merry xmaschanukwanznewyear!

Ah what a great time of the year! I must say, if there was one good thing this Judeo-Christian thing gave us, it is this season. People conveniently forget about work and remember their friends and family, which is great.

Of course, as with just about anything inspired by religion, people tend to take it a little too far. I am seriously concerned about the safety of my brother and his girlfriend Heather, as well as Chris and Anne, who all decided to brave the mob at the mall today. Then again, maybe it's the mob mentality that keeps the yearly rituals alive - like the long lines of people returning merchandise the day after Xmas, and the well-meaning idiots that buy an annual gym membership just to show up during the month of January.

This brings me to my next point. It saddens me how fleeting our good intentions are sometimes. A lot of people are finally waking up to the fact that consumerism and lack of concern for nature are biting us in the ass in a major way. Yet come Xmas, those concerns are discarded in favor of wasting gallons of gas while looking for "just the right gift" that's supposed to package your feelings in gift wrap.

This year, Susan and I independently came up with the same idea - while we still want our families to have a great holiday, we are fighting back against a wasteful custom of buying gift paper that is discarded a second after the gift is opened. We're wrapping our gifts in newspaper, which we'll recycle later.

And you know what? Our boxes look very stylish... may I even say smart-looking?

Happy holidays, everybody!