How many times have you said, “This year, I’m going to…” and then didn’t keep your promise to yourself?  Well, don’t feel bad.  According to statistics, only 46% of people uphold their New Year’s resolutions past month six.  If those numbers get you down, or your past failure seems to convince you that you just shouldn’t bother, consider this: people who make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than those who don’t bother.

The New Year starts out with the month of January, which was named by the Romans after the god Janus, who looked to the past and to the future.  The New Year has been celebrated for thousands of years.

What are the the top five New Year’s resolutions?  They’re pretty obvious:

1. Spend more time with friends and family
2. Spend more time at the gym
3. Lose weight
4. Quit smoking
5. Enjoy life

In the past, my resolutions have included four of the above five wishes. I’d love to say that I’d like to say I should spend more time with family, but I’m just not that type of person.  My home life as a child left a lot to be desired, and it probably has a lot to do with how I feel about my parents.

I’d also like to think I’ve been successful in my endeavours, but my most common resolution is to be a nicer person, and I’m still not very nice.  Oh, I’m polite enough, to strangers, and people on the bus, and co-workers (such as they are – since I work from home now), because I’m POLITE…but I could be nicer, I’m sure.  I’m cynical, caustic, and judgemental.  I’ve met people who are worse than me, of course, but I’m the one rating myself, and I give myself a D.  I could try harder.

These days, I yell.  A lot.  And that could say a whole lot about my state of mind and state of happiness, but I just don’t like myself much.  In fact, I could say that I remind myself of my father.  I’m not going to go into that one much, but let’s just say my entire parenting plan is based on how NOT to be like my father.  Enough said.

And if those two things aren’t enough, I’m going to try to learn Japanese, too.  My husband has spent a lot of time in the last month, learning to read, write, and speak it.  I’ve said that I will learn, too, but I haven’t put much effort into it, to be honest.  So another of my resolutions will include spending time learning Japanese – not because my husband wants me to, but because I think it would be neat for him and I (and our 2 and a half year old daughter) to speak Japanese at home, along with English and American Sign Language (which we already do since her birth).

Is it unrealistic to pledge to more than one resolution?  I don’t think so.  I tend to hold myself to pretty high standards, and to date, I’ve been pretty successful in keeping those standards.  Your worst critic is yourself, right?  So all in all, I’m going to try to be nicer, I’m going to try to learn Japanese, and I’m going to try to yell less.  Let’s hope that I can stick to that pledge.

Sources: http://pittsburgh.about.com/od/holidays/tp/resolutions.htm

http://www.goalsguy.com/events/n_facts.html

Last year at this time, I considered myself Pagan.  A nature-loving person, I always held animals and nature in higher regard than humans, and about ten years ago, I kind of fell into the whole Wiccan thing.  But that soon segued into a more general “pagan” worldview, because I eschewed the idea of someone having “made up” the religion I followed.  That included Christianity, of course.  I scoffed at the idea that God may have actually spoken to people, or didn’t want to listen to what the Bible had so say, so I rejected it.

Last summer, I had an epiphany, and soon my investigative logic led me to believe in the truth of Jesus, God, creation, and everything that goes with it.  Disagree with me if you will – that’s not my concern.  My actual point here is the discussion of Christmas, what it means, and how I mean to celebrate it.

Growing up in my non-religious family, Christmas was purely about family and gifts.  There wasn’t any mention of Christ – no church services, no little manger scenes on the mantle, no images of Christ.  Having said that, I understand that Christmas is about religion for a lot of people – it just isn’t, for me.

In years past, I recognized holidays on the “pagan” wheel of the year: Yule, Imbolc, Ostara, Beltaine, Midsummer, Lughnasadh, Mabon, and Samhain.  I didn’t follow these holidays because I actually believed in the circle of life the god supposedly takes (birth, death, rebirth), but because I followed the seasons and how they were represented with each holiday.  But still, something felt empty about these days – there was something missing from my life.

Now that I’ve rediscovered my religious beliefs, I find it amusing that I’m back to celebrating Christmas, considering how commercial it is.  As I mentioned above, I really don’t see anything religious about Christmas whatsoever.  I don’t plan on making Christmas about Jesus’ birth for my daughter.  I figure I have the whole year to do that.  Of course, if you consider charitable acts, giving, and spending time with family and friends to be Christ-like, then so be it.  I’ll accept that.  But it won’t be overtly about religion.  I get that Christmas is about Christ for a lot of people, and I respect that.  On the other hand, Christmas is about Santa for a lot of folks, and I don’t do that, either.  I don’t hold with the whole lying-to-my-child bit.  See my “Why I Don’t Go Along With The Santa Myth” article for more info on that issue.

