Some cool christmas photo card images:
Day 10 - Don't want to do Christmas
Image by Auntie P
In years gone by my mother's birthday (today) would mark the time when we finally got around to thinking about Christmas properly. I think it spoils Christmas when everything kicks off in the shops in September. So after my mother's birthday, she and my daughter would decorate her flat, and she and I would start making shopping lists - who was getting the cheese, who was getting the cakes, etc.
We would spend Christmas Day and Boxing Day at my mother's - just the three of us. I would cook the dinner on both days (and New Year's Day) and my mother would tell me where I was going wrong.
My mother died in September 2006. That first Christmas was difficult. I had never bothered to decorate at home. I'm not particularly keen on Christmas decorations and can't afford the kind I really would like, so I don't bother. I don't send cards to people I see, speak to, email or catch up with online some way, because I can wish them a Happy Christmas without writing it on a card. I send a few to relatives for whom that is my only contact all year - an excuse for a letter and exchange of news.
I sat at home one year and looked at all the Christmas cards on my wall - a few from the aforementioned relatives, but most from friends who had handed them to me from their pile of laboriously signed cards. I wondered why I had gone out and bought cards that I liked, only to have to sit and look at this motley collection which were given with love and in friendship but also from a sense of duty. I ducked out of the game.
As for decorations, I have fairy lights across my ceiling permanently. They are switched on for various occasions throughout the year. I also buy a star every winter to put on the curly ironwork bannister alongside the staircase in my living room. They stay there all year. This year I saw quite a few that I liked so I bought more.
Anyway, that first Christmas after my mother died, I went to a lot of effort to make it 'right'. A lot of physcial effort in decorating the house, making all the arrangements; a lot of financial effort buying the same things my mother and I had bought between us; and a lot of emotional effort to try to make up for it all for my daughter's sake.
I spent most of that Christmas Day on my own.
Last year I didn't decorate. My daughter's boyfriend at the time came for dinner with us in the evening. I spent a lot of that time alone too.
I really don't want to do it this year. I still want to visit my brother and his family in the morning and exchange presents, and I'm happy to buy presents for everyone, but I don't want to do Christmas because I don't know who I am doing it for any more. It used to be the time when three of us spent time together.
What I would really love is a bright crispy day and to spend it out and about taking photos of deserted streets, windswept beaches and anything that takes my fancy. Then spend a cosy evening indoors with a big meal I've not had to cook, a full glass, and to edit the photos of the day.
I can imagine the rebellion if I suggested doing that. Maybe in a few years' time I'll get my wish.
The sauce of human kindness
Image by net_efekt
Final photo for the ecard to be sent to Oxfam's suppliers. Saves on carbon footprint. ;-)
This card has been designed with suppliers, partners and agencies in mind, but available for all Oxfam staff to say thanks to anyone who has been involved with Oxfam in 2008 and shares our passion for fighting poverty and injustice.
Back of Griffin-Patterson Publishing Company Christmas Photo
Image by ScottSchrantz
The back of the 1946 Christmas photo for the Griffin-Patterson Publishing Company, in Glendale California. All of the people who signed this card presumably are in the picture.
