I do not do New Year’s resolutions.  It has been about 40 years, near as I can recall, since I stopped.

I grew up in the tradition, in my family as well as school and the larger culture.  I remember being encouraged to write down a list of deeds and behaviors that I would resolve to either do or not do as I “turned over the new leaf” of a different year.  Coached by my mother, I resolved not to talk back or tell lies.  I resolved to write thank you notes for my Xmas presents and to send birthday cards to aunts and uncles.  These are the resolutions I recall, and I know there were many others, presumably none of which I kept for very long or with much consistency.

If any of my subsequent changes in behavior originated as New Year’s resolutions, I don’t recall which they might have been.  By my mid-twenties, I had realized that these lists were futile in terms of motivation to change.  Observing my fellow humans, I concluded that putting off, for example, quitting some addiction or achieving a desired goal, for the beginning of a new year, was counterproductive.  When I decide to do something, or see something that needs to be done, I simply do it as soon as I can.

I have been informed of the supposed reasoning behind resolutions, that a fresh new year gives added impetus to a fresh start in one’s personal life.  Nonsense, I say.  No, that’s not true.  What I really say is bullshit.  There is no inherent magic in the transition from Thursday to Friday that can help us do things we don’t want to do.  Today is the last day of 2009 according to a calendar that is an entirely artificial device.  Tomorrow starts a new calendar year — but not, by the way, a new decade as many people seem to believe.  The calendar had no year zero; decades, centuries, millennia, etc., begin with “1″.

But I digress, and since it is such a useful device in storytelling, I will not resolve to quit.  Even if I did resolve to quit, that would be no indication of an intention or motivation to quit.  That’s what I mean about formal seasonal resolutions being counterproductive.  When a person becomes motivated to do something,. or forms a real clear intention to do it,  he or she just does it.  If one, rather, tells oneself, “Next New Years, I’ll resolve to do that,” in effect, one is saying he or she feels obligated to do it or thinks it is a worthwhile thing to do, but will not do it.  The promise to resolve to do it “next year” is just an excuse not to do it now.

People who take their resolutions seriously have a further layer of counterproductivity to deal with and live down:  Emotions such as fear of failure and guilt over non-performance are toxic to self-esteem.  The cycle of putting off an important change for a new year because one is unmotivated to do it immediately, promising to do it, and failing to do it because one never intended to do it in the first place, is a soul-killing pattern.

If you absolutely must make any resolutions this year, resolve to stop making resolutions.  It might not be any more effective than your other resolutions, but it will set up an interesting illogical resonance for your entertainment.

 The expiration date on a credit card was approaching — not the main one to which Greyfox charges his merchandise orders with the wholesalers , but the one that covers the auto-pay on our utility accounts, insurance, etc.  After a number of bills were lost in the the mail or stolen from our rural box, and the I experienced the distress and bother of late payments, I set up as many of our recurring payments as possible for auto-pay.

Anyhow, the old card was about to be worthless, new ones came in the mail, and I phoned the 800 number to activate the new cards.  The man in India, coming on the line after I’d entered all the relevant numbers via keypad, sang something about bankruptcy and an “account manager,” and put me on hold — brass-heavy orchestral music.  After way too much of that, he came back on and said “they don’t answer,” giving me an opening to ask him what he was talking about with that “bankruptcy” stuff.  I asked if the credit card company was going bankrupt.  He laughed and said no, that we had contacted them, had given them our attorney’s name and said we were thinking about filing for Chapter 7.  Then he tried again to connect me with the “manager.”

After a lot more brass than I wanted to hear, a woman who sounded American came on.  I told her that the other guy had said something about bankruptcy, and she said that we had told someone in their organization that we were, “thinking about filing for Chapter 7.”  I know I didn’t tell anyone that, and I’ll go out on a limb and say I am sure that Greyfox didn’t tell anyone that, either.  We have not discussed any such move between ourselves, and it’s not something we’d have any reason to consider.  Business has been okay, our debt load has been decreasing — no, nobody here said anything to anybody about bankruptcy plans.

She asked me to wait “2 or 3 minutes,” and put me back on hold — mostly woodwinds this time, with some tinkling chimey things, much more tolerable than the brass.  When she came back on, she said the “bankruptcy has been removed,” and for reasons she did not explain, transferred me to an “account specialist.”

This one was a man, also evidently American, but the linguistic compatibility was offset by his tendency to lower his voice and/or drift away from his phone.  I suppose my asking him to repeat stuff was annoying to him, but I’d be willing to wager that he wasn’t any more annoyed than I was.  He (the specialist) contradicted the manager woman, saying that the “bankruptcy” (which even in their misinformed opinion had never been anything but the rumor of a potential intention) would not be “removed,” unless and until I sent them my name address, social security number, and account number in writing.  I told him that the other guy had said we’d given them an attorney’s name, and challenged him to produce that name.  He couldn’t, but he was adamant about needing the “request for removal” in writing.