A previous post I wrote mentioned my tradition of giving my daughter a special Christmas tree ornament or two.  I do hope to give them to her on Yule, so that she can hang them on the tree and enjoy them for a week or so before the tree has to be taken down.  I don’t see anything wrong with that.  Perhaps I’ll even set aside a gift to give to my husband on Yule, so he doesn’t feel left out.  ;)

My husband has a hard time grasping my sudden about-face from paganism to Christianity.  I admit, even I have a hard time accepting it some days.  So I don’t want to make it too difficult or radical for him, not right away.  Really, the only thing that will change is that the gift giving will shift from December 21 (Yule) to December 25th.  I still plan on celebrating Yule (the longest night of the year) with some form of ceremony (keeping the lights on all night, a stay-awake-over, etc) but the emphasis will definitely be placed on Christmas this year.  Or maybe we’ll open half on Yule, and half on Christmas!  All I know is, my husband has Christmas off, and we plan to spend it together, as a family of three, plus our pets.  Perfect!

When we were kids, my brother and I knew Christmas was coming, because my Mom put up the Christmas tree on the first Saturday in November.  Friends and relatives who didn’t follow her tradition of early decorating mocked her and I half-heartedly agreed.  As a teenager I thought it was amusing, but I didn’t really care, either way.  I was pretty much indifferent to the whole season, aside from the excitement of receiving presents, that is.

Now that I’m an adult, I find that Christmas is my favourite time of year.  I start getting excited around the first couple of weeks in November.  I look forward to the decorations, carols, and food.  But it wasn’t always like that for me – I learned very young that Santa was a hoax and my happy world of Christmas make-believe never was quite the same.  I always wanted to believe in magic, but didn’t get that hopeful, joyful, goodwill-towards-man feeling back until I was a young adult.

My husband and I got married almost three and a half years ago, and we now have a daughter who is two and a half.  Our first two Christmases as a family, we spent different days with different families and dinners.  It didn’t really bother us that much, because we followed a pagan tradition of recognizing Yule on December 21st.  But that has changed (for me, anyway), because since last Christmas I’ve re-connected with my Christian beliefs.  That has made things difficult between my husband and I, to say the least – but that’s not what this story is about.

When my daughter was born, we knew we wanted to have our own special traditions for the holidays.  Her first Christmas/Yule, we got her a “2008” ornament and gave it to her on Yule, so it could be hung on the tree until New Years.  Last year, we got her a “2009” ornament in addition to a really cool spider ornament made from an old stereo amp tube (purchased off Etsy).  We plan on giving her one “year” ornament and one cool/unique/fun ornament every year so that when she’s grown and goes out on her own, we can gift her with her box of ornaments for her very own tree.

This year is the first year that our daughter will really understand that it’s Christmas.  I’m eagerly anticipating the day when our neighbours start decorating their yards and homes with string lights and blow-up dioramas.  She got so excited over Halloween decorations, I can’t wait to see the look on her face as we see how people go all-out for Christmas.

Now that our girl is a little older, we hope to actually spend Christmas day alone as a family, just the three of us.  Running around from house to house just to do the obligatory family visits kind of takes the fun out of the holidays, don’t you think?  I would much rather do the visiting spread over a week or so, rather than do it all in one or two days.  And eating four turkey dinners in two days isn’t recommended either – been there, done that.  Blech.

So does wanting to be alone with my family make me a bad person?  I’m sure some of my relatives will think I’m being selfish or rude – but you know what?  I don’t really care.  Because if you don’t get to spend time with your closest family – spouse and child(ren) on Christmas, what’s the point?

Before I had a child, I never gave a second’s thought to the whole Santa myth.  I mean, why would I?  Sure, we’re inundated with the whole Santa lie, and even as adults, we’re expected to uphold the myth to children around us.  But why?  Have you ever thought about that?

When I was very young, my paternal aunt broke the news to me that Santa wasn’t real.  I think I was about 7.  I didn’t want to believe her, of course – but why would she lie?  Why would my parents lie?  It was a big issue for me, one that I internalized and didn’t mention to anyone.  I wanted to believe that the Santa magic was real, but Christmas was ruined for me for a very long time after that.

I didn’t think much about the Santa myth after that.  I got older, and kept wishing that I could believe in Santa, but of course that bubble had burst.  So I went along with the lie as my brother grew up (he’s  years younger than me), and other younger relatives.  I didn’t want to ruin THIER good times at Christmas.

Fast forward many years.  I was pregnant, newly married, and a friend of mine posed the issue on Facebook discussing the whole Santa lie.  He raised a few good points, and he made me think. The main argument he made was about trust and asked if we really wanted to start the trend of lying to our children.  It made me think.  What is the purpose of Santa?  I mean, really – think about it!  Why do we do it?  Is it for them, or is it for us?

