Retro Post #2 - Silent Night, Silent Day

Here's my Christmas Day blog entry (well, the day after, really; I guess that makes it my Boxing Day blog entry) I've been meaning to post for the past month:

Ah, Christmas. A day of joy and celebration as the hearts of men and women are filled with good cheer as they spend time with their families and friends.

Well, some people celebrate the day like that. For me, it's more of a "Lonely Guy" Christmas. Ann went home to celebrate with her family and I chose to stay here with Zelda (our American cocker spaniel) and the plants. Since everyone else has plans to be with their families, I'm kind of on my own.

I'm probably making this sound sad and/or pathetic, but that's not really the case. As I wrote in my last entry, I'm not really a Christmas person. And since the day doesn't hold a lot of intrinsic meaning or value for me, I approach it as an opportunity to try new things while the rest of the world is quietly busy. I just have to make sure I do my grocery shopping in advance so I don't really need anything.

This year, I thought I'd take a vow of silence. Since I didn't have any plans to get together with anyone, I thought I'd see what it was like to go for 24 hours without speaking. I figured all I really had to do was not answer the phone for the day. I didn't have a particular agenda; it was just an exploration of how talking fits into my life and daily routine. So I stopped talking - or, rather, started trying to not talk - at midnight on Christmas Eve.

So how did it go? OK, for the most part. But I found out I talk to myself more than I thought I did. Not a lot, just little snatches of a song that's in my head or small bits of my internal monologue if I'm thinking about something (like solving a Tanga puzzle - http://www.tanga.com/dailyfun - or composing an email). I would also sometimes inadvertently speak to Zelda (such as "shh, Zelda" when she went on a barking spree). The lack of purity of absolute silence mildly annoyed me, but I didn't really feel like giving myself a hard time.

When I took Zelda out for a walk, there were large gangs of people strolling about - families walking off their Christmas dinners, I suspect. I had to kind of hustle and dodge to avoid the possibility of someone trying to strike up a conversation with me.

The real test was when I decided I wanted to get a newspaper. I had read that some cities have Boxing Days sales and I wanted to see if there were any advertisements in Brisbane's paper. This meant I was going out in public to conduct a transaction. I wrote up a message explaining that I was taking a vow of silence for the day, in case I got into an awkward situation. It turned out I didn't need it. I was able to get everything done by smiling and handing over my money. (There were no special, big sales, by the way. Several stores were starting sales, but they were nothing out of the ordinary and they were going to run for several days.)

In the end, it was mildly interesting experiment that gave me a little more insight to my personality. (I'm a talkative guy; I'm sure that surprises many of you! ) It was kind of nice to wake up the next morning (Boxing Day - another holiday! and one that's not celebrated in the U.S.!) and not have to worry about maintaining the "walls" in my mind. Plus, I could call Ann and wish her a Merry Christmas! (When Americans receive a call from Australia, it's like talking to the future.)

Retro Post #1 - I'm Dreaming Of A Wet Christmas

This is my Christmas Eve 2006 post. Yes, I'm aware that it's significantly past that date. But I've had most of this composed in my head since that time. That's how I work: always trying to catch up with the past, with no time for the present. Laurie Anderson said it best, in her song, "The Dream Before":

She said: What is history?
And he said: History is an angel
being blown backwards into the future
He said: History is a pile of debris
And the angel wants to go back and fix things
To repair the things that have been broken
But there is a storm blowing from Paradise
And the storm keeps blowing the angel
backwards into the future
And this storm, this storm
is called
Progress

Anyway, this is what I've been thinking about writing for the past month-plus:

Christmas in Australia is different than it is in the United States; or, at least, the northern part of the US. It's that different seasons thing. Being in the southern hemisphere, Australia is currently experiencing summer. And, as I'm in Queensland, that means it can be pretty hot. Fortunately, we've been having a cool wave for the past several days. (The heat would not really come until later in January, after Ann got back.) But we're still in the longest drought of recorded history, and Queensland needs to keep coming up with new, higher-numbered water restrictions. We're currently at Level 4, an all-new, never-before-used (I think) level. It's a total ban on hoses and sprinklers, with watering having to be done by buckets and only on odd days of the week and only during specific, short time intervals. I don't know the exact details, so I'm hoping that the Water Police (Drought Police?) don't grab me when I water Ann's two plants every couple of days or so. Anyway, they're expecting rain on Christmas Day, and I was amused at how similar and different that was to the typical wish for a "White Christmas."

The funny thing is that despite all the sun and heat and drought, Australia's view of Christmas is much the same as the United States' - or, more probably, Britain, as I believe that much of Australia's culture is British (at least in origin) and much of its pop culture is American. (A lot of Aussies are too proud/contentious to be happy about this, so I try not to press the point. ) Many of the images of Christmas are of snow and snowmen, Santa and reindeer. I'll probably always remember one early (first?) Christmas season I experienced in Sydney. I went into the Balgowlah Shops (a small mall) one afternoon. Santa was visiting, sitting in the usual throne-like chair and decked out in the full red-and-white winter garb. But the mall wasn't busy, so no one was visiting. There were just a few people walking by in shorts, thongs (Australian for "sandals, or flip-flops"), and sunnies ("sunglasses"). I imagine Santa was pretty hot, and perhaps a touch lonely.

So the environment doesn't exactly suggest "Christmas!" to my northern sensibilities. Not that it really matters. I'm not much of a Christmas guy. Somewhere around the time when I left college and had to start *really* being employed, Christmas started to wane for me. It started being a lot more work and a lot less fun. That, combined with my waning Christianity, doesn't leave much of the season for me to connect with. Fortunately, I'm a warm weather person, so the idea of relaxing in the sun (possibly on the beach) on Christmas Day works well for me. I like that I'm not shivering, wearing heavy clothing, or shovelling snow off the driveway!

If you would like to know more about how some Australians celebrate Christmas, I direct you to Melissa's entry on the "Gone Gaming" blog. Melissa is one of Melbourne's/Australia's pre-eminent gamers, a fine writer, and a very nice person. Her description of an Australian gamer's Christmas season can be found at http://boredgamegeeks.blogspot.com/2006/12/seasons-greetings.html