The Season!

Christmas has begun!

Family fun this weekend was great. Saturday we gathered at my mom's place and exchanged gifts. This year the theme was "hand-made Christmas". Re-gifting was also considered appropriate. My hand-crafted pillowcases went over really well as did the commemorative Cardinal fleece throws (that I threw together at the last minute.) I went ahead and stayed at Mom's house that night (almost fell asleep in my chair, covered in dolls.)

Brother 1 gave out wooden things, though I got an early sculpture of his. (He made an 8-sided die in high school. It's awesome.) Brother 1's Fiancee crocheted me a scarf!!

Brother 2 and his partner make beer. She makes cookies, as well. They've been working with spent-grain breadmaking now as a by-product of the beer making. MMm. Spent grain...

Mom made bread, also. Mmmm. Mom Bread! My Stepdad helped me make archive copies of DVDs so that I could give the originals to The Boy.

We had two ducks and a turkey breast and some leftover beef. (I had made crock-pot beef shanks for work on Christmas Eve, and there was plenty left over.) Despite the various food restrictions, a great meal was had by all.

On Sunday, I got up early to take care of some business. Then I went back to bed and slept until about noon when Mom got up and made some breakfast. I managed to be showered and dressed and have most of the kids stuff wrapped by the time they arrived at 2-ish. We did a quick round of presents and Edamame with them, then I hustled them off to Papa's house for the second half of Christmas. At Papa's, we had a nice meal (pork roasts!) and lots of treats. We also played Cheez-it Scrabble and I got some energy work/osteopathy done by my stepmom, plus got Justine on the table for some headache help. Jesse talked TaiJi with my stepmom a bit, too. Stepmom loved the celtic pillowcase, and Papa snuggled the warm fuzzy blankie I made him. I found cardinal fleece in our fleece remnants. It was not the sport team; it was actual cardinal birds on a wintery background. It was gorgeous, and a high-quality fleece. I serged the edges with a wave stitch, and gave it to him as a gift. We used the fleece and her pillow for the work "on the table" that night, which was useful, too.

I went home and exchanged gifts with my roommates, and we marveled at the orgy of sweets we'd all made and been gifted with. I discovered that a few of my gifts had remained at Mom's, so I'll be swinging by there this week to retrieve them. (Plus my crock pot and serger.)

I plan to continue to celebrate through the Epiphany. I have more gifts to deliver and create, and I'm making the run to Alabama this weekend.

Merry Christmas Season, everyone!

I do not put my face... in the book...

Something interesting happened last night at the family gathering.

I got into a discussion with Brother 2 about the evils of Facebook, and he pointed out that the thing that got him involved with it was that all of his friends in Japan were on there. He had joined a Japanese social networking site, but all his friends said that it was crap that they were all on facebook anyway. He also indicated that his students (he's a weightlifting coach) all use Facebook *instead* of cell phones or email. He pointed out that there are now people who do not have email at all, just facebook. I do remember my frustration when I would ask people for their email addresses and they would just say, "Oh, I don't have a computer, here's my real address". However, I'd like to point out that I *still write letters*, damn it, and I use a phone, and I use email. I'd use texting if it were part of the plan, but for the last few years it costs me money to text, so I prefer not to.

I also found out that all my cousins are on FB, which really pisses me off because I set up a yahoogroup for the family years ago (before Yahoo became a virus) and no one in the family would do it. Not one person accepted my invitation. But they're all on Facebook now, which explains why I'm out of the loop on stuff.

Brother 2 said that he gets annoyed with people who say they're not invited to things because he only posted them on facebook. I pointed out that they are NOT, in fact, invited to these things. It's a bit like saying, "Hey, why weren't you at the party last weekend," when that conversation is the first you've heard of it. Attention Facebookers: NOT ALL OF US ARE ON THERE. REALLY. Have we, as Americans, become too lazy to *send an email?* REALLY? Augh.
Yes, I understand that Facebook caters to the lazy, because it has integrated calendar conveniences and stuff.

Because Bob knows that we were never able to keep track of stuff before Facebook. We all sat in our caves and wondered why we were bored and never saw our friends. We never threw parties or had social events, we never went out with our friends or attended their performances. We never once kept track of a busy social calendar using only our brain or a pencil and paper.

(headdesk)

This still pisses me off. It's going to KEEP pissing me off, apparently. Here's a solid warning to the rest of you: SOCIAL PEER PRESSURE OFTEN HAS THE OPPOSITE EFFECT ON BULLY SURVIVORS. And yes, I'm a bullying survivor. I was pressured to join Livejournal, and I only decided to join in when I decided that I had something to say that wouldn't fit in the context of comments in others' journals. I chose this forum (right here!) because it had something to offer me.

I have yet to find any part of FaceBook that I want that I don't already have via Email, email lists, and my Flickr account. Not one damn thing, people. I don't want to play games, I don't need a calendar (other than my paper one) and I don't want to sacrifice my veneer of online privacy.

You want to try to tell me that online privacy is a myth? Bullshit. The only things out there are what you put out there, except of course that Facebook gives people other than you an easy, lazy way to identify you in pictures and talk about you.
Have a listed phone number? Oh, noes! People can use the Internet to look you up! Guess what: The Yellow Pages and The White Pages have been around for almost 100 years. One could always look up an address on a person's name, phone number, or reverse search the address. One didn't even need to hire a PI to get this kind of information. Any hall of records can get you property information if someone owns a house.

This does not mean I want to put the information in the Social Network.

I refer you to my history with bullies. Facebook is beautifully suited to bullying, peer pressure, and hive mind crap.

I realize that I have self-excluded myself from Facebook, so if that is the only way you communicate or invite people to things, I'm out of the loop. I only ask that you remember that I'm out of that loop, that you take the extra millisecond and brain cell to remember that I'm not part of the gang, and that I don't want to get a fumbled apology that I didn't know about important things in your life because you couldn't be bothered to tell me about them. I'll try not to be angry that I missed your party/wedding/baby shower/event, if you'll try to remember that your social network does not include everyone you know.

Because there actually are plenty of us who do not put our face in the book. If you will be courteous to us and send off an email, I'll be courteous to you and not scream about the evils of Facebook. I think we can all get along regardless of what the computers tell us to do, right?