongest man in the world.
Anyway it sounds like your household is full of love which is what is ultimately important.

Peace Everyone, Happy (almost) New Year!

Ben ji

Re: Merry (Happy) Christmas!

Thu, 28 Dec 2006 21:55:23 -0000

In Boulder, we are getting snowed in again! Expecting a foot to 20 inches overnight.

I am a little late in wishing for Christmas but, my dear friends, have a most Blessed New Year!

Re: Merry (Happy) Christmas!

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 14:33:29 -0000

Beautiful, Nomali
Looks like you just flew in and landed there.

Thank you again for everything you have done to keep us all informed through the rough times.

To infinity and beyond............!

Liz