If a picture’s worth a thousand words, does this drawing equal word count?

I don't celebrate Christmas. Because, well, I'm pagan. While I get that people can do secular Christmas and be perfectly content doing it, I'm not really one of those people. Of course, I'm not tidily a Yule person either -- I'm sort of Solstice-y (Alban Arthan) with a side of Happy New Year these days -- but I make do.

My roommate's attitudes and world view are very much his own. My mother, meanwhile, describes herself as a "little old Southern Baptist lady," which means that Christmas very much happens for her, and I had better go put up the decorations for her this week unless I want to spend all of 2012 experiencing serious familial guilt. Friends, meanwhile, seem to do a bit of everything. I know Giftmas/Christmas-y folk, really sincere Christians with reservations about how our culture does Christmas, secular humanists who enjoy string lights, folks who do Solstice and/or Yule and/or Winter Nights in various permutations, people who are kind of into Festivus in an abstract sort of way, folks who do Kwanzaa, at least one someone who's gearing up for Saturnalia, and have already seen someone "Keeping the Han in Hanukkah" over on Facebook.

The brilliant net effect of this is that, from about the 20th of the month through early January, I get to enjoy what I've come to refer to as Festive Winter Holiday. It's the thing we do in various ways because it's cold and it's dark (unless you are in the Southern hemisphere, where the sun is Very Present Indeed). Making good food, giving each other stuff in the form of gifts as well as charity and service, reconnecting with loved ones, celebrating the return of the sun, and getting excited about the new calendar year? I can sign off on all of that.

(Oh, and it's an excuse for me to Mull All The Things. Neither wine nor cider is safe in this house once the snow falls. Even the eggs start getting a little nervous this time of year, lest they be nogged without mercy. Also, I consider myself to be "wassail curious." Beverages, you have been warned.)

Making cards has become part of that for me. Last year I tried it and really enjoyed the process of exchanging addresses with folks, designing the art, and producing enough cards for everybody. It was a messy job -- I did linoleum prints -- but I like to think that finding oneself covered in metallic inks and afraid to move because every inch of work surface is covered was its own reward. This year I'm doing something different, and possibly not as messy, but we'll see. The final product could surprise me.

This is my favorite thing about being one of the "Freak Out And Make Stuff" people, I think. I'm constantly in a position to have marvelous experiences of discovery -- often tiny, sometimes huge -- as a new thing comes together.

~*~

- Friend-of-a-friend in need: raising funds to help with recovery and logistics relating to a time-critical double-lung transplant. If you like breathing, and want to help someone keep doing that, please consider giving and/or boosting the signal.

- Here, have a delicious link round-up about Subversion over at Crossed Genres.

- From the OMG WANT files: Cathrynne Valente's new short novel omnibus volume (of which I've only read The Grass-Cutting Sword) and the paperback edition of Datura.

- So PayPal -- or, more precisely, the knowledge that PayPal is a business that sometimes engages in dickery -- is kind of a thing going around right now. George R.R. Martin's post from 2006 about having trouble with them is making the rounds (and got passed to me as new, which made me miss the dates on it, points to Anke for spotting that), and there is drama happening with a charitable fundraising campaign that Regretsy was doing. It will be interesting to see how these situations develop, largely because PayPal is so useful, and because I'm hoping to do a second round of fundraising early next year. People are, I think, rightly calling shenanigans.

- FOX News has opinions about Muppets. People, I don't even know what to say to this. People of CoMo: what's your weekend like? My unholy thirst for fuzzy propaganda must be slaked, and if I'm clever I may be able to afford to hit a matinee.

- Arizona Sherrif Joe Arpaio: hard on Obama and immigration, apparently not all that concerned about sexual assault and child sexual abuse.

- In keeping with the theme of wondering what the hell is wrong with some people, Kentucky church bans interracial marriage. Somewhat heartening: others within the faith community denouncing the whole mess.

- Because I refuse to go out on a low note, here. Have a shrew. A fuzzy, weirdly adorable shrew.

This post has been mirrored from Christian A. Young's Dimlight Archive. To see it in its original format, visit dimlightarchive.com