labels, expectations, conformity

Does anyone else get as much joy out of the new Jockey commercial as I do?
Has anyone else turned to their husband and said, "I just saw an underwear commercial that reminded me of you?" (which, i think, is far better than the line he used on me-I saw a kangaroo and thought of you)

see for yourself, aside from my recent omar-inspired love for curly mop-top haircuts, this commercial is actually pretty legit:
http://www.jockey.com/feelfree

Who needs Tivo when you can be inspired by underwear ads? Not me.

On the same note, today we put up our BRAND NEW STATE OF THE ART FOUR HUNDRED DOLLAR PRE-LIT GLORIOUS CHRISTMAS TREE. (that we happened to buy from Michael's last March and paid $36 dollars for at their NINETY PERCENT OFF SALE...anybody who knows me knows that I am the most frugal, but best shopper in the world- just one of my many useful talents along with being remarkably good at Scrabble, restaurant kids menus and Super Mario Kart). Moving on...

I'm in a desperate search for the meaning of Christmas. My church is doing a series on the Advent Conspiracy; basically that it makes Jesus sad that we spend his birthday maxing out our credit cards and buying overpriced crap to show people that we love them instead of giving from our hearts and spending time with people and giving to people what they really need which is love and sometimes food and sometimes shelter and sometimes clothes, but mostly love.

I did a small take on this last year when I bought more than half of my friends goats, families of ducks, and help for sexually exploited children (for gifts that are AWESOME, like these, go to http://www.worldvision.org/), and this brought us all a lot more joy than a vanilla scented bath set ever would have. So I get that. I get the anti-consumerism approach to Christmas, and I know that God does too.

I just love Christmas, and I want to get back to basics with the whole Christmas thing. I want to understand the meaning of Christmas. When my friend Zim went to Costa Rica, she came home with countless stories and one of many was the way Christians celebrated Christmas there- and ultimately it was with a menorah. Jesus celebrated Channukah, and Christmas was originally a Pagan holiday, so Omar and I went out and bought a Menorah from Walgreens and that was that. But im a sucker for eggnog, and tinsel, and the Gift of Lights, and parties and red velvet dresses and as usual, im stuck in the middle- this lovely luke-warm place in which half of my life looks the way i'd like it to and the other half is wandering around the sale rack at H&M.

May God bless you as you navigate through the discovery of the meaning of Christmas,