I wrote them a letter, got it ready to mail, then called the company by a different number to verify that the address I had been given was actually their address.  Where communication is concerned, I’m going to be in belt-and-suspenders mode for a few weeks, I guess.

This post is minty fresh, unlike recent holiday reposts.  Inspiration came from the Kid, who asked me this morning if I knew the origin of the candy cane.  He was inspired by a serial killer in the Ressurection Man comic, who killed people with a sharpened candy cane.  I had no answer but “no” to the Kid’s question, but I was sitting at the computer, so I googled it.

The top result was a known reliable source, Snopes.com, so I pulled up it and two others, to get a range of perspectives.  Then I started reading.

Apparently, there’s a widespread myth that goes something like this:

Santa Claus has been evolving for more than the seventeen centuries or so since the lifetime of the Catholic saint whose name has been corrupted and  attached to this “right jolly old elf.”  As we know him today, his story is an agglomeration of myths about the legendary gift-givers of several cultures.  One of Santa’s “ancestors”, the one who lent him his name in one corrupt form or another such as Sinterklaas and Sinter Claes, is Saint Nicholas of Bari, or, some say, of Myra.  He has been confused or agglomerated with, and has gained fame at the expense of, as many as seven other churchmen named Nicholas.

Fordham University’s online Mediaeval Sourcebook translates the story of Nicholas’s death from Jacobus de Voragine’s Golden Legend (written ca.1275, pub. 1470):

“The great veneration with which this saint has been honored for many ages and the number of altars and churches which have been everywhere dedicated in his memory are testimonials to [the church's touting] his holiness and of [Catholics' belief in] the glory which he enjoys with God.”  (source:catholic.org)   [Bracketed asides are mine.]

One part of his legend states that he once took pity on a young woman, or on two or three sisters,  either orphan(s) or daughter(s) of a poor man or of a poor widow, and, to save her or them from a life or lives of prostitution, he sneaked around one night and tossed a bag or bags of gold through an open window or down a chimney, to provide a dowry or dowries so that they could be honorably married off.  The gold is said to have landed in her/their shoe(s) or in stockings hung by the fire, originating the Christmas tradition of gifts in shoes or stockings.

“A Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, attended the First Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325 (Nicene Creed establishing the trinity). That is all the first hand evidence known about Nicholas.”[emphasis added - This and other italicised quotes below are from B.K. Swartz.]  …Nicholas “was the patron saint of sailors and navigators and, hence, admired at the Dutch maritime center of Amsterdam, who made him a hero.”

St. Nicholas and the Low German god Woden became syncretized as a single figure. Prior to this St. Nicholas was portrayed as a youth with black trimmed beard. The Dutch also celebrated Woden (better known as the Norse Odin) who wore a full white beard, had a magic cloak and dispensed gifts to children. Woden was an Iron Age Indo-European god who rode a horse. Children placed their shoes and hay (to feed the horse) near the fireplace. Eventually Woden merges into St. Nicholas, corrupted as Sinter Claes.”

“Vladimir Duke of Russia (Kiev) visited and was baptized at Constantinople in 1003. Upon returning to Russia he made St. Nicholas his country’s patron saint (this may have been a composite with St. Nicholas of Penora who died in the 7th century). He soon becomes associated with an arctic landscape and was popular with the Lapps and Samoyeds. This may be the result of the syncretization of St. Nicholas with the Russian winter folk spirit Father Frost. Father Frost has a long white beard, is dressed in furs and drives a sled drawn by reindeer.”

Father Frost’s companion is Snegurochka, the Snow Maiden.

After Myra fell to Islam, Italian sailors moved Nicholas’s remains to Bari in Apulia (Sicily) in 1087.  In 1442, Spain conquered that area, and in 1556 Holland was united with Spain.  The mythical St. Nick then began vacationing in Spain with the other bishops.  Being overwhelmed with the task of keeping track of who’s been naughty or nice, he employed a Moorish helper Black Pete, or Zwart Piet, as his clerk.

Santa Claus: is fat
Sinterklaas: is not

Santa Claus: comes from the North Pole
Sinterklaas: comes from Spain (Spanje)

Santa Claus: rides a sleigh with reindeer
Sinterklaas: has a boat and a white horse

Santa Claus: has elves to help him
Sinterklaas: has Zwarte Pieten

Santa Claus: puts things in children’s stockings
Sinterklaas: puts things in children’s shoes
tinbergen.nl 

“In function Black Pete serves as a Dutch non-pagan version of the German knecht (servant) Ruprecht (Robert), a black sprite helping St. Nicholas as a disciplinarian of children. Ruprecht “appears in shaggy, sack on back (like later Santa Claus) and rod in hand” in the 16th and 17th centuries (Grimm, op. cit., p. 504, fn., compiled before 1844). The English counterpart of knecht Ruprecht, Robin (Robert) goodfellow is documented as early as 1489 had a loud laugh of Ho Ho Ho (W.J. Thoms 1839, in Grimm, op. cit., p. 502). Indeed numerous supernatural “little people” were associated with St. Nicholas at this time in German folklore, contributing to his eventual elfin status and collaboration with elf helpers.”

