I've Been Up, Down, Tryin' To Get the Spirit Again...

At this time of year, more than others, we are all called to find the spirit of the season.


Back in Victorian times, it was common to tell ghost stories on Christmas Eve. Hence, the story of Ebeneezer Scrooge, I suppose. 


Is that where the term "Christmas spirit" originated?


Scrooge was living a life of greed and selfishness. He had become hardened to any kind of charitable deed. He felt that people should learn to help themselves and not count on charity for their daily bread. Good old Ebeneezer felt that he worked hard and sacrificed for his fortune and so should everyone else.


At that time in history, it was a very similar economic situation to what we have now. There was the wealthy, upper-class and the poor. The extremely poor  families were relegated to what they called "work-houses" which kept the homeless off the streets. But the streets were most likely safer. There was filth, dysentery and illness running rampant in the work-houses. And these places, along with orphanages, were all kept running through the charity of strangers. There was not an over-abundance of good will in Victorian times. 


Nowadays, it seems that people are either extremely wealthy or not. I am in the "NOT" category. There doesn't seem to be much of a middle class anymore. Those friends of mine that are in the so-called "middle" are actually families that are taking in about double what my husband and I earn together. I used to consider them well-to-do. And those people are feeling the crunch and cutting back too. Just like in the time of Scrooge, the less fortunate are forced to call upon the kindness of strangers.


I know that there are people out there who are just smart about money and know how to save and get by with as little as possible. There are tons of people who shop in the discount stores and border on extreme couponers. But, it is really beginning to frighten me how many people; families and couples with two full-time incomes plus a part-time job or two; are they are struggling to find the funds for life's little extras! 


Extras like Christmas.


So, without really having much saved for my holiday shopping, I am hard-pressed for the extras of donating to my usual charities. All I've managed so far is to donate some groceries to some scouts outside my super-market when I was shopping for my Thanksgiving dinner and some canned goods to the church food pantry.


Even my Sunday donations to my church have been a little on the paltry side. I'm so afraid to spend the money on anything extra because I want to make sure I have enough...enough for what? How do we even know what "enough" is?


Last week, I was home sick and I wanted to make some chicken soup. I went to the store and bought some chicken, a bunch of celery, a bunch of carrots, canned broth, and grated cheese. That cost me $40! I had soup every day for the next four days but was it worth that money? I could have bought several cans and it still would have cost me less. When did prepared food become more economical than cooking your own? What the heck???


Since giving is, in my mind, all wrapped up with my holiday spirit, I am truly finding it very difficult to find my motivation this season. I know it shouldn't be that important to me, but it is. Giving gives me joy. How will it all turn out if I don't find the spirit? And why does spirit have to have a dollar sign attached to it? Even if I went the so-called home-made route, it still costs money. And the whole lotto thing doesn't seem to be working out for me!


So this season, I am in search of my spirit. Every once in awhile, I get the feeling but then I look at reality and wonder if it was just agita.

Food and Money Are Not Love

If I am going to do this blogging thing, I want to do it right. But my lack of typing ability may render consistency impossible. Bear with me, dear Readers. (All four of you!)

As I sit in my best friend's kitchen on this rainy day, (Wait! The sun is coming out.) As I sit in my best friend's kitchen on this somewhat sunny day, I have been contemplating my relationships. Not with people, mind you, but with money and food.

I have always been a decent worker. I do what is asked of me (usually) and I earn a good living. I've made a decent amount of money in my lifetime. I just have to wonder where it all is?

Jimmy Buffett says "I made enough money to buy Miami but I pissed away so fast. Never meant to last." I think that I have been living that philosophy for the past 20-something years!

In my lifetime, I have always found saving money to be such a difficult task. My mother always said money burned a hole in my pocket. It's true!

But she was the same way. I learned from her! Why didn't I pay attention to my grandmother?? She was the one that got me my very first savings account. I rarely contributed but I loved knowing that there was a little book with my name on it saying that I had thirty one dollars and seventy three cents and I could use it for whatever I wanted. 

I would have chosen to buy something for someone else. Or a Marathon Bar.

Enter food. Was food making up for the fact that my mother had to work? Not sure. 

Most of my young childhood (toddler to ten), I was thin. My uncle called me "Droopy Drawers" and I could hide anywhere. 