Why do we uphold the Santa myth?  Have you ever asked yourself that?  Is it to live vicariously through children’s enjoyment of the holiday?  Maybe it’s to give those children the fun that you never had as a child.  Or maybe you had so much fun with Santa as a kid, you want to pass that on to others.  Whatever the reason, it’s a lie.

You can tell yourself whatever you want about why you’re lying to your kids.  And maybe they won’t care – but the sensitive, intelligent kids will really question your integrity when they find out you lied.  I remember when I found out about Santa – and I kept asking myself why my parents would lie to me like that.  Sure, I wanted to believe in the story, but that didn’t really change anything.  I still wanted to know the reason behind the falsehood.  I never did find out the answer.  I think my parents went along with it simply because that’s what parents DID.  They have kids, they do Santa, and the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy.  All of those constructs based on lies.  Will you continue the lies?  I won’t.

So this year – the first year my daughter will really understand that it’s Christmas – we’re not doing Santa.  And I told my parents that we won’t do Santa.  I mean, why not claim the best gifts as being from us, anyway?  So that’s what we’ll do.  We won’t support the lie, but we will tell our daughter that some kids believe in Santa and not to ruin it for them.  I don’t want to get the blame for the loss of childhood, but then again, why should I care?  If a parent decides to lie to his child, why should I support that?  I’m torn.

So I won’t tell kids that Santa doesn’t exist.  I’ll tell my daughter that some kids believe in Santa, but I won’t tell my daughter a terrible lie for no reason.  I won’t tell her that a jolly man in a red suit is going to come down our chimney and leave her presents.  I won’t hold the threat of a gift of coal over her head if she doesn’t behave.  And I certainly won’t tell her that a bunch of flying reindeer are going to be flying through the sky at a magical speed, visiting each house on Christmas eve.  You do what you want, but I want my daughter to know that I will tell her the truth, always.

I’m going to say right up front that I only know one person with HIV.  And his isn’t really a tragic story.  He’s healthy, he’s (mostly) happy – or as happy as anyone can be, anyway – he’s in a committed relationship, and all that jazz.  I’m not sure how he got it, and it’s really of no matter to me.  I know that he’s gay, but I won’t assume that’s how he was infected.  In any case, this story isn’t really about him, but about me, and HIV in general.

As a teenager in the 90s, HIV really was promoted as being that deadly disease that would wipe out humanity if left unchecked.  There wasn’t as much focus on Hepatitis (which is much more contagious and scary, to me) or other diseases.  Yes, we were told to use condoms, and all that jazz.  But I wasn’t really that scared of HIV.   I lived in a small town and I don’t think there were really any cases of HIV – at least, none that we heard about.  Of course, some high-risk people might have it, but in a middle-class town, there aren’t really that many high-risk people.  I mean, there were no major drug addicts (aside from booze and pot), no prostitutes, no needle users, and certainly no flagrantly gay folk, aside from the one I knew about.  He was an older guy who did hair – Lionel – although he might have just been a very early-for-his-times metrosexual who came across as flaming.  I don’t know for sure, I never asked him about his sexual preference.

None of that HIV scare really mattered to me, though, because I wasn’t sexually active in high school – my first sexual experience came when I was 18 and in a committed relationship.  Of course, since then I’ve had numerous partners (shhh!) and I admit, once in a long-term relationship (I’ve been in a few), the condoms got left in the drawer.  Bad me, I know…but I’ve been tested, and managed to avoid all STDs – somehow.  Lucky me, huh?

In any case, I live in a fairly insular world when it comes to HIV/AIDS.  I live in a larger city now, with a population of under 500,000.  Yes, there are all manners of high-risk people here, and prostitutes, and tons of gay men.  It seems kind of odd that I only know one person who is HIV positive, doesn’t it?  I mean, shouldn’t I know a whole whack of people, if it’s as bad as they all said?  So I thought maybe the HIV situation was all blown out of proportion.

That was my mindset, until just the other day I started doing some research and wrote a piece on HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa.  Shockingly enough, the country Swaziland has such a high rate of HIV that, if left unchecked, the “longer term existence of Swaziland as a country will be seriously threatened.” (Country programme outline for Swaziland, 2006-2010) Holy crap!  19 percent of the country is infected – including nearly 50% of all adults over the age of 20, and 39% of all tested pregnant women.  Most of the inhabitants are dead by the age of 32.  How terrifying and depressing.  The major problem there is education, or lack thereof.  Secondly is the lack of condoms and condom use.  It’s just a sickening situation.

Given my recent research, I’ve come awake to the issue of HIV and AIDS in the world.  I’ve been living in a bubble, apparently, and that needs to change.  So from now on, I’m going to see how I can get more involved and do what I can to help.

What do YOU do to help?