After the Reformation of the 17th century, many Protestants no longer accepted St. Nicholas as their Gift-Giver due to his ties with the Catholic Church.  Then secular Gift-Givers started to appear throughout Europe.  In Italy, modern children believe in Santa Claus, but they don’t write to him to ask for gifts.  Instead, they write to La Befana

Pelznichol AKA Bellsniggle is an elfin German figure who came to America with the Pennsylvania Dutch and merged with the Christkindlein or Christ Child, into Kris Kringle.

Even into the first half of the nineteenth century, when Clement Clarke Moore or Henry Livingston, Jr. wrote A Visit from Saint Nicholas, the poem that begins, “Twas the Night Before Christmas,” Santa was one of the little people:  “He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf.  …a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer.  With a little old driver….”

Through the nineteenth century and into the twentieth he was really confused.   Depending on who drew him, he was sometimes elfin, sometimes human-sized or even oversized, fat or thin, wearing furs, or green or blue or purple.  After the Civil War he began settling down into human size. The elves became his helpers.  Since 1920, he has been wearing red and white.

In 1907, a children’s book printed the image below, an artist’s vision of the future Santa of 2007:

 

In 2007, the original painting of the Norman Rockwell cover below for the Saturday Evening Post was sold by Christie’s for 2.17 million dollars.

Some would say that the CocaCola ads have given us our current image of Santa.

Snopes.com says it ain’t so.  Thomas Nast’s 1881 “Merry Old Santa Claus” was probably the inspiration for Coke’s later version of Santa.

What Coke ads and other mass media images, and the proliferation of department store Santas, have done is to standardize the image and end all that confusion over what Santa looks like.

Again, I apologize for the proliferation of itty bitty pictures.  If their number annoys you, be assured that I made them small to try and compensate for that.  If their size annoys you, then your internet connection is surely faster than mine.

I have a little gift for you.  Just click on it and enjoy.

It was late arriving this winter, but we’ve had three decent snowfalls and it’s getting deep out there.  It’s causing transportation snarls on the roads, and piling up on power lines to cause intermittent outages.  The current snowfall has dumped so much so fast that it has caused something extremely rare in Alaska but more common in the Lower 48:  events canceled on account of snow.

Just in case someone is wondering, those are COLOR photos.  I took about 3 steps out my door onto the porch to capture them.

It’s that time of year again:  routinely wearing as many layers indoors as most people in temperate zones ever wear outdoors, and trying to maximize the insulative properties of each layer, indoors and out, without adding excess bulk.  Bulky clothes can be a killer in terms of mobility.  Having to disrobe my upper half in the outhouse, so I can reach my butt and do the paperwork, could cause a life-threatening drop in core temperature.

My priorities are survival and mobility, but if I can throw in a bit of sensual pleasure without sacrificing practicality, I’ll do it.  Silk long johns are my favorites in mildly cold weather, or as a next-to-the-skin layer beneath warmer merino wool in colder weather.  Beggars can’t be choosers, however, and dumpster divers take what we can get.  Color and style don’t matter much, but anything that doesn’t fit comfortably gets donated to acquaintances or thrift stores.  We are proactive recyclers, salvaging what we can before it gets to the landfill. 

Merino wool is rare, and if we do find any, it usually has been shrunken to doll-size.  Duofold® shows up in dumpsters all the time, probably because it also shrinks if not washed with care and dried without heat.  However, I wear Duofold® long johns that have shrunken down to my size from something that once fit a big man.  They are relatively bulky, but warm.

I have been loving Polar Fleece® ever since it started showing up in the discards.  At first, I was amazed to see so much of it, given how expensive it is generally, but I suppose it makes sense.  Affluent people do tend to throw away more of everything than poor people do.  It comes in several thicknesses, and I was so impressed with the warmth of the heavyweight stuff that I bought a few pairs of Polar Fleece® socks.  They are wonderfully warm — I’m wearing a pair now, over thin polypropylene liners, inside my “yeti-feet” booties of stuff that looks like dirty white shag carpeting.

Another surprising discovery was that velour is warmer than Polar Fleece® of similar thickness.  Thin velour isn’t very warm, but recently someone threw away three pullovers in my size, made of a denser, thicker velour that is very warm.  Currently, my “pajamas” consist of a charcoal gray velour pullover and a pair of thin thermal knit long johns under jersey athletic pants in navy blue.

When I got up this morning, it was single digits below zero (F) outside and about fifty degrees inside.  I put on my little blue hat, a calf-length polar fleece zip-up robe (gray background with earth-toned teddy bear and snowflake print) for extra insulation, and a GORE-TEX®  windbreaker of deep forest green for draft protection.  The windbreaker has a collar of leather that feels cold and hard against my skin, so I pulled the velour collar out and smoothed it back over the leather for luxurious tactile sensations.

Keeping my head, feet and core nice and warm allows adequate circulation to my fingers.  All that, plus extra attention to the fire that has gotten the temp up around sixty in here now, makes it comfortable to keyboard without gloves.