Third grade into fourth was when it all seemed to start changing. My mother's health began to decline and my brother and sister were adolescents and we couldn't keep a babysitter so they ended up being in charge of me. They were tyrants!

Shortly thereafter, while I was still in fourth grade, we moved in with my grandmother and my mother went on disability. I think I really didn't want to move there. Food became my best friend.

Wow. I don't think I ever really thought about it before. That's when the wheels came off. My mother's health continued to decline. I was forced out of my bedroom and moved down to the basement (a.k.a. "the land of the crickets") when my mother's friend moved away and her daughter was still in college and she moved in with us (and into my room!). 

Displaced again. My mother made a nice area for me but I was scared of the bugs that lived down there with us. Sometimes my grandmother would find me sleeping in the bath tub upstairs because these huge crickets were scaring the bejeezez out of me!

So if I look back, and I think really hard, I have it all figured out. This blogging-for-insight is very helpful!

When I began to gain weight, it was hard to make friends. Kids are cruel. I had a few friends in the apartment complex I lived in. But they all eventually moved out of the complex. 

When we moved, I was getting downright chubby. That seemed to keep people at a distance. I also started needing a bra in the fifth grade. All the girls wore them but I actually needed them! I wanted to be a late bloomer like Margaret in the Judy Blume book. Not me. I was probably a b cup by sixth grade!

Gaining weight made me feel like it distracted people from the obvious, um, developments. 

Not having friends was no fun so I did go through a phase of trying to "buy" them by treating them to candy at the stationery store or the deli on the way to my after school activities.

I was also prone to making up stories. Stories about my background. Stories about why I was wearing these hand-me-downs. Stories about my mother and father and baby brother. I didn't have a baby brother!

I grew out of the buying phase and the lying phase when I got "caught". I was using my girl scout and lunch money to buy stuff and then my mother had to pay a because I was getting lunches on "credit" at school and my Girl Scout dues were also due at the end of the year. I got in so much trouble for that that I ran away from home. I packed a garbage bag and everything! I also got punished and, most likely, spanked.

But the food thing, well, that has been the gorilla on my back for all this time.

The money thing also comes into play. Buying nice things and new clothes definitely takes the edge off my life a little bit. I'm not a complete compulsive buyer but I can get a little out of control at times. I can over-spend on, say, baby and bridal shower gifts. I like to buy what I want and get creative. I usually don't care what it costs. Christmas can be a very dangerous time financially. I buy gifts. I buy new outfits for various parties. I buy decorations. I buy baking supplies and cookbooks and maybe a new gadget that will make my baking easier. I never cared much about money as an adult because I never had much. Spend what you have because you can't take it with you.

I've already broken my vow of abstinence from purchasing anything even related to Christmas this year because I went to a craft fair and found a great chubby cardinal for my tree! I couldn't resist. And my feet were hurting and I was all alone and it perked me right up!

The food issue. I am not sure how that works. Our family motto is "Feed a cold. Gorge a crisis." Someone is sick? Bring them chicken soup. Someone just got home from the hospital? Bake something. Someone dies? Make lasagna and order a huge antipasto!

My mother loved to cook. She loved to eat. She instilled that in me. I loved to help her cook. And I loved to eat what we made. A lot of my best memories are in our kitchen. She could be very demanding and critical if you didn't do it exactly the way she said but, I still would not trade a second of that time with her for anything.

But the eating food for comfort, that was a slippery slope. My whole family has slid down that slope. I've climbed back up a few times but this time it's so much harder. I just can't seem to get my footing. I could blame age. Over forty. I could blame genetics. Damn you, fat gene! I could blame certain situations in my life. But I make the choices. I eat the food and spend the money. No one is twisting my arm. 

I wish I could say that writing this has been cathartic. Well, it has been cathartic. I wish I could say that it has motivated me to be thin. It has motivated me to want to be thin. But I don't know how or where or why the motivation kicks in. I know that I've lost weight before and that I, most likely, will again. But I cannot tell you why I was motivated those times. Maybe I'll have to blog about it and it will all come back to me.

For now, I will continue to hope for the motivation and inspiration. I do know I can't force it. I have to let it come on it's own. I'm very patient .

I can